“Yeah? But you would’ve followed after me.”
She’s not wrong. I would have.
“I thought you were dead.”
The words slip out before I can stop them. Yeah, I already pointed out she was alive, but I get the feeling she thought I was being dramatic. And maybe I was. I definitely almost took it too far, but that’s because I thought… I thought she was gone again.
“I thought you were dead,” I repeat, on purpose this time. My voice cracks, but that doesn’t stop me as I lay my head down on her thigh. It’s easier to tell her this when I can’t see the horror in her stormy grey eyes. “I thought someone took you, or that you found an escape. I thought I’d fucked-up so badly, I lost you for good… and you know what I did?”
Her fingers go to my hair, stroking through the curls. “What?” she whispers.
“I tried to kill myself.”
Her fingers stop. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I mean it. With my gun, or with one of the other Oweds… I was going to let them end it for me. Yeah, they thought they were going through with their fucking coup after all, but I know better. They couldn’t have killed me unless I let them.” A hollow laugh. “In Harmony Heights, our women jump from high-rises. The men find a bullet between their eyes or a second smile carved into their throat. Is it murder? Is it suicide? Does it fucking matter?”
“Oh, Dallas… it matters. Baby, it matters to me.”
I lift my head, her words giving me the strength to dare to meet her eyes. “I would’ve. I need you to know that, Dandelion. If anything happens to you… that’s it for me. You jump, I’m jumping in right after you. You’re my life now. I survived losing you once, and I still don’t fucking know how I did it. There ain’t no surviving you a second time.”
Lucy cups my jaw, tugging me enough so that I get the hint. I rise up on my knees. With her sitting on the couch and me kneeling on the floor, we’re almost on the same level.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
I want to believe her. I want to believe her so bad that it aches. But how can I? When all I’ve done is lie to her… it would serve me right if she lied to me this time.
“No. I…” My mouth is dry. I lick my lips, trying to gather some moisture, but it’s pointless. “I didn’t tell you this so I could guilt you into staying with me. I don’t want that. I’m not putting my shit mental health on you. That’s not fair, especially with everything you’re going through.”
Her lips twitch. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s a good thing that two broken people stick with each other.”
“You’re not broken, Lucy. You’reperfect.”
She leans forward, lowering her forehead just enough that she can press hers to mine. “So are you, Dallas.”
I scoff.
Lucy grips my shoulders. “You’re perfect for me. And isn’t that good enough?”
I want desperately to think that it is. “I mean it, Luce. Don’t come back with me because you feel sorry for me. Come back because you want to. Come back because I love you. Because I’m a selfish fucking bastard and I’m telling you that there’s no way I can live without you. But if you don’t want to?—”
She moves her hands back to my jaw. Jerking it up, meeting my eyes again, showing me the honesty in hers… she kisses me.For the first time since she walked away from me five years ago, Lucy initiates a kiss with me, and I know that, even if she said that it was over, that I’d crossed the line too many times, I wouldn’t simply end it all.
As long as Lucy is breathing, so will I because that means there’s a chance. A chance to love her. A chance to show her how much she means to me. A chance to make her mine…
“I want to,” she says breathlessly when she finally pulls away from me. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m still missing so many of my memories, it wouldn’t be fair if you ask me to see the future, too. But you asked me for the chance to talk. To explain… I can give you that.”
And I can use that.
TWENTY-FOUR
A NEW KING
DALLAS
