Sunburst

And it suddenly felt imperative to tell him that.

Even if it wasn’t really him or he wasn’t coherent enough to care.

I pulled back, trying to separate our lips, trying to tell him that but he followed me. His tongue swept inside my mouth and he groaned at the hot, wet contact with mine. He consumed my mouth with so much dominance it almost frightened me. And then his lips were moving all over my skin- down my neck, across my jaw, along my exposed collarbones. I was gasping for air but lost in his assault on all of my senses. This wasn’t a kiss, this was raw, desperate need.

His lips came back to mine on a deep groan of satisfaction and I knew I would never be the same after this moment. I hated that he had to lose himself before we came to this place, but I would never go back, I would never relinquish the ground we made through this struggle.

“I love you,” the words fell from my mouth like my next breath. “I love you.”

He froze. His entire body went rigid, each muscle completely tensed and solidified. His hands gripped me painfully and his forehead rested against mine. We stayed there for endless minutes while we breathed the same air. The fire slowly started to die out around us.

“Say it again,” he demanded with a voice that sounded like it had been torn to shreds.

“I love you,” I whispered, the tears freely falling again.

He let out a shaky breath and relaxed his grip on me. “This will be the moment that gets me through everything else. This moment with you and your words and your beautiful lips.”

I cried harder and he pulled me against him again, only this time he was gentle. He held me to him and I trembled all over him.

“I love you,” I said again because I knew he needed to hear it. He didn’t say it back. I wasn’t even sure if he was capable of saying it, let alone feeling it. But if he didn’t today, he would someday. Because I would fight the rest of my life if I had to to bring him back.

Maybe there still existed a larger purpose in my life than Seth, but I couldn’t remember it. Right now he was my entire world and I would do anything to save him, to keep him tethered to me like he said.

We stood there holding each other for a very long time- until the night air started to lighten and dawn broke on the horizon. He eventually pulled back and whispered, “I need to go.”

“I know.”

He stepped away robotically and clenched his fists at his side. He turned away but then looked back over his shoulder and closed his eyes. “One more time,” his voice was ravaged and raw, “Say it one more time.”

“I love you,” I promised.

And then he was gone. When I could finally move again I left too. I left the fire to die out, the cabin to continue to rot and my heart to bleed out all over that space.

Chapter Nineteen

“I don’t want to go,” I grumbled firmly.

My mom gave me an appraising look. I was sprawled out in my bed, in dirty sweats and without a shower. She let out a long suffering sigh and plopped on the bed with me.

We laid their silently for a while, heads touching on my pillow, but bodies angled away from each other and just breathed. It was Saturday and she wanted to take me dress shopping for prom, but I couldn’t seem to drag myself out of bed.

It had been two weeks since I had seen Seth.

Two weeks since I had been able to check on him, make sure he was alright, feel out how he was holding up.

Two weeks since my heart had been completely ripped from my chest and filleted on the ground in that stupid forest.

Two weeks since I told him I loved him.

I hadn’t seen him anywhere.

Not for lack of trying.

I went out nightly with Serena while Nate and Jupiter healed, and when Nate was better I continued to tag along. When I wasn’t actively fighting, I was training relentlessly. And the only time I wasn’t training I was in school.

I had become a ruthless machine. A single-minded instrument determined to save Seth from the living Hell he lived in, and in the process possibly save me from my own special kind of darkness.

I felt like I was spiraling out of control. Not only had he been taken from me, but while I lived, breathed, existed in this perfectly normal world, he was surviving some kind of nightmare. I felt lost without him, ungrounded and without footing. The earth beneath my feet had been stripped away and there was nothing to catch me while I disappeared into the eternal depths of nothing.

There were other things in my life, but they were like sifting sand as I tried to grasp onto anything to keep me steady.

And while he wasn’t the only one that noticed something was different about me, Tristan definitely picked up on my melancholy.

But it was more than that. My heart felt ripped in two, separated to opposite ends of the Earth. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t be apart from Seth like this.

I honestly felt a little pathetic.

“Stella,” my mom’s rational and patient voice cut through my thoughts. “You told Tristan you would go with him. Don’t you want to look nice?”

      “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I’m not sure I want to go anymore.”

She scooted over a little so she could pull her head back and look at me. I felt the full force of her golden gaze on me. Her eyes were like yellow gold without her contacts, bright, liquid and so perceptive I wanted to crawl under my bed.

“You can’t obsess over Seth every moment of your life, sweets.” Her voice was so very gentle it made me irrationally emotional. “You have to live outside of his…. predicament. Or you’re going to drive yourself crazy.”

I thought for a moment I would cry simply from frustration. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes for just a moment before sadness turned to a burning anger with a ferocity that turned to acid in my veins and burned in my stomach hotter than lava.

My mom continued, “Seth did this for you, so that you could be safe, so you could…. prepare. So you could live. He’s suffering for nothing unless you do your part in this.”

“And my part includes going to prom?” I asked dryly.

My mom’s face split into a wide grin, caught in her duplicitous pep talk. “Well, maybe that wasn’t specifically why he signed over his soul, but I know he wouldn’t be happy if you laid in bed every day or missed out on the humanity you love so dearly.” She paused; maybe to wait for me to respond, but I didn’t really have anything to say to that. She was right. “Whatever happens to Seth, he did this as a gift to you, Stella. I don’t think you should spend every night dancing the night away, but you are allowed to go to prom without guilt or fear of failure. Enjoy the night. Enjoy humanity. Enjoy Tristan.”

I looked at my mom carefully, hearing the very loud undercurrent of her words. Tristan was not my future according to my parents- well, according to everyone. She was telling me to enjoy prom with him because there wouldn’t be other nights with him. Seth hadn’t just given me time to come into my powers, he had given me time to spend exclusively with Tristan.

Even if that wasn’t exactly Seth’s purpose.

When I turned eighteen everything would change. I would gain my powers but give up the world I lived and participated in.

I would give up my friends, my family and Tristan.

I sat up slowly. Prom was suddenly very important; extremely vital to my survival.

My mom smiled up at me. “Get showered. We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready.”

I tried to smile back at her but it wobbled and then my chin started quivering and the righteous anger I felt just moments ago dissolved immediately into fear of the unknown.

But my mom was there to immediately pull me into her arms and hold me close to her. “Everything will be alright, Stella. Everything. I promise you. We will work this out.”