I find myself searching her eyes, pushing back her hair to see her face, questioning my ability to read her wants and needs.
More than anything, I want to take hold of this moment and never let it go.
Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t break it. Don’t ruin it.
I’m filled with a confusing mess of pleasure and need and a deep grief that I can’t place.
She seems to sense my stillness, lifting herself up a little, pushing off my chest, her hands warm against me, her lips parting. “Come back to me, Striker.”
My throat closes over, the pain in my heart only growing, even though I can’t identify its source.
“Hey…” She bends over me, her lips brushing my ear, her voice a whisper. “I forgive you. You know that, right?”
Forgive me?My forehead creases as I try to think of what she could be referring to. I must have done something, or she wouldn’t be saying it.
Whatever it is, I’m fully prepared to account for it. “Tell me what I did, and I’ll make it right.”
She’s quiet for a moment, her lips pursed as she draws back and stares down at me.
I reach up for her, my fingertips brushing her jaw, trying to coax the information from her, but the moment I touch her, I realize that she has a dark bruise right where my hand made contact.
What the fuck?
“How did this happen?” I ask.
Her eyes suddenly fill with tears that chill me to the bone.
“I forgive you,” she says.
Before my eyes, her lip splits, and blood trickles from her mouth. Another bruise blossoms across her forehead. Horrifyingly, the skin splits above her eyes. She starts to wheeze as if her ribs are cracked.
I’m trapped beneath her, afraid to move. Afraid to touch her because there’s nowhere she isn’t bruised.
“Peyton! What’s happening? Who did this to you?”
“You did,” she says.
I’m struck still, suddenly horribly aware that my hands hurt.
My knuckles are split.
I did this?
The illusion around me breaks, and reality rushes in. All of my true memories return.
I’m not here. There is no vacation. No happy ending.
I hurt her.
I turned her into a full Fury, but far worse than that, I did it without knowing if it was what she wanted. I didn’t give her a choice. I made a decision in a moment of horror and fear, and I took the choice away from her.
For that, there is no forgiveness. No coming back.
I was surrounded by horror, backed into a corner, and forced to rely on violence many times, but it wasn’t someone else’s hands that hurt her. It was mine.
I accept the weight. I take the responsibility.
It’s my burden to bear. Not hers.
