Together.
I WAKE with a sluggish heartbeat and an invisible pressure bearing down on me.I don't know where it came from, this foreboding feeling inside of me. Because when I open my eyes, Javi is still there. Watching me silently as he strokes my arm.
Desolation shadows his eyes, and I think it is only fair. I wonder if he slept at all, and then I remind myself that I don't care. Because I hate him.
We all lie to ourselves, sometimes.
His scars are unsheltered in the early morning light. Old and new, they litter his body in shades of pink and white. Today, my monster is visibly fraught with sorrow.
This battle has raged within him for so long. Whatever torture Javi suffered, it extended far beyond his body. It embedded itself within his mind and made a home there.
He's been caught between two sides, just as I have.
Only now, he's made his decision. It's written in his eyes. What's done is done. But I don't have a map to his secret language, and I am too weary to guess anymore. Whatever my fate is, it's for the gods or Javi to decide.
He pets my cheek and brushes his lips against my forehead. Gentle. Sweet. Reverent. It terrifies me. It soothes me. And I cry when I reach out to touch him.
I'm in too much pain to move. Javi does not smile this time. He does not exalt in this kind of pain. Instead, he tells me to hold tight while he retrieves some pills and a glass of water. He helps me to sit up and waits until I have swallowed them before he lays me back down.
The distance between us now may as well be an ocean. He remains on the edge of the bed. His thoughts are somewhere else.
"What is it, Javi?" I ask him. "What's happening?"
His eyes move over me, and they are open now. Mournful and reverent.
"I was only thinking that perhaps I would like to be selfish," he says.
"I don't understand what you mean."
His lip curls up at the corner in the faintest hint of a smile.
"I think you have made me want to keep you. And that would be the most selfish thing of all, my Bella."
I don't want to hope. I don't want to fall for any more of his cruel deceptions. I can't afford to get stung again. Not when I am so empty. But it does not feel like a trick anymore. Not with his eyes on me like this. Not with his voice gentle and sad and thoughtful.
"You said you would always keep me," I remind him. "Always."
I don't want him to throw me away. Maybe that makes me pathetic. Maybe it makes me so fucked up in the head I can't be fixed. But when he even mentions a scenario where we don't exist together, I can't cope. The possibility douses me in fresh terror.
Javi is the poison I drink so willingly because nothing else has ever tasted so sweet.
He is everything. The light and the dark. The solace and the pain. The torment and the peace. And I can't imagine not having him here with me. I can't even consider it.
My nails dig into the flesh of my palms until I draw blood.
"You promised," I tell him again. "You promised that you would keep me forever."
"My Bella." He comes back to me, tilting my chin so that his lips hover over mine. "It is alright. I am here now, yes?"
I buckle in his arms, and he catches me. His touch hurts like nothing else ever has.
It is the best kind of pain. The only pain I ever want. Javi drags his nose down my throat, breathing me in.
"Say what you said before," he whispers. "Say it, and this time, I will try to believe it."
It scares me. It scares me so much I hold onto him so he can't let me go. But I say the words. I tell him the irrefutable truth in our bed of lies.
"I love you, Javi. I love you so much. You've fucked me up so bad. You've messed with my head, and I don't know... there are so many things I don't know. I don't know how to fix them. Or unbreak them. But this is the one thing I know. I love you."
He does not lash out this time. He holds me. He kisses me.
Whispered apologies flow from his lips over and over. He tells me everything is going to be alright. He says he will protect me and never let me go.
For once, my mind and my heart are at peace. There is light in the darkness.
And I believe him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
JAVI TRIES to rouse me from my sleep, and I dig in deeper. My dreams are too sweet, and his touch is so warm against me.
I don't want to move. I don't want to go anywhere other than this space between my dream and reality. But he is insistent.
"My Bella, I need you to wake up. Wake up and be a good girl for me, yes?"
My eyes are cemented together, and the thing that he asks of me is easier said than done. The pills he gave me knocked me out. I don't know how long it's been.
Days, months, weeks.
I'm groggy and confused when I realize that I'm already dressed. Not just dressed. But dressed for outside, with a coat and shoes and socks. My hair is braided too.
I blink up at him, and he is still blurry until my eyes adjust to the light.
"It is time to go," he tells me. "There is something we must do together."
I shake my head and tell him no. Whatever it is, I don't want to go.
"You will want to see this, my Bella."
Still, I try to pull the blankets back over me. Javi sighs.
"It is about your father."
And now he has my attention.
"What about him?"
My voice is froggy. I sound weird. Terrified. Terrified that he will have bad news for me. But Javi's only answer is to help me from the bed.
"Come," he insists.
I follow him. It isn't easy. I'm still in pain. But he helps me every step of the way, allowing me to lean on him for support.
He unlocks the front door, and my legs grow weak before locking into place. I don't want to leave anymore. I only want to stay.
The caged bird is me.
And I am afraid. More afraid than I have ever been in my whole life to step foot out that door. But I know that I must. Whatever news there is of my father, I must go. I must find out.
Knowing and doing are two different things. So even when Javi steps outside, I hesitate on the threshold. He looks back at me, extending his hand. A gesture that means so much more than just this moment.
It's there in his eyes. The change I had been hoping for all along. His barriers down. My monster is asking me to walk beside him. To trust him to guide me. To protect me and care for me.
With this knowledge, I step beside him. He holds my hand and nods. He feels it too. We are in this together. The walls have come down, and the only barriers we have now are those of the outside world.
He leads me to a motorcycle. His only mode of transportation. After providing me with a helmet, he helps me onto the back and secures my arms around his waist.
The engine roars to life, and the comfort of his scent surrounds me when I lean into his back. He drives us away from Moldavia and back towards the lights of the city.
My heart is calm, but my mind is loud with questions. It only gets louder when the scenery begins to change. When Javi turns into my old neighborhood. Then onto my street.
I hold onto him long after he parks in the driveway. He doesn't move either. But then the front door opens. And everything implodes.
My father stands on the stoop. The same stoop where I never thought I would see him again.
He is alive.
And his eyes are on me. Swimming with relief. I try to spring from the bike, but Javi captures me around the wrist. Our eyes meet for a split second, and there is real fear in his. Fear that he might lose me.
"Javi, it's okay," I tell him. "It's okay."
He hesitates for another long second before releasing me. I bound towards the stoop, the aches in my body fleeing in the presence of the joy I feel at this moment.
My father moves to meet me. Slower than usual. He is walking with a limp. But he is alive. Alive and... hugging me.
I sob against his chest. There are no words. None. Not between either of us, for a very long time. We just hold each other. And I am a little girl all over again. But he has never held me this way.
It feels so right. It feels like everything in my world is right again. Until I look up at his face and catch the way he is staring at Javi.
I have never seen him look at anyone this way. I have never seen so much hate. My arms fall away, and I wrap them around myself instead.
Relief dissipates and fades into confusion. Turmoil. The reality of my current situation is like a brick to the face. There is no peace to be had. There never was. Because now I'm caught between the two of them. The two men that I love the most.
The two men who hate each other.
"Let's go inside," Dad says. "Shall we?"
Javi dismounts from his bike and reaches the stoop in three long strides. Both men try to usher me in beside them, but Javi is the one I allow to guide me.