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

2.4

"'Nothing before you counts,' he said. 'And I can't even imagine an after.'"
Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park

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Song: Shake Me Down, Cage the Elephant
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TWO MONTHS LATER

We see through the crack of the hospital door, Caleb with his back to us. It's nighttime and the windows of the room are open so that all of the cold night air and moonlight can flood in and cast shadows upon the sleeping girl's face.

Caleb stands over her. He's incredibly tall, so much so they even with his shoulders curving inwards he takes up so much space. Caleb is shaking, from his head all the way down to his feet.

"Please." He cries even though it's been two months.

Once again he's gasping for breathes clutching at his jacket.

"Oh God."

Was there a place that Caleb could go to where he wouldn't feel the hole in his chest? Where he wouldn't feel the wind blowing against the hole, making a whistling sound.

He's thought about that a lot - the hole in peoples chests. He thinks that everybody has them and that they spend their entire lives trying to fill them with something. Money, consumption, themselves, other people. But Caleb....Caleb knows that he has always just lived with this hole in chest and he accepted this half-life where the wind at the right angle would make a certain whistling sound that fascinated him.

Until her.

"Oh God!" He can't breathe again and falls to the floor. His knees are bruising from the fall and his hands are riddled with new scars - all of which he can't feel.

Then he's crawling across the floor to the open window, gasping, opening the glass wider, shoving his hand through the screen that falls out.

"Alpha you have to know that she's not going to make it. She's not going to wake up."

"Do you understand? She's not going to wake up."

"I'm sorry but she's not going to wake up."

He lifts himself up onto the windowsill and swings his legs over, then looks down. He's on the fifteenth floor.

It's so fucking dark outside, he thinks.

And then he jumps.
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"Come on!" She's laughing and the sound spins through the air like music. My black sweater hangs loose on her frame and I can't seem to look away from it, the way it still manages to cling a bit to her chest-

"Caleb," she's pulling me along now through the woods,"don't you want to spend the day with me?"

For a second I can't believe it and before my mind can catch up with me I'm already talking. "I want to spend every fucking second with you Alice."

She stumbles in her fast stride and I'm quick to tug her back up as she turns in my arms to face me. Her lips fall apart and I'm already fixated like an idiot. "Really?" She asks quietly.

I smile so hard that my face hurts because I feel so fucking happy. Before I can breath in another breathe I move towards her and am kissing her.

Her heart beats hard against my chest and I'm pulling her even closer at the sound. My fingers grip her chin, pressing my mouth harder against her's. I'm clutching hair, then her waist, and then I'm almost at her jeans when she twists in my arms and just nearly knocks me off my feet.

She pulls away for a moment with reddened lips and I groan for a moment before rushing back to be intertwined with her.

"Nope," she pushes me back with her tiny hands and leans forward kissing me on the side of my mouth, "promise me something because you can't seem to wait until we get to the lake."

I'm already nodding, "There isn't anything I wouldn't do," I trace her jaw with my finger watching her swallow at the slow movement, "for you."

"Promise me, promise me," she lowers her head for a moment then reaches my gaze with a newfound determination in her eyes, "promise me that you'll stop being the world's hero. That you'll stop chasing down evil, that you'll stop being fixated on the past."

I can't speak for a moment.

"Promise me!" She cries out, pulling me by neck down to her.

"I promise." I say and pull the sweater down her shoulder so I can kiss my mark on her neck.

She falters for a second, "Caleb i'm begging you. You're all that I have. You're all that I have...please just be mine okay?" I'm nodding with her but she wants me to say it.

"Okay." This makes her happy because she's kissing me again, deeply.

"You promise? You'll be mine? You'll just be mine? Promise?" 

My lips cover hers in a promise.
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Caleb wakes up again, curled up next to his mate's sleeping body, reaching to pull her closer to him.

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Song: Shake Me Down, Cage the Elephant

Questions?

LSM

UPDATE NEXT WEDNESDAY AT 6:45 (PT)