Lovers & Devils [BxB]

Red as roses

      Day thirteen.
      The mint notebook slept on my chest, a blue ballpoint pen in between it as I laid on my bed, restless. I decided to journal away my feelings and it helped, sort of. I had voided myself of all the swamping emotions till I was empty. I couldn't tell anyone else about this—so I had kneeled to the notebook, as if it were God in another form. I asked the Lord for forgiveness, to guide me through this and grant it to become easier for me. All I craved to do, was to return to Heaven. I wanted to return to the simplicity of my life. I missed the mundane routine, the things I even dreaded doing.
      Pulling my arm from under the wave-quilted duvet, I went to put the mint notebook on the pale nightstand but I captured sight of something. A rose bracelet on my left wrist. Kallista's rose bracelet. She had given it to me on the day of my egress, a few minutes before the airship took off. Short of breath, she told me she wanted to give me something that meant a lot to her, and that she would wait for me to come back to her—no matter how long it would take. I wafted my eyes down each curve and spiral of the varnished red roses. I couldn't believe Kallista would consign me her prized bracelet.
      She had told me no bracelet could ever mean as much as I did. Something I once thought was adorable, now it just cracked my core in two. The bracelet was beautiful, fit for a beautiful woman like Kallista, not me. I didn't deserve this. Or her love.
      Just when I thought I had cried to the fullest extent, more tears came out of their hiding spot. I took the bracelet off as salty tears began moving down my cheeks. I couldn't tarnish such a treasure with tears like mine.
      I didn't understand why I couldn't just fall completely and utterly in love with her. Kallista was a treasure herself. Other men would move mountains and build cities out of precious stones for her yet, she loved someone who couldn't gift her anything but a flower—let alone, fall ignorantly for a demon who was nothing like her. Mammon was nothing like what I had hoped for my partner to be, and still I was attracted to him.
      I brought the red bracelet close to my chest as I sobbed silently, holding it like it was her. I pushed it deeper in my breastbone—hoping it would somehow tell my core to fall in love with her instead.
      It hurt me knowing that Kallista was back at home, thinking I would finally marry her if I came back. It hurt me knowing that Mikkel awaited my proposal and to be my best man. It hurt me knowing that Helena's child would have a disgrace of a Godfather.
      I was betraying them just like that woman betrayed my father.
      I scrubbed the tears that stung my cheeks before discarding the sage duvet from my heated body. I had a feverish temperature, and the ill feeling in my stomach metastasised. If I kept crying like this, I would become sick and I didn't that need that right now.
      I opened the oyster bathroom door, switching on the shaver light before stumbling inside. A good bath could...help. I sniffled as I sat down heavily on the white edge of the bathtub. I was never a good crier; once I started, I couldn't stop. My father always told me that the oceans were just tears of Aqua angels. I never understood that, but I did now. I uncoiled the balled chain of the plug and let it plunge with a rubber pop as I turned the knob to the warm water. It juddered before water filled up the tub. I scoffed. Had I thought of taking a bath earlier, my tears would have been more than enough to bathe in.
      I let my black joggers fall to my ankles as I moved the knob back to its original position and dragged my fingers through the lukewarm water. It felt just right on my fingers. I dipped my legs in the clear water, holding onto the white steel edges as I lowered myself, nails digging in the caulk lining. I groaned and reclined against the rim. The water entered through my pores, wrapping around my joints and relieving them of their tautness. I let myself sink deeper, water burning up my nostrils. The harsh orange lighting alongside the warm appealing water swashing over my skin, was enough to make me feel ten times better. I submerged myself further, until my head was completely under the water. But there was something I could do, that would make me feel a hundred times better. I shut my eyes, allowing myself to become consumed by the water, now a pool of transportation. It might have looked like I drowned, but I was simply entering my own reality.
      The smell of flowers, sunflowers, suddenly titillated my nostrils, making me open my eyes. I was sat with one leg up on a grassy knoll, my back against a thick tree between pitted roots, in front of a large field of budding yellow manes. The sky was as blue as ever, water with no glaciers for the plants to drink freely.