Page 238 of Burn Bright

“Almost impossible,” she echoes. “But notimpossible.” She breathes harder like she’s scaling a cliffside. “How do I make it impossible for you to go?”

“Please don’t.” A hot tear slides down my jaw. I smear it away with the side of my fist.

She kneels at my feet, holds on to my knees, seeing this is torture for me. Her breath is weighted. “I don’t think letting you go is what’s best for you, Ben.”

“You need to.”

Her chin quakes. “What if I need you? Okay, forget the plants, forget your son—what ifIneed you? There’s a feeling inside of me I’ve never felt with anyone but you, and I may never feel it again.” She presses closer. “It’s love so deep, I can never be empty. It’s love so hot, I can never be cold. Love like this is a star you wish upon, Ben. It’s fairytales and make-believe, but you made it real. I don’t want to give it back.”

My entire body swells and collapses at once. The paradox of me. The tragedy of me.

The end of me.

I hold her warm cheeks. “I will never stop loving you. There will never be one moment where I don’t, wherever I am.”

Her tears slip down my hands. She takes a staggered breath, clutching my arms, then she kisses me. It’s not an ordinary kiss. This kiss screamsI love youwith her entire soul. It bellowsplease don’t leave me.It beseechespick me up and love me back.It ignites the balled-up pain in my chest, and I crush my lips against hers, desperate for these seconds to last forever.

I am burning alive. My blood is on fire. Standing, I haul Harriet in my arms. Her legs wrap around my waist. Our lips weld and tongues wrestle in a heart-wrenching tug-and-pull. I curve my arm so tight around her while she holds fiercely on to me.

Don’t let her go. Don’t fucking let her go. What are you doing?I bring her to the kitchen, set her gently on the counter. My fingers clench her hair as our panting, hot breaths intermix with gripping, yearning, distraught kiss after kiss.

She fists my shirt, keeping me close. We’re lip-locked for minutes upon minutes, and I slip my hand against her leg, up her dress, sliding along the soft, warmth of her thigh. Her hands don’t roam, they pull, they wrench. The fraught need to connect, to fuse, is pummeling my senses. A tormented groan rakes through my throat. “Harriet.”

“Come inside me,” she rasps.

I force myself to grab the cabinet above her head. The more I touch her, the more I want inside her. “I can’t have sex with you.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t live with myself knowing I fucked you and left you.”

She presses her forehead to my collar, and I scrunch the back of her hair, kissing the blonde strands, listening as she catches her breath. I see the time on the oven clock, and my stomach overturns.

This is it.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I have to go.” I kiss her temple, her cheek, then I draw back, and she releases her grip.

“Wait. You’ll be hungry. Just let me give you some of this stuff.” She sprints around the apartment, shoving the fig bars back in the box. Then she grabs a baggie for the pizza bites.

While she packs away the snacks, I sling my duffel on my shoulder and unzip the main pocket. I pull out Son of Ben and place him on the kitchen counter. Along with my worn blue ballcap.

She hands me the sealed pizza bites, the fig bars, and barely glances at the stuffed lion or the hat. Her ocean blue eyes are crashing waves, and I stare down into them.

“Thanks for all of this.” I can’t even tear my gaze off hers. “If you need anything, call my family,” I remind her. “They’ll be there for you.”

“I will,” she says definitively.

I breathe in a stronger breath. “I’ll write to you as soon as I can. It might be a week.” My return address on the mail I send will be a P.O. Box in Philly that I’ve set up. Any letters sent to me will be forwarded from there. So no one will ever have my actual address.

Not even Harriet.

I can’t give it to her. The risk of my family finding me is too high.

She nods.

Another kiss to her cheek, and I back away. Each step is a wrench cranking inside my body. Then I reach for the doorknob.

“This isn’t how we end, Friend,” she says suddenly. It stops me.