Page 53 of Lessons In Grey

While his eyes were trained on my arm, mine were trained on his. He looked so tired, so…haunted. More so than I had ever seen him in the past, and I knew he was allowing me this. This moment to see the shit that haunted him. What I had reminded him of.

I swallowed, letting my left leg fall to the side, falling onto his thigh. I just needed more connection. I needed to feel him more than just his presence, I needed toknowwithout a doubt that he wasn’t just something I made up in my head. That this was real. It had to be real.

I needed it to be real.

Please be real.

“I wasn’t trying to kill myself, Rags,” I said on a breath so quick, I was sure he had missed it.

He didn’t react, there wasn’t even a hitch in his motions. “I know.”

Relief flooded through me, which hadn’t been what I expected to feel at all. “You do?” I whispered.

“They were shallow, Emily, and you called me, which told me that you hadn’t expected the affect you got from the pills.” Hiseyes flicked up between strands of his dark hair, meeting mine for only a second before returning to my arm. “You didn’t want to die.”

I chewed on my lip, my eyes burning as the guilt overtook the relief. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “I never wanted to hurt anyone.”

No matter how hard I tried, no matter how hard I fought, I always hurt them. All of them. Anyone who was ever within my vicinity, within my grasp, I hurt them all.

He was quiet for a long time before he spoke again, such weight pulling at his words that I wondered how long he had been drowning, and I wondered if he would join me in my own suffocation. “You’ll learn that no matter how much time passes, there will always be some memories that will haunt you,” he said quietly. “Victor was selfish, and I was angry after what he did, and what he did will always affect how I go about my life, but Malachi saved me in every way I was willing to be saved at that time. You have saved me in every way I was unwilling to be saved.”

A tear slipped down my cheek. I couldn’t imagine him as a boy, a teenager, however old he had been, going through that. It made me angry. Irrationally angry and unbelievably sad. And knowing that I had reminded him of that made me feel like absolute shit. “I didn’t want anyone to suffer,” I whispered, my voice thick. “Not because of me.”

Finished, he held my hand in his while the other found my chin. “Baby, I would suffer a thousand gunshot wounds, a thousand broken bones, a thousand severed tendons, if it meant I could have all of you. You aresogood. Too good,” he mumbled, tracing his thumb across my cheek, wiping away that tear. “I know you can’t see it, but I do. Your darkness is beautiful in its own special way.”

I leaned into his hand, allowing myself, for just this one moment, to drown in his touch.

“Stop worrying about what others feel and focus on how youfeel. What you want. Where you want to go in this life. Everyone else will be fine. So long as the ghosts in your head and the demons in mine continue to dance then the world will know peace.”

I rolled my eyes. “The whole world?” I couldn’t see the good in me, but I could so very clearly see it in him, and fuck, I wanted to drown in it. I wanted to be the person he saw when he looked at me.

The look in his eyes was so intense, sodeep, it made my head spin. “No,theworld. My world. You.”

I released a breath, my hand tightening around his.

He searched my eyes, his own half-closed in this look of pure and unrelenting desire. “For a moment last night, I thought I lost you,” he confessed. “I have never known that kind of pain, not once. Emily, you’ve consumed me. Every single ounce of me, you’veconsumedme.”

I ran my tongue over my bottom lip, sucking it in, watching as his eyes tracked the movement. “You believed so fully that we were inevitable.”

“We are inevitable, baby.”

I was terrified. Terrified of this. Of letting myself fall, but fuck, he hadn’t let up, and I was so tired of falling. I wanted to stop. I wanted to land. I wanted to—

A knocking interrupted my thoughts and I instantly pulled away, turning to find Ash stepping around the corner, her hand wrapped in someone else’s.

My eyes lifted. I had always admired Syn. She was beautiful. Gorgeous long blonde hair, bright blue eyes, just pure sunshine, and I had always thought they went good together. Dark and light. A perfect balance.

She smiled softly as I turned away from Rags, subtly pulling my sleeve down, feeling a chill seep into my bones as the feeling of loneliness started seeping in again.

Was that it?

Was I already so addicted to him that as soon as we stopped touching, the withdrawals kicked in?

That seemed so toxic, and definitely something I should probably talk to Rachel about.

But fuck Rachel. I could figure this out myself, I had to.

“Hey, you ready to rock?”