This was what it was like to love somebody.
I finally knew.
To be wrapped in their arms, wrapped in their soul, until every heartbeat became one. Until you became a single entity.
For every brush of their skin against yours to cause some inner natural disaster.
When you looked into their eyes, and you couldn’t turn away, because in them you saw everything you needed to survive.
This was love.
And I felt all of it.
The next morning dawned bleak and grey, with a soft flurry drifting from the sky. The clock on his nightstand read 5:10. His flight was in the late afternoon. Already a bud of panic blossomed within me, at every second that brought us closer to separation.
I shifted slightly in his arms, wincing at the ache in my core. It was a foreign soreness, something not altogether unwanted. The pain meant pleasure and love and closeness. Good pain. I could deal with good pain.
August snored softly beside me, his hand hooked around my waist in a vicelike grip. Never letting go. He didn’t have a problem, because he wouldn’t lose me.
He was the one leaving.
He was the one I would lose.
And when the hurt of leaving became too much, I disregarded those thoughts in favor of remembering him. I wanted to make sure every snippet of the night was etched into my memory, so I forgot nothing.
I wanted to memorize how his body felt pressing mine into the mattress; his natural musky scent, and the lemony aroma of his shampoo. The spicy taste of his tongue plunging in my mouth, and the longing, desperate drive of his lips against mine.
I needed to remember every human-like occurrence of fumbling bodies that broke through the dreamy feeling and reminded me how real everything was.
When the necklace I gave him snagged in my hair.
When our noses knocked together inelegantly, in our feverish need for each other.
Every whisper, every assurance, every asking if it was too much or not enough.
I needed it all.
And I forced myself to recount every moment between us, building to this interlocking of souls, but I figured maybe I began to fall into him long ago. At the first milkshake, our talk on the balcony, saving me from myself every instance he saw me backsliding. Maybe even at Yale, when he pushed me against the side of the building, and I had to use my ability on him.
Maybe even then.
But that all already happened. They were pictures hanging in my head, of memories that seemed so long ago.
This was now.
This was happening right now, and the clock clicked to 5:20.
Tears sprung to my eyes. I buried my face in the solid wall of his chest, shoulders shaking with every stifled sob. His heart skipped a beat. The irregular pattern of his breathing let me know he was awake.
I wanted to beg him not to leave. To beg him to stay with me forever, government be damned, but that was selfish of me. It was his duty to protect these people. No matter how much I believed the duty to suck.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered, voice scratchy from sleep. “If you cry, I’ll never leave, and that will doom us all.”
“Not us all,” I answered shakily. “Just me.”
“That’s worse.”
Maybe. It depended on how you looked at the situation.
Time continued to tick by. The wind still whipped, pelting flakes of snow against the window. I should have been tired, considering I’d gotten maybe two hours of sleep last night. But everything about August made me feel alive.
Energized.
Awake.
He hooked a hand behind my knee, rolling onto his back and taking me with him, so I draped across his chest. Heat pounded against my stomach. All I wanted to do was absorb into his skin, fall into him; never leave.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, running his nails up and down my back in slow circles.
“Fine.”
“Does it hurt?”
“A little,” I admitted, peering down into his exotic blue eyes. “But it’s good pain.”
He smiled. It was broken and full of sadness. I probably looked much the same way. “My flight is at four.”
I nodded, face echoing the reluctance in his voice. “Okay.”
His eyes searched mine, and I guessed because he didn’t know what else to say, he pulled my head down and kissed me. His long fingers wrapped around my neck, the other arm snaking around my waist, cinching me against him. He groaned, a lost and defeated sound. I buried my fingers in his hair and reciprocated with all the intensity and need he poured into me through the night. This endless, aching need for everything about him.
August rolled us over, never breaking contact, crushing me in sensual heat that hitched my breathing, over-stimulated my senses, and overloaded my capacity for these new sensations, but I didn’t care.
I didn’t care.
It ended up being another hour before we left the bed.
And even after that, we shoved the blankets off our bodies, holding tight to one another, falling into the stream of the shower.
Let me tell you what it was like kissing August in the shower.
Tasting the water on his lips.
Feeling the cool tile pressed against my back.
Breathing hard through the steam and pounding pressure.
I grabbed each of these feelings and locked them away in my mind.
When we finally separated, and I was suddenly alone in his room while the sounds of breakfast sizzled from downstairs, I quietly freaked out. The clock flashed 8:30. I pulled on jeans and one of August’s Def Leppard shirts, because I wanted to be wrapped in him even if he wasn’t present. I ordered myself not to cry. To be strong, because that was what he needed. And to tell myself that he was coming back. He had to, with something to return for.
I had to believe I was enough.
The kitchen was still a mess, but he stood at the stove cooking bacon and eggs and pancakes, like everything was in perfect order. There was no more kitchen table to speak of. The lopsided boards of wood over the window still allowed a chill inside, but I didn’t move passed the doorway, watching August work. I just wanted to watch him. Every flex of his shoulder, every ripple of his back when he moved, every flash of skin that I now knew to the deepest corner of my soul.
He was mine.
This possessive thought scared me at first, because I had never had those kinds of tendencies, or been that kind of person. But the monster within me stirred for a whole different reason. Not for power. Not for death.
Just him.
