“The hell I am–”
“You belong with me!” The scream tears from me before I can stop it. Chaos erupts from hating the blur of failure around me and the uncertainty.
I feel insane. The stress of everything that’s happened is driving me mad and I’m losing the only person who can keep me grounded. I can’t look her in the eyes, knowing how badly I’ve failed her but she makes me, her fingers brushing the underside of my jaw until my gaze lifts to hers.
“I didn’t say that I wasn’t still with you. I didn’t say I don’t belong to you.” She pauses, halting her words and seemingly questioning her last statement.
I won’t allow it. She can’t question that. Above all else, she needs to believe with every fiber in her that she belongs to me.
My fingers splay through her hair as I kiss her. With authority and demanding she feel what I can’t say. She meets every swift stroke of my tongue with her own demands.
Reveling in it, I remind her of what we have.
This won’t come around again. I can feel it in my bones. What we have is something we can’t let go of. I’ve never been surer of anything in my life as I am of this.
It takes her a moment to push me away, with both hands on my chest. It’s a weak gesture, but I give it to her and love how breathless I’ve left her.
Barely breathing, she alternates her stare between my lips and my eyes before nipping my lower lip.
The small action makes me feel like everything will be okay. I’m all too aware that’s exactly what it’s intended to do.
“Come home with me.” It’s not a command; I’m practically begging her.
She doesn’t say no, but she doesn’t say yes either. “You scare me. This,” she says and gestures between the two of us, “scares me.”
“Do you think it doesn’t scare me too? That fear doesn’t have a grip on me sometimes?”
“I didn’t ask for this,” she answers and when she does, her voice cracks, the emotion seeping in.
“I didn’t either, but I’m not afraid to make known what I want. I won’t let fear do that to me.”
“I’m not saying this isn’t what I want. I’m saying I need to breathe for a minute. You need to take me home.”
It’s then that I realize the car has stopped at the fork that determines which way we’ll go.
“Take me home.” Bethany whispers the statement like it’s a plea. Seth waits for my order and when I nod, the car goes right, heading toward her house.
“I’m giving you space, Bethany. But it’s temporary.”
She doesn’t let me off so easily. “Are you willing to tell me whose blood was on my shirt?”
I shake my head, but offer her a question in its place. “Are you willing to seriously consider my offer?”
“Offer?” The fact that she’s forgotten so easily hurts more than I’ll ever admit.
“Marry me.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Say yes.” Neither of us budge, neither of us give anything more than the gentle touch of our fingers meeting on the leather seats.
“When I marry someone, it will be because I never want to be away from them. Not because I involved myself with someone who doesn’t trust me, who keeps secrets from me. Someone I know I shouldn’t be with and who’s giving me every reason to run.”
I can’t come up with an answer. I have nothing. Words never fail me like this.
“Everyone’s entitled to a moment. But if you’re going to keep it to yourself, prepare to be by yourself.”
All I can give her is a singular truth as the car slows to a stop in front of her house. “I won’t be by myself for long, Bethany.”
“You will if you don’t figure out how to answer my questions, Jase. I’m not in the habit of helping those who don’t want to help themselves.”
Bethany
The Coverless Book
Twentieth Chapter
Jake’s perspective
“She’s a healer. She’ll help you get better.”
“I’m fine, Jake,” Emmy pleads with me. I know she’s scared to be in the woods searching out a woman some call a witch, but I won’t let her die.
Staring at the dried herbs that hang from a line outside the leather tent, Emmy hesitates. “It’s nearly twice a week,” I tell her and my fingers slip through hers. She’s lost weight and she looks so much paler than she did nearly a month ago when we ran away.
“The farmer’s sister is nice, they’re all nice, but she’s not helping you.”
We’ve been staying in a small cabin on the back of a farm in exchange for labor. It would be perfect this way… if Emmy didn’t get sick and spit up blood so often.
“Please. Do it for me.”
Her eyes are what draw me to her. She can’t hide a single thought or feeling. They all flicker and brighten within her gaze. Her lips part just slightly but before she can kiss me or I can kiss her, a feminine voice calls out to our right, “Are you ready?”