AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I stare at him as he pulls forward along the row of warehouses on the coast of the lake. The still, glass water reflects the shimmering light of the moon.
He glances at me. “Kidding.” He turns toward the exit to the main road and mutters, “Or am I?” His eyes narrow as a single car passes in front of us, headlights streaking down the tar. “It could be hard to keep you there unless you don’t have any fingers.” He reaches into his coat pocket with a sigh and tosses me the little black ring box. “But if you don’t have any fingers, how will you wear that?” He curses. “Life is hard sometimes, but I guess that’s why someone taught me it’s still worth living. And it’s pretty hard to live if you don’t let yourself love the people who make you feel like a person.”
Needless to say, what in the Uno reverse card is this? “Ro—”
“Can you Houdini out of shackles?” His index finger taps against the wheel as his lips purse. “Do you have your phone on you?”
“I’m…in an evening gown.”
“Right. Women’s clothing doesn’t have pockets.” His sigh is truly despondent as he mutters, “More things we’ll have to heal from.” He directs his chin toward his phone on the center console. “Use mine. Can you look up how long it takes for Stockholm to set in? I know we’re doing this the hard way, but the sooner you don’t have to be chained in the basement, the better.”
“Are you having a stroke?” I ask.
He reaches for me, pinning a lock of hair behind my ear. “No. You’ve got one choice. There’s just an easy way and a hard way. You picked the hard way. I really don’t prefer making you afraid to sneeze without my permission, but if that’s what it takes…”
“You can’t be suggesting that you’re actually going to go through with toxic relationship-ing me into submission.”
“Yeah, you sound crazy right now. I would never do that.”
“Right. Of course. And now the gaslighting.” I cross my arms. “I tell you I’m suffering with grief, and you start making jokes.”
“Briar. I can’t talk to you when you’re being hysterical like this.”
Am I proud? Concerned? Attracted…? Well, okay, to be fair that last one is a persistent condition. I straighten, folding my hands in my lap as I raise my chin. “You don’t have it in you. You’ll lose your nerve the second I have a breakdown you perceive you caused.”
“Are you sure about that? You’d be surprised at the malice I’m capable of. Especially against the woman who taught my bird to say, Hello, my name is Oreo.”
A laugh explodes out of me, and I slap my hand to my mouth. No. Oh no. No, no, no… He found out. It happened. And I missed it.
“After I explicitly said not to call him Oreo,” Rowan mutters.
“He looks like an Oreo! How could I possibly resist?”
“The same way I resist calling you a lot of things that you look like.”
My brows rise, defiant. “Oh, baby, I’d answer to anything you call me.”
He doesn’t flinch. “Okay. Wife.”
I lose track of my hubris.
Torment deepens the lines around his mouth. “Listen. Briar. I’m not as good as you at providing what your friends say you call non-consensual therapy. But I know a thing or two about living in fear and not knowing who you are because something stripped that away. It’s suffocating. It’s painful. It makes everything bleak. I’ve never experienced grief like what you’re going through because I’ve never had the opportunity to love like you have. If, however, I lost you, I would know that pain, so, selfishly, I’m going to do whatever I have to in order to keep you instead. For as long as I can.” His chest fills. “I hope that’s all right.”
It hurts to swallow again. But I manage. “You know, you’re not really supposed to ask for permission. It defeats the purpose of being toxic.”
“That’s our joke, princess.” He offers me his hand, pinkie extended. “I love you enough to let you go. But not yet. Not until I know you’re going somewhere better. And I love you too much to ever let anything else be better than me.” He stops at a red light and takes the moment to face me fully. “No one can really promise forever, but I can give you every moment between. I can give you at least half my strength whenever you need it, more if you ask, everything if that’s what it takes to pick you up when you fall down. You are not untouchable. There are people who didn’t raise you who can see past your games and appreciate all the fragments of your soul.” Agony gleams in his expression, pleading at the very core of his essence. “Forfeit. Afterward, we’ll start something new on the same team.”
My gaze drops from his eyes to fifty percent of his offered strength.
The light turns green on this vacant road. But he doesn’t move forward.
Dark city. Bleak world. Brilliant, brilliant lights, blazing in every kind or gentle soul.
He’s an angel.
Maybe all this time when I thought it was my job to deliver him, he was the one sent to deliver me.
I bite my lip as fresh tears careen down my cheeks. Lifting my shaking hand, I lock our pinkies together. “I’ll forfeit…if you tell me what you meant last night.”
