I should pull away, go back to my room, put distance between us like I promised myself I would.
But I don't.
I stay exactly where I am. Head on Dante's shoulder. His warmth seeping through the blanket. The steady rise and fall of his chest against my arm.
I feel safe.
Safe.
With a man who kills people for a living. A man who tracked me for two years. A man who showed up bleeding at my door and turned my carefully constructed life into chaos.
I feel safer right now than I have in two years.
It doesn't make sense.
Nothing about this makes sense.
On the screen, Rose floats on the wooden door. Jack's hand slips from hers. His body sinks into the black water.
I've seen this movie a hundred times. I know what happens. I know he dies.
But my eyes blur anyway.
Dante's lips pressed against my hair.
I can still feel it. The ghost of that touch. The way my whole body went still when he did it.
He didn't do it again.
He's barely breathing. Like he's afraid any movement will make me run.
He's right to be afraid.
I decided to run. I made a plan. Wait out the week. Let him go back to Chicago. Forget he exists.
But I can't stay away from him.
It's like fighting a professional boxer. Every time I think I've got my guard up, he slips through. Every time I build a wall, he finds a crack.
I'm exhausted.
I'm so fucking exhausted from fighting this. Even if it seems that I haven't fought it. I did. For years.
The rescue boats come. Rose survives. She lives for eighty more years. She throws the diamond into the ocean because some things are worth more than money.
The credits roll.
The music swells.
I don't want it to end.
I want to stay here forever. In this bubble. Where nothing exists except the warmth of his body and the sound of his breathing and the weight of the blanket covering us both.
But the movie ends.
The screen goes dark.
Reality crashes back in.
