So, why would he force me to return?
“I can’t,” I repeat, begging him to hear the terror in my tone. “I promise I’ll be better. I swear! I’ll let you fuck me. I’ll let you touch me. We can go anywhere you want, and I promise I’ll never mention their names again! But please, Roman… don’t make me go back there.”
His eyes search my face, tears beginning to bubble over the lower lids while his shaking hands grip mine. “Amira, this isn’t about sex, or touching, or any of that shit. Fuck all of that. This is about you and me and overcoming this fucking mountain of grief. This is aboutus, angel, and finally getting that happily ever fucking after that everyone else gets! That’s what we deserve, right, that happy ending….”
Faces appear over his shoulder. Blacked out, shadowed, hollow mirages of fiends I once knew.
“Yeah… but we aren’t everyone, Roman. And that ending? It doesn’t exist for people like us,” I whisper, feeling the final seam come undone.
Roman drops with me when my knees give out underneath the weight that I feel on my shoulders, both of us collapsing on the ground as I fall into a fit of hysterical, uncontainable tears.
“I can’t. I can’t. I can’t,” I repeat over and over, hands clasped tightly over my ears as I squeeze my eyes shut to block out the demons that are clouding my vision.
“Amira. Listen to me, angel. Can you hear me?” I hear Roman ask through the pounding in my ears.
“Ye-yes,” I whisper, forcing my swollen lids to peel open under their heaviness.
“Good girl. Now tell me, do you trust me?”
Again, yes. Although a tad slower, a bit more hesitant in my response.
“Do you love me?”
My nod is immediate. “What? Yes. Of course.” How could he ask me that? Roman should know by now that I love him more than anything else. Including myself.
“You love me? Regardless of everything? My mistakes? My absence? Even though we’re fucking siblings… you love me?”
“Always.” And that’s wrong and nasty and dirty, but yes. I love Roman. My brother, my boyfriend, my soul.
“Then choose me… choose us and let me prove to you that all that happened before is over. Let me prove to you that you can andwillhave that happy ending.”
I want to.
Oh, how badly I wish to sink into his words and wrap myself in the narrative he’s created. But I know better, and I know the minute I step foot in Augustus, the second I see my home above the trees, it won’t matter how much time has passed or who is buried in the ground, I won’t recover.
Roman might as well kill me now.
“I can’t,” I breathe, tears dripping from my eyes as I plead with him to understand.
Dipping his head, Roman sighs into the material covering his shoulder. My fingers ache to reach out and touch him, to run my fingers over the waves falling over his long, curved eyelashes.
I can smell him, the earthy scent of pine and early morning mist. I’ve never met anyone who smelled of this, and I probably never will again. It’s entirely unique. Entirely Roman.
The fact spurs on more tears.
I will never meet another man like the one in front of me. One whose scent feels like home or whose touch brings life back into my veins.
I will never fall in love for the first time because Roman claimed that title almost a decade ago.
Who will love me with all these flaws?
No one, and that’s because I wasn’t made for anyone other than Roman.
“I will never let anyone or anything hurt you ever again. I fucking promise you, angel, but you have to trust me,” he implores, eyes rising to connect with mine. “Please, do this for me because I can’t go on this way, my love. I need you, but this is killing us. So, please, come with me…chooseme.”
I see his heartbreak reflected in the tears cascading down his face. I see a pain that mirrors my own so mercilessly, and I know I can’t deny him any longer.
“I choose you. I’ll always choose you.”
