𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐊

𝟏𝟐 | 𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒 𝐃𝐎𝐍'𝐓 𝐋𝐈𝐄

𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐑 𝐈𝐒 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐊 thread that ignites the saccharine parts of my soul as it spills across the black pillow sheets supporting her. So bright white, so purely entangled, it is arguably one of the most delicate and desirable things about this woman.

My drink is cooling in my hand, the condensation making the glass slippery, but I'm too focused on the enigmatic mystery in front of me to care. Wet droplets on my fingertips coat my lips in places where I could've felt hers tonight as I bring them to my mouth and gently swipe across it. Her breath still lingers, like it's etched into my being.

My foot is supported on the bars of the metal bed frame, my ass firmly planted to the seated bureau at the very edge of it. One arm rests on the bar to support my cupped cheek, while the other nurses the drink that does less damage to me than the sleeping woman in front of me.

I should hate her.

I should despise her for not remembering.

I should've kissed her.

My eyes tiredly blink as I peer at the clock just beside her fanning locks, noting how it is almost six am. I have been watching her, protecting her, since she fell asleep. Because, despite my inner instincts to cut and run from this girl, I find myself magnetically connected to her. Because, despite the fact that she is not the Aeron I remember, there are parts and pieces of her that give me glimpses of a happiness I find to be so foreign lately.

I only meant to come here to continue our conversation—maybe to apologize for being so blunt and rude with her when I threw her out of the room. To explain that the cocaine had dulled the moment for me—how I wanted the first time my lips met hers to be drowned in succulent sweetness, to be something I remembered, to be something meaningful.

But when I arrived, barely ten minutes after dismissing her, I found her sound asleep.

The ice in my cup clinks lightly as I finally give up on urging myself to drink it and place it on the bureau beside me. I fold and unfold my fists, not angrily, but in a way that forces me to keep my hands to myself. All I desperately want is to close this self-made gap between us, slip between the sheets, and hold her close to me.

All I want is to feel her heart in beat with mine.

Like we used to do when we were kids.

Like we used to do when she knew who I was.

I brush my hand over my chin, feeling stubble begin to form from my lack of shaving and tip my head back. My hair tickles the tops of my ears as it falls. I use one hand to unbutton the top few buttons on my shirt. I try to exhale, to breathe easier without its constraint, but I'm stuck in a room that smells like her, that has her things, that made her safe enough to fall asleep—and I know that there's no hope for me.

I'm drowning again.

I'm tripping and falling again.

I know there's no one left to stop me, to save me from my own destruction, and I know it's purely my own fault. If I had just left her alone at the ball—if I had kept my impulses to myself and not tracked her every movement, studied her, yearned for her, felt every race of my pulse against my throbbing skin when she was near—