Ecstasy

She goes rigid, so I keep talking: “If you don’t want to tell me, it’s fine. But it broke my heart a little, that you thought I didn’t notice them. I always did. I always have.”

She swallows, averts her gaze. “I used to hurt myself,” she admits, and that fucking nearly tears me apart. “Because I didn’t think I was, you know, worthy of anything. And it felt good. It felt good then.”

I run my thumb over her lip. “I’m so sorry, princess.” I take a deep breath. “When was the last time?” I ask her, since she seems willing to talk about it. “When was the last time you didn’t feel worthy?”

She keeps looking down between us. “When you told me you wanted your father to like me. When you told me you wanted me to be more respectable.”

Those words sear through me. Thinking of what she did to herself because of what I said. Of her admission, right now. Her vulnerability.

My heart fucking breaks. “God, Zara.” I blink back my own tears, gripping her face just a little tighter. “I’m so fucking sorry. I was…” I hang my head, and surprising me, she runs her fingers through my hair. Her touch sends a shiver through me, but I don’t look up. “I was fucking stupid.” I pick my head up, meet her gaze. “And you’re so worthy. I’m so sorry, Zara.”

She smiles at me, her fingers still in my hair. “I’ve wanted to tell you that for a long time. But now that I have, tell me your other thought. You said you were thinking two things.”

I don’t want to. I want to grovel at her feet. Tell her I was a stupid moron. I want to beg her to forgive me but I think she already has. I think she has because we both made mistakes, and neither of us knew what love was.

But we had to grow into it. It’s part of growing up, and we did that. Together, we did that.

I blow out a breath. “I was thinking of what our life is going to look like a year from now.”

She smiles faintly, but I see something else in her expression, the dim light from the bathroom giving me just enough light to gauge her emotions by. And now that she’s not on drugs, she’s full of them.

She said she wasn’t fun without the drugs, but she’s more fun. She might be quieter, but she laughs more. She teases. She’s serious, too, and she’s everything.

She’s everything I’ve ever wanted. I’m always thinking about her, and us, and what we’re going to do together now that this shitty chapter of our life has passed.

I tip her chin up, turn her head to face me. “What?” I ask her, worry in my tone, but I can’t hide it. And I don’t want to. I want her to know how I feel. “What do you see when you think of yourself in a year?”

She runs her hand through her hair, and I watch her throat bob as she swallows. “I think I’ll be a broke philosophy major without a job and a shitload of debt from student loans.”

Relief courses through me, because those problems are solvable. Those problems are too fucking easy.

She trails her fingers over my shoulder, eyeing my bare chest, a smirk on her lips. “And I think…no, I hope you’re still here.” She meets my gaze, her fingers still against my skin. “I hope you don’t leave. I hope you still find me fun a year from now. I hope you don’t mind that I’m really awkward and I’m kind of boring, and I don’t really do shit when I’m not high and I actually kind of hate parties and also…” She bites her lip, laughing a little. “Also football.”

I grab her hand, press it to my mouth. “I already knew that,” I tell her. “About the football. The rest?” I suck on her index finger, and then the next one, and the next one. I love the way she wiggles underneath me, like she just can’t wait for me to fuck her.

Yeah, neither can I, but I’m going to, just for a minute.

“I love you for who you are. I’m getting too old for parties,” I tease her, “and it’s a shame you got over them before you even turned twenty-one, but,” I shrug, “less boys to flirt with you so fuck it. I don’t care.”

I drop her hand and she runs it through my hair.

“Who knew you could be so damn romantic?” she asks me, gri

I lean down and kiss her, her lips parting for me, her hands going around my neck. “I’m not. I just really, really like you.”

She drops one hand, and reaches between us, grabbing my aching cock. “I like you, too. And this. A lot. It’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen.”

I’m not sure, exactly, what to make of that or how to feel about it, but I just laugh anyway and she guides me inside of her and it might make me sound like a fucking idiot, but when I’m inside of her it feels like home.

Later that night, she’s curled up beside me, her mouth open as she drools on my chest. It’s actually pretty sexy, especially the way her spine feels beneath my fingers as I draw circles down her back, staring up at the dark ceiling.

But Eli’s words come back to me, and although I hate thinking his name, although I hate thinking of him, and although sometimes the way he felt bucking against my hands makes my skin crawl when it passes through my mind, I can’t help but smile as these words: And you can’t breathe for her, too. She’ll pull you down in that grave and bury you with her.

He was a fucking psychopath, playing me as well as he played her.

But I buried him.

I fucking buried him, and it’s Zara I want. Zara that wants me.

And when I imagine my future, she’s in it.

Because this girl? The one whose head is against my chest? Yeah. I didn’t save her. That girl saved me.