The Girl's Dark Mate (COMPLETED but currently rewriting)

2.3

"I have to slip out of your window now, like a coward. Because if I had to tell you this to your face, I couldn't make myself go.
I don't blame you if you hate me, I wish you would. As long as I can still dream, I will dream of you. "
Jace Wayland, City of Glass, Cassandra Clare

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Song: Fallingforyou, 1975.
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In another life, or at least in his dreams, Alice would be right behind him as they ran through the woods.

The woods at this time do the year would be covered in shades of orange and red and rose gold, but he wouldn't be able to look at anything but her.

And she looked back at him with just as much love, clear unadulterated love. Nothing but love, nothing of their past, just a really young couple that hadn't lived beyond their years.

Her sweater is red and knitted with holes showing creamy skin. She has on black jeans tucked into boots - he'd also remember that those are his fabulous jeans on her.
"Do you love me?" She'd ask him in that soft voice of hers that floated just beyond air. Her silvery eyes would be trained on him.

"More than anything."

The only worry they'd have would be the fear that they might have missed each other. That they might have walked right past each other on the street and not have might.

"Anything?" She smiles up at him and he's already asking for mercy.

"You're just beautiful, do you that?" He laughs and she covers her face in her hands. The big blue gem on her ring finger glistened in the light.

Neither of them cared much for having a wedding, as they both imagined it to be nothing more then showing your friends and family how much money you make and how much you can waste for one day. Not to mention the fact that Alice had lectured him on her belief that weddings were social construct built upon the misogynistic idea of proclaiming a man's possession over a women. And although Alice believed in a higher power, Caleb couldn't care less and remembered laughing at the idea and saying "The only thing I'll ever swear to again is you, not God, you. You're the only thing I'll promise to, I'll pray to. Alice I swear to you, I believe in you isn't that enough?"

"And so are you? I can full heartedly say that you have the most beautiful face I've ever seen. Like a model-"

His lips covered her words and he wanted nothing more than to be in this moment forever. Within her arms, where nothing mattered to him but her. And her body was his body and and her thoughts were his and as she closed her eyes to sleep so did his -forever.

And she'd fall asleep in his arms, with the windows open so that they'd both feel like it was just them and the sky and the stars and the cold night air.

"I love you." He says.

And the world tilts on its axis.

"Do you?" And suddenly her face fell, her lips quivered as she sucked in a harsh breath. Tears welled up in her eyes. "You don't love me." And she was coughing, deep from within her chest as if her heart was lurching out of her body.

"Alice," he grabbed her under her arms, supporting her. Her temperature dropped quickly and her body lay limp in his arms. "Alice sweetie what's happening?"

"Did you think we'd be fine? That you'd dream this all away? I don't think you can Caleb. I'm sorry." Her eyes show so much deep rooted pain that he wants to look away.

And she's coughing up blood again and slipping far, far way from him.

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"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, If I should die before I wake, I pray the lord my soul to take." Caleb repeats this prayer over and over again, fearing sleep and remembering her.

"You'd have been so happy without me," he whispers careful not to wake Alice, "so happy."

He pulls the covers over her, tucking the edges in with deft movements. He has, for the past week, committed these movements to muscle memory. She always slept with her arms out of the covers, but with everything else completely covered. So the cover was tucked nimbly under her waist, her legs, her feet.

The doctor told Caleb after his pack meeting that there was an 80 percent chance that she couldn't hear him. Her body was fighting so hard.

"If you wake up, you're going to leave here and go travel the world or something. You're going to live your life and not think of me and you're going to live. And you're going to happy. God I just want you to be happy." He can hardly breathe by this point and finds his knees buckling until he is collapsed on the floor.

Caleb doesn't cry, not anymore, he's been deduced into a mumbling mess in the floor. Banging his head against the ground, pulling the skin white in his hands when making a fist, often times he can be found in a state of mid-shift. Not quite werewolf, not quite human, but entirely painful.

"Now I lay me down to sleep," he can't breathe, "I pray the Lord my soul to keep," he literally cannot breathe, "If I should die before I wake," he does not wish to breathe, "I pray the lord my soul to take."

Oh Caleb.

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Song: Fallingforyou, 1975.

Questions?

Happy thanksgiving (eve?)!

LSM

UPDATE WEDNESDAY AT 6:45 (PT)