His chest was rising and falling rapidly.
“It doesn’t have to be the end,” he said slowly, matter-of-factly. Like a last-ditch effort. “We can be together.”
“No. It was never meant to last forever.” The harsh truth hurt as it spilled from my lips. I hated this masterpiece I’d painted of us, created with brushes of pretty lies and these ugly truths.
“You’re a puppet,” he spat.
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve read your letters—the ones in the glass bottles.”
“My letters?”
“They were scattered on this island as though they were waiting for me. I’ve read every single one, and they only reminded me how you’re a servant to that town and a whore to your mind,” he said with a voice like he was both walking away and standing right here, and I couldn’t form words. “You were never mine, but you were never even yours. You will always belong to all the things that haunt you, and there was never space for someone like me, was there? Only a momentary escape.” His expression was dead, but his black eyes were chilling. “But I still fucked you, Circe. For a forsaken month, I fucked you harder than both your head and that town has been fucking you, and you cannot erase it or pretend it never happened.” His chest caved, and he took a step closer, looming over me. “Ifuckedyou, my darling siren, and there is no escaping that.”
Anger climbed the stairs of my spine. The blanket fell when I jumped to my feet and slapped his cheek. “I hate you.”
Undisturbed by it, he grinned. “No, you don’t. You hate yourself.”
I slapped him again, this time with enough force that his head swung to the side, and I instantly regretted it. In truth, I didn’t want him to leave me, and I didn’t know what else to do. It felt like I was going crazy.
His chest heaved when he looked at me again. “You are absolutely fierce.” He touched his fingers to his cheek to find that he wasn’t bleeding. “I wished you cared for me with that much passion.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, shaking my head.
“No, scratch me, beat my chest, scar my skin all you want, Circe. That was the deal, wasn’t it? Me giving you my body to do as you please.” He stepped forward, lowering his head to meet my gaze. “But no matter how much and how hard you hit me, this anger inside you will not go away. Pain doesn’t take away pain.” Hurt seeped into his voice. He paused to drop his head and clear it before facing me again. “But if you cannot control it, and it means you hurting me rather you hurting yourself,pleaseuse me,” he said. “Take advantage of me, as always, and afterward, you will walk away, and I will leave this island, and we never have to see each other again. I’ve suffered far worse, so losing you will not break me.” His words were catching in his chest, his eyes glassy and wild. “You cannot break me.”
It burned behind my eyes. Refusing to cry in front of him, I held my head back to keep a tear from falling. When I looked at him again, I took his hand.
“Icanbreak you, Stone,” I said, pressing my thumb into the scar in his palm to remind ourselves of where our story began. “Maybe you won’t feel it tomorrow, or even the day after that, but it will hit you when you least expect it. Because while you were spending those few forsaken weeksfuckingme, I was loving you,” I admitted, my chin trembling. “I was loving you, and that’s something that breaks you from the inside out.”
But as I said these words, I believed them to be true for me as well.
My letters had found Stone.
He’d been my Beloved Black Sea all along.
Stone
Everything becamequiet except for the waves.
Like the entire ocean was waiting.
My eyes shifted between Circe’s green ones, feeling as though she was slowly cutting out a piece of me.
I took a breath to tell her she had me completely, but the confession sank to the bottom of my throat. Like footprints in the snow, the words caved under too much pressure. Even though I never said them, these words were still too heavy. In my heart and in my head, they weighed me down.
So, we just stood there.
We stood there in the dark on a cold winter night with our secrets.
We stood there in the shallow waters staring at each other.
We stood there, feeling our book close and our story end.
Then Circe tore herself away from me and took off into the ocean, leaving her clothes behind. I was stunned still, my feet unable to move as I gazed upon her descending silhouette.
“Circe, wait.” It was a whisper at first—a croak—as I tried to resist the urge to chase after her. It was no use. “Circe, wait,” I shouted that time.
