Unravel Me

And I remember I promised him, 2 weeks ago, that once he got better, once he’d healed, I would memorize every inch of his body with my lips.

I figure now is probably a good time to fulfill that promise.

I start at his mouth, move to his cheek, under his jawline, down his neck to his shoulders and his arms, which are wrapped around me. His hands are skimming my suit and he’s so hot, so tense from the effort to remain still but I can hear his heart beating hard, too fast against his chest.

Against mine.

I trace the white bird soaring across his skin, a tattoo of the one impossible thing I hope to see in my life. A bird. White with streaks of gold like a crown atop its head.

It will fly.

Birds don’t fly, is what the scientists say, but history says they used to. And one day I want to see it. I want to touch it. I want to watch it fly like it should, like it hasn’t been able to in my dreams.

I dip down to kiss the yellow crown of its head, tattooed deep into Adam’s chest. I hear the spike in his breathing.

“I love this tattoo,” I tell him, looking up to meet his eyes. “I haven’t seen it since we got here. I haven’t seen you without a shirt on since we got here,” I whisper. “Do you still sleep without your shirt on?”

But Adam answers with a strange smile, like he’s laughing at his own private joke.

He takes my hand from his chest and tugs me down so we’re facing each other, and it’s strange, because I haven’t felt a breeze since we got here, but it’s like the wind has found a home in my body and it’s funneling through my lungs, blowing through my blood, mingling with my breath and making it hard for me to breathe.

“I can’t sleep at all,” he says to me, his voice so low I have to strain to hear it. “It doesn’t feel right to be without you every night.” His left hand is threaded in my hair, his right wrapped around me. “God I’ve missed you,” he says, his words a husky whisper in my ear. “Juliette.”

I am

lit

on fire.

It’s like swimming in molasses, this kiss, it’s like being dipped in gold, this kiss, it’s like I’m diving into an ocean of emotion and I’m too swept up in the current to realize I’m drowning and nothing even matters anymore. Not my hand which no longer seems to hurt, not this room that isn’t entirely mine, not this war we’re supposed to be fighting, not my worries about who or what I am and what I might become.

This is the only thing that matters.

This.

This moment. These lips. This strong body pressed against me and these firm hands finding a way to bring me closer and I know I want so much more of him, I want all of him, I want to feel the beauty of this love with the tips of my fingers and the palms of my hands and every fiber and bone in my being.

I want all of it.

My hands are in his hair and I’m reeling him in until he’s practically on top of me and he breaks for air but I pull him back, kissing his neck, his shoulders, his chest, running my hands down his back and the sides of his torso and it’s incredible, the energy, the unbelievable power I feel in just being with him, touching him, holding him like this. I’m alive with a rush of adrenaline so potent, so euphoric that I feel rejuvenated, indestructible—

I jerk back.

Push away so quickly that I’m scrambling and I fall off the bed only to slam my head into the stone floor and I’m swaying as I attempt to stand, struggling to hear the sound of his voice but all I hear are wheezing, paralyzed breaths and I can’t think straight, I can’t see anything and everything is blurry and I can’t, I refuse to believe this is actually happening—

“J-Jul—” He tries to speak. “I-I c-ca—”

And I fall to my knees.

Screaming.

Screaming like I’ve never screamed in my entire life.

FIFTEEN

I count everything.

Even numbers, odd numbers, multiples of 10. I count the ticks of the clock I count the tocks of the clock I count the lines between the lines on a sheet of paper. I count the broken beats of my heart I count my pulse and my blinks and the number of tries it takes to inhale enough oxygen for my lungs. I stay like this I stand like this I count like this until the feeling stops. Until the tears stop spilling, until my fists stop shaking, until my heart stops aching.

There are never enough numbers.

Adam is in the medical wing.

He is in the medical wing and I have been asked not to visit him. I have been asked to give him space, to give him time to heal, to leave him the hell alone. He is going to be okay, is what Sonya and Sara told me. They told me not to worry, that everything would be fine, but their smiles were a little less exuberant than they usually are and I’m beginning to wonder if they, too, are finally beginning to see me for what I truly am.

A horrible, selfish, pathetic monster.

I took what I wanted. I knew better and I took it anyway. Adam couldn’t have known, he could never have known what it would be like to really suffer at my hands. He was innocent of the depth of it, of the cruel reality of it. He’d only felt bursts of my power, according to Castle. He’d only felt small stabs of it and was able and aware enough to let go without feeling the full effects.

But I knew better.

I knew what I was capable of. I knew what the risks were and I did it anyway. I allowed myself to forget, to be reckless, to be greedy and stupid because I wanted what I couldn’t have. I wanted to believe in fairy tales and happy endings and pure possibility. I wanted to pretend that I was a better person than I actually am but instead I managed to out myself as the terror I’ve always been accused of being.

My parents were right to get rid of me.

Castle isn’t even speaking to me.

Kenji, however, still expects me to show up at 6:00 a.m. for whatever it is we’re supposed to be doing tomorrow, and I find I’m actually kind of grateful for the distraction. I only wish it would come sooner. Life will be solitary for me from now on, just as it always has been, and it’s best if I find a way to fill my time.

To forget.

It keeps hitting me, over and over and over again, this complete and utter loneliness. This absence of him in my life, this realization that I will never know the warmth of his body, the tenderness of his touch ever again. This reminder of who I am and what I’ve done and where I belong.

But I’ve accepted the terms and conditions of my new reality.

I cannot be with him. I will not be with him. I won’t risk hurting him again, won’t risk becoming the creature he’s always afraid of, too scared to touch, to kiss, to hold. I don’t want to keep him from having a normal life with someone who isn’t going to accidentally kill him all the time.

So I have to cut myself out of his world. Cut him out of mine.

It’s much harder now. So much harder to resign myself to an existence of ice and emptiness now that I’ve known heat, urgency, tenderness, and passion; the extraordinary comfort of being able to touch another being.

It’s humiliating.

That I thought I could slip into the role of a regular girl with a regular boyfriend; that I thought I could live out the stories I’d read in so many books as a child.

Me.

Juliette with a dream.

Just the thought of it is enough to fill me with mortification. How embarrassing for me, that I thought I could change what I’d been dealt. That I looked in the mirror and actually liked the pale face staring back at me.