taste | e.d

fourteen

hEyO don't forget to vote and comment and tysm for 24k!

love you ;)

•••

We sit in the sand, shoulder to shoulder, watching the waves lap at the shore.

He let his tears dry, so there are faint red streaks on his face. He slipped the white headband off his head at some time, and now he pulls on it and wraps the string around his fingers over and over.

Maybe we're both losing our minds. And the only way we can stay sane is if we have each other.

"I've never told that to anyone," he says. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry you had to see me like this. I'm sorry you met me at all."

I shake my head. "I'm not."

He looks sadly into my eyes, and he looks more exhausted than ever. "Don't start, Kendall Rose."

"Start what? I'm telling you the truth. I'm not sorry."

"Listen–"

"No, you listen. Every time you start talking like this, we end up arguing and then things only get bad again. I don't want that to happen."

He sighs, slipping his hand over mine. "Okay."

I lean my head on his shoulder. I don't think I've ever been so relaxed with him before. Maybe it's the calm atmosphere that the night sea gives off. Or the fact that we've let our fears roam free tonight and we are more vulnerable than ever.

Ethan squeezes my hand and when I look at him he's staring at it carefully, intently. "Have you ever noticed how perfectly our hands fit together?"

Our eyes meet and I feel it all over again, the funny ache in my chest that makes me long for him even when he's so close. I see his gaze drift down to my lips, and I watch his jaw clench. All the while his hand does not move away from mine.

"I don't want to bullshit you," he starts. "But I don't think I've told you how much you really mean to me. Consciously, I mean."

My fingers lace with his.

"You take reality away. You make me feel things I didn't know I could feel. You dug into the parts of me that I thought were gone forever. You gave something back to me that Grayson took with him when he died. And that was the ability to love.

"I loved my brother. Everyone could see it. Couldn't last a day without him. When he left I lost my will to live. I lost everything. I just kept going because I know that Grayson would've pushed me to keep going, to not give up." He presses his forehead against mine. "You gave me another reason to stay alive.

"Right before I rescued you," he says, "I thought that everything would just be easier if I just stopped existing. And I know, deep inside me, that if it weren't for you I would've killed myself that night. For sure."

I move my face away from his. "Don't say that."

"I'm not going to lie to you, Kendall Rose. I just want to apologize. For every bad move I made while I was being an asshole. Because you're so perfect and I was too stupid to see that before." He shakes his head. "No. I didn't miss it before. I just didn't know how to handle it. What I was feeling."