I padded quickly across the kitchen, wanting to engulf myself in his presence, but in my flurried haste I forgot to put on my boots. A shard of glass sank into my foot, and I hissed in pain.
August turned from the eggs, seeing me hobbling on one foot, cradling the other. “Shit, Ellie,” he said, effortlessly lifting me up and onto the counter beside the stove. The food sizzled. My foot ached.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I forgot to put on shoes.”
He knelt down, gingerly taking my foot in his hands. His thumbs applied slight pressure on either side of the cut, and I winced, but eventually a tiny piece of glass clattered to the ground. He wrapped the wound in gauze he found by some grace of God in a cabinet. I looked to him as he stood.
“Thanks,” I said.
His lips twitched.
We ate our breakfast right there at the counter; a pancake, some eggs, and two strips of bacon. Basically all that was left in the house from Blake.
Things weren’t awkward, per se, between me and August, just tense. Neither of us wanted to admit to what was about to happen.
“Ellie.”
The edge of his thumb trailed down the side of my face. I looked at him.
“When I leave,” he said, “I want you to go somewhere.”
I don’t want to be anywhere but with you. “Okay.”
“Are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“814 Charlotte’s Avenue. Just outside Blue Springs, Missouri. Take the road straight out of town, go left. You won’t be able to get there by car. When you pass a red rock, you know you’re going in the right direction. You’ll find the house where I grew up. Stay there.”
I nodded, throat constricting. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
I was trying so hard not to.
“That house has been deserted for years. Nobody will ever find it, or think to find it. It’s completely off the grid. Completely safe.”
Like the safe houses?
They were supposed to be completely safe, too.
Like he could read my mind, August said, “Trust me. My parents were paranoid psychos. They made sure nobody could find it.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“You’ll find it?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, August.”
He smiled, tweaking my nose. “I have to make sure. I’ll worry if I don’t know you’re safe.”
I wrapped my legs around his hips, drawing him against me. “Me, too.”
“I’ll be fine, Ellie. Okay? I’ll be fine.”
This was not a promise, because he couldn’t promise things out of his control. I ran my tongue along my lower lip, and he tracked the movement. “I love you,” I said, a little hoping he might say it back, but he just kissed me.
Then we watched a movie. There was only time for one, and just barely. Also because I begged him to stay just a little bit longer. Longer, and longer, and longer.
Forever.
When the movie ended and the credits rolled, somehow, we were on opposite sides of the couch. This distancing our hearts was not working, because all of me was ever so aware of all of him.
“I have to go,” he said.
I knew that.
He vaulted off the couch and darted up the stairs to grab his bag. I watched the rest of the credits, until the screen faded black and there was nothing left.
The end.
August returned. My necklace swung against his chest. Have strength, I told myself. If there was any time to be strong, it was now.
The flurries stopped. The sun peeked out. The snow glistened and began to melt. There was some passage of time between standing in the cabin and standing by his car, but I couldn’t remember it. This bothered me. I wanted to remember every part of everything.
He dumped his duffel in the passenger seat and walked around the hood of the car to stand before me. His hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. He wore a white t-shirt beneath a long-sleeved flannel, unbuttoned.
“I guess this is it,” he finally said, staring at his boots as he scuffed the toe against some snow.
“I guess so.”
The end.
“How do I do this without you?” I whispered, because always he had been right there, through the worst of it. Now I would be alone.
His forehead fell against mine. I drew strength from the touch. “You keep fighting, that’s how. You are Ellie Armstrong. You can do anything.”
“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”
“You remember where you’re going?”
“Yes.”
“Say it to me.”
“814 Charlotte’s Avenue. Just outside Blue Springs, Missouri. Take the road straight out of town, go left. I won’t be able to get there by car. When I pass a red rock, I know I’m going in the right direction.”
“Good.” He pressed a long, hard kiss to my mouth, stealing oxygen and giving life. His tongue pushed passed my lips, deepening the kiss to an impossible amount, stealing the last of my strength. I held onto him with urgent need, surrendering to his touch.
“I’ll meet you there,” he said. “Whatever happens, that’s where we’ll find each other again.”
“Okay.”
We stood there a moment more, neither of us wanting to leave, but eventually we had to move. I stepped back, and he set his hand on the car handle.
And didn’t move.
“August,” I started, but he whirled on me, eyes streaked with desperation.
“You know I would die for you, right?” he said, searching my face for some sort of verification. My mouth flopped open a few useless times, not sputtering anything the least bit useful.
“Yes,” I finally managed to choke out. “Yes, I know you would.”
Relief sagged his shoulders. “Good.”
Silence.
That was when he slid into his car. The engine started.
I had to refrain myself from throwing myself at him and begging him to stay.
He spared me one last smile, and I couldn’t help but think of all the missed opportunities we could have had because I was confused. Because I didn’t understand. And because we were both so hesitant to love somebody else.
I watched until his Corvette was a dot through the trees; until I couldn’t see him anymore. Then I returned to the house, gathered my things in a small bag, and stood for a moment in the foyer.
Hearing Ryan’s laugh, seeing Blake’s eye roll, smelling Jessica’s perfume.
Tasting August’s kiss.
I held these things within my heart, knowing I would need them to sustain me over the next course of time, however long it would be. So with hardened resolve and a broken heart, I left the cabin.
There was nothing left for me there.
That was it.
The end.