His eyes are glassy and shiny by the time he finishes and I’m a mess too.
I think my eyes reflect the same glow. The same brightness.
I think my heart is beating just as fast as his when I blurt out on a thready whisper, “I know what it means. I know why.”
His nostrils flare, his eyes sharp. “Why?”
I let go of the desk then.
I unclench my fingers from around the wood and bring my hands up. I put them both on his chest, flat and splayed.
And he shudders.
Violently.
I think he even rips the pages he was tormenting. I hear the sound and it echoes in my stomach.
In all the places that were left hollow in my body ever since the night when the cold and brutal snow came to the earth.
“The fact that you write letters to me every night. The fact that you stole and that you hurt when I hurt. The reason that I haunt you is because you haunt me too. You’ve been haunting me for eight years. And it only means one thing.”
Finally, he brings his hands away from the desk too and puts them on my face. He cradles my cheeks and tilts my neck up. “Say it.”
I blink.
I take a deep breath and fist his t-shirt, before I reply, “It means that you love me.”
Again, a shudder goes through him.
But this one is even more violent. It’s an earthquake.
His whole body shakes. His eyelids flutter. His grip flexes.
It’s like an explosion inside his body.
The fall of a mountain inside his chest. The fall of a bridge, a building inside his gut.
The fall of him.
But it’s okay because I’m here to catch him.
I’m here.
“I was wrong the first time,” he whispers, his fingers burying themselves in my hair. “I was wrong. I didn’t know for eight years. I didn’t want to be wrong again. I didn’t want –”
I shake my head, my heart writhing inside my chest. “You’re not wrong. You’re not. This is what it feels like.”
His lips part and a breath escapes him, loosening up his body and fanning over my lips, hot and sweet. “This is what it feels like.”
“Yeah. You love me.”
“I love you,” he whispers, as if testing the words in his mouth.
I think he likes them, the taste of them.
Because he says it again and he says it strongly, with his possessive, needy fingers twisting in my hair. “I fucking love you, Salem.”
That’s when it hits me.
It hits me right in the center of my chest.
He loves me.
Arