Tears flood my cheeks.
My chest feels as if it were ripped apart.
My mind is filled with the images of what I have done.
I can’t?—
She pulls me into her.
“You cling to your rules because it’s the only thing that separates you from the drowning emotions of what you have done. You feel so drawn to me because I represent a part of you, a part you deny, so you don’t have to feel. So feel it all, and then you can be free. We can be free.”
It was this one, single word.
We.
I look up at her.
It was the one thing I always wanted.
The we.
The us.
The one person.
Who holds me when I break.
Who catches me when I fall.
Who loves me when I can’t love myself.
And I found her.
In the most messed-up circumstances, there are.
The most selfish, most arrogant, and entitled person there is, and she didn’t say I. She said we.
“I love you,” I say. It comes out as a whisper, a whisper scared of its own echo.
“I love you too,” she says.
And then her lips meet mine.
She loves me, knowing what I have done.
Loves me, not caring about it.
Loves me.
23
AVERY
PLAYLIST: DON’T DESERVE YOU – PLUMB
“I’m sorry I made everything about me,” she says. “You wanted to tell me something, and I?—“
“Shaw,” I say. “Shut up.”