{18+ COMPLETE} For the past three years, Bren Hadaway has been preparing to die.
When he was sixteen, he watched his dad murder his mom. And ever since, he's been counting down the days until it was his turn to be at the end of a gun. And Bren has...
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Everything had tilted on its axis.
The world looked a little different from this sideways view. Blades of grass tickled my nose. Stones jutted up from the ground, marking graves of people who no longer walked the earth I lay on. The sky ambled by, clouds drifting over Bren's head and the trees behind him.
But the one view that stayed the same was the way I saw him. It didn't matter how many times I tried to change my perspective. He was still right there, at the forefront of everything.
Bren stared at me for a long time, his dark eyes taking it all in.
Finally, he muttered, "It's all true."
"What is?"
"I would have loved her. I would love any piece of you that there is to love."
My heart clenched. For a brief moment, I saw Bren holding her. Holding that little piece of me. Loving that little piece of me. But then I closed my eyes, shutting that image out. She was gone.
When I eventually dared to look at Bren again, he was watching me closely. And my heart clenched again. Because...just everything about him.
"Don't you get it, Bren?" I asked quietly, trying to keep my voice from shaking. "Don't you get that that's how I feel about you too? I love every piece of you."
I reached out, resting my hand on his chest. It was hard to feel his heartbeat, though. His sweatshirt was too thick. I sighed. "I even love the pieces that you're too afraid to show. Or the ones you think will end up hurting me."
Bren was silent. His gaze flicked down to my hand. He stared at it, puzzled, and I wanted to shake my head in exasperation. But I didn't. Instead, I added softly, "I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be." I paused for a moment. "Remember when you told me that? When you left everything behind for me?"
Bren's hand came up to cover mine, squeezing it. But he shook his head, leaves crunching beneath it. "I remember, Madie." His voice was all low and strangled in a way that told me every word was hard for him to get out. "But hell, of course I wanted to be there with you, to be doing all of that with you. I had the girl I liked all to myself in a beach house in Malibu. The circumstances were shitty, but besides that, it was a fucking dream."
He tried to roll onto his back, away from me. But I seized his sweatshirt, digging my fingers into the fabric and holding him there. His eyes flared a little, his jaw clenching.
You're not fucking running away from me, Bren.
As if he heard my thoughts, he sighed, giving in. "This is different, Madie. We're lying in the middle of a cemetery in fucking winter. You're shivering, you've got leaves in your hair, and—"
"I don't care, Bren," I interrupted firmly, despite a chill running through me from the brisk air. "I don't care where we are. Stop trying to scare me away. I want to be by your side."
