“Multiple things.”
“Ineedto hear them.”
Our chests rise and fall out of sync.
This is what I wanted…the truth out in the open.
“You said more times than I can count that your Harmony is your least favorite side of yourself. What if every time my Chaos comes out, so does your Harmony? How many times of that happening will it take for you to hate me?
“Not only does one power living in me drag out that side, but there’s also another in there that will undoubtedly do that as well. How long will it take for you to grow disgusted with me every time you sense my Seduction?
“These are parts of myself that I can’t change or do anything about. Restraining them won’t work because eventually they burst through my seams on their own. How long is it going to take for me to become an actual burden for you?”
“You’ve been an actual burden since the second you stumbled through the Gods Veil.”
My soul shivers in my chest, and I try to pry my face from his hand, but he holds me tighter. He forces my feet backward until I’m plastered between his body and the rocky side of the hot spring.
“My impulsive actions land us in situations like the one I just found myself in, and I fear one day it’s going to go too far. Everyone is going to give up on me. I fear telling you what my Harmony can do and what it has done because I fear it.
“I fear the look that’s going to enter your eyes when you hear my truth. Your ‘what the fuck wrinkles’ will morph into repulsion, and you’re going to take the burden you bear on my soul away from me. Because it is a burden.
“One that started as a weight that I feared would hold me down, but in all reality, it makes me level. If I don’t have it to carry, I’m going to lose myself. I’m going to fade away into the Chaos and never come up for air again because I can’t face what I’ve done. You’re a burden to my avoidance.
“You’re a burden that I desperately, obsessively, need. I fear I’ve taken too long to understand that, and one day, if notalready, you’re going to realize how much of a burden I am for you.”
My throat grows tight as I raise my hand out of the water to trace beneath his eyes.
His fears weigh on my heart, and I sense the same shame fluttering off him that I feel in myself each and every time I open up.
It’s petrifying allowing yourself to be vulnerable when you don’t know, but hope that the person you’re being honest with will accept what you have to say without throwing it in your face later.
I cup his cheek and grip his wrist to stop him from pulling away, just like he did to me a moment ago.
I caress the marks fading from his wrist.
“A burden can feel like a chain, but in the right hands, it becomes a bond. You call me your little burden, and you just said you need my brand of burdening. Yet you’re worried about being a burden to me.”
He opens his mouth, but I shake my head. I’ve got to get where I’m going with this out before I make a mockery of my words.
“I need you to open your eyes and realize we all are or become a burden to someone, in some way, at some point in time. Whether it’s from our past, our actions, our words, our needs. Whatever the case. Sometimes, we just simply interfere with someone’s normal.
“The only thing that matters is finding someone—maybe someones—who don’t see it as weight that holds you down. They choose to bear it for you and with you. They hold you. They choose you. Your brand of Chaos, Harmony, burdening, whatever you want to throw at me. The calm comfort, the wild adventures, and the tad bit psycho tendencies. I accept it all. I want it all. I choose it all. I choose you, Riven.”
He stares at me so intensely, I can’t breathe. I’m afraid one wrong move will have this fragile moment crumbling to pieces around us.
This is a make-or-break moment for me and I need him to make it.
“All of it?”
“It’s all or nothing.”
My words linger between us. Heavy.
He knows I’m now talking about more than just the things about him he considers burdens he brings to me.
I mean it all.
The relationships I share with his brothers, him accepting my powers, me accepting his. Our past. I’ll open up to him.
