“It’s hard, and you wouldn’t understand.” My shoulders droop.
“You don’t want to die, do you?”
My eyes close at his words.Do I?
There are days I think I can do this. Other days are unbearable.
“Evan.” Caleb nudges me gently.
“Sometimes,” I confess.
He’s silent for a long minute, drinking in my answer. Then he releases a low sigh and tugs me impossibly closer.
“You don’t heal,” he whispers into my ear. “Why don’t you heal?”
I shrug. “I’m broken.”
“You’re not,” he murmurs heavily.
“My brother beat me so badly that I can’t remember when I stopped healing. It’s almost like I’ve been like this my entire life. I’m broken inside and out. My skin, my nervous system, my heart. All of it.”
Caleb throat bobs as he watches me. “It doesn’t have to be like that.” He strokes back my curls.
A humourless laugh leaves my chest. “How else could it be?”
“With you healing, with you healthy, with you knowing you deserve to live.”
I roll onto my back, the conversation suddenly suffocating me. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
Caleb exhales a sharp breath through his nose. “Okay. But I don’t want you pushing me away. I will chase and chase until you’re fucking sick of me, do you understand?”
My chest flutters at his declaration. I’ve never had someone want to fight for me, which is why it’s easy to push away. I’m not used to it. Fearful it’ll give me a false sense of hope, only for it to be ripped away at the last moment.
The second I register the sincerity in his eyes, I’m stunned into silence.
“Tell me you understand,” he mutters as he leans over me.
I gulp at the way his broad body covers mine, twice the size of me. “I understand.”
“Good.”
“How did you even get past our borders?” I ask, desperate to change the subject.
Caleb drags his tongue along his bottom lip. “A spell.”
“A spell?”
“Yeah. My mother was a hybrid,” he says, his necklace dangling between us as he looms over me. “Half witch, half wolf. She taught me the best spells to protect myself.”
“You’ve not spoken about your mother before,” I comment.
A sigh falls between us. “She deserved better.”
I sit up on my elbows, with our faces inches from one another. “Is she?—”
“Dead? Yes.”
My brows twitch at his bluntness. “I’m sorry.”
