Page 16

Kali

C hance was my fucking hero. There was nothing else to say about it.

He had pulled himself together after facing the most extreme torture anyone could have ever endured in record time.

He wasn’t the same man he had been before – that much was a given – but he also wasn’t whimpering and cowering.

He hadn’t debated whether he would fight for his place in this plane or dissipate into nothingness.

He had stayed.

He hadn’t left me.

My heart, or whatever was left of the cold, dead thing that was no longer beating inside my chest, clenched.

If it were still beating, I knew it would have skipped a beat.

Or a few. I had managed to successfully smother the love I felt for Chance since meeting Blake, but that flicker of a flame had never quite burnt out.

Now, as he sent me a smile that revealed straight white teeth and crinkled the corners of his eyes that held so much love and affection in a single look, that tiny little flame roared back to life with so much force I feared it would burn me to a crisp.

‘Kali,’ he whispered my name like the sweetest of prayers.

‘How are you feeling?’ I asked, desperate to turn the attention away from me.

‘Better. I think.’

I made a noise of agreement in the back of my throat. ‘It gets easier with time.’

He tilted his head to the side, his eyes losing their focus as he turned his attention inwards.

I could see him taking stock, calculating his own sense of being and the newness of what he had become.

Perhaps he was even ahead of the game and would use this moment to more firmly redefine himself.

A process which had taken me until recently to accomplish.

In fact, I still hadn’t fully reached any sort of particular goal.

If I were being honest with myself, I was still floundering.

What comes next?

That question hadn’t plagued me until now, but there it was, burrowing deep and refusing to leave.

What happened after I got my revenge? Would I be satisfied?

Would I find peace? I hadn’t thought that far ahead, and though it didn’t have any bearing on my decision to enact vengeance against the evil that had stolen so much from me, it did make me pause.

When one purpose ended, how would I find another? All I saw ahead of me was an endless expanse of nothing.

No, not nothing. I saw Chance.

It hit me, then with so much force it almost knocked me over.

It was so obvious, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it until now.

All my hopes and dreams coalesced into this one moment of clarity, and I knew I had to seize it before it slipped from my grasp.

Chance would be my new purpose. I could resolve the mistakes of the past. He could be my future, the way he was always supposed to be before I’d let my doubts and insecurities get the better of me and I’d turned away from what was meant to be.

Because I knew, gazing upon his handsome face that I never believed I’d be lucky enough to see again, that we were always the end game. No matter what came next, we would face it together.

Or so I hoped. He could very well decide I wasn’t worth the hassle and move on without me.

I would have deserved it, after all. I’d destroyed all that we could have been without ever giving us a chance to discover that for ourselves.

I had been too much of a coward to come clean about my feelings, to confess my wants and desires, or to be the woman he deserved.

Instead, I had chosen false promises and a mask, because it was easier to stomach than the truth.

That epiphany rocked me to my core. It changed everything.

Yes, I’d been na?ve and ignorant, desperate even, when it came to Blake, but I couldn’t place all the blame on him.

Well, I could , but where would that have left me?

I needed to acknowledge the part I’d played in all this.

I had stuck my head in the sand and refused to see what was right in front of me, not because I was incapable, but because I hadn’t wanted to.

I hadn’t wanted my life to be anything less than perfect, because that was what my parents had had.

They had loved each other so much, had built a life together, raised a family, and had even died together.

They were the true definition of soulmates, and I’d wanted that for myself.

But I’d been afraid of it as well. I’d been afraid to lose it, just like they had lost everything when they’d died.

They had been stolen from the world far too soon and had left devastation in their wake.

But by that point, it had already been too late for me.

I had made my choice, and it wasn’t true love. It was refusing to take the risk.

I wouldn’t deny either one of us for a single moment longer.

The words I had held in for so long burst out of my mouth in a flurry of emotional diarrhoea. And once I started, I couldn’t have stopped if I’d tried.

‘Kali, I-’ he tried to speak as he attempted to close the gap between us, only to halt at the sudden barrage of words falling out of me. Words I was sure he never expected to hear, especially when I hadn’t answered him before.

‘I love you, too, Chance,’ I began, keeping my eyes on his so he could see the truth in them; the depth of my feelings for him.

I wanted to look away, to hide away for fear that he would no longer love me the way he had claimed, but I wouldn’t do that to either of us.

Not this time. Not ever again. ‘I always have, and I’m so fucking sorry.

I chose the coward’s way out, because Blake was safe.

Or, I thought he was. I never could have imagined…

but that’s beside the point. I have loved you from the moment we met, and I have loved you every day since, and I was the dumbest bitch to ever walk the earth, because I gave up without ever letting you know.

I never should have let you go without a fight, without telling you how I’d felt all those years ago, but I didn’t think. ..’

‘You didn’t think I felt the same way,’ he finished for me, his voice quiet, contemplative, and so full of understanding I wanted to both cry and lash out at him. I didn’t deserve his compassion. Not after the life I’d forced us both to lead. Not after the betrayal we’d both suffered through.

But he wasn’t wrong. ‘You’re right,’ I agreed lamely.

‘I didn’t think you felt the same way, so I didn’t put myself out there, which is so fucking stupid because it’s you, and I just…

’ I trailed off, fidgeting with my fingers as I broke eye contact.

I was burning up again, but this time it was out of shame.

God, I was nervous.

But I shouldn’t have been. This was Chance , for fuck’s sake. He had never and would never hurt me. He was the safety I had been searching for in Blake. I wanted to go back in time and slap some sense into my younger self.

‘I get it,’ he said, softening even more as he slowly moved closer, a fire blazing in his steady gaze. ‘I was afraid to tell you, too. I thought I would lose you, that you could never love me the way I loved you. I guess… we were both wrong.’

I sniffed, my eyes stinging from the phantom welling of tears. But they weren’t so phantom after all, because, impossibly, I felt it when they spilled over and left tracks down my cheeks.

Chance stepped closer, crowding into my space, and cupped my face in his hands.

His thumbs wiped away my tears as he tilted my head up to capture me with his gaze.

A gaze so full of tenderness and brimming with love that I wondered if maybe I hadn’t died the first time.

Maybe I was insane, because no one had ever looked at me the way he was looking at me now.

Like I was his beginning, middle, and end.

‘Don’t cry,’ he whispered, his breath ghosting over my lips. He was so close now that it wouldn’t take much to close the distance between us, to slant my lips over his and seal our words with action. ‘I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, and you’re never leaving me again.’

He said it all with such certainty, like being together was the only option moving forward, that I didn’t have a choice but to believe him.

I studied the grey and green flecks in his ocean-blue eyes, the colours swirling together with his emotions.

I licked my lips, my tongue accidentally brushing against his mouth and giving us both a taste of what we had denied ourselves all this time.

My breath hitched as I watched his pupils dilate until they took up all the colour in his eyes, leaving only a thin ring of dark blue in their wake.

I didn’t know who moved first. Perhaps we had moved together, but there was no longer any space between us. The kiss was barely a touch of our lips at first, testing the waters, allowing the other to change their mind one last time, because once we did this, there was no turning back.

But what started as a tentative brush of our lips quickly deepened, neither one of us capable of holding back for one second longer.

His hands moved from where they cupped my jaw to cradle the back of my head, his fingers tangling in my hair as he held me in place with a firm intensity that belied his fear of what would happen if he let me go.

He didn’t need to fear anything, though.

I was his. No more hiding. No more pretending. I wasn’t going anywhere.

When my arms rose to wrap around his neck, anchoring him to me just as tightly, it broke that last frayed thread keeping our passion contained.

The world around us dissolved until there was nothing but the two of us, our fingers grasping at each other’s hair as we opened our mouths, our tongues meeting for the first taste of forever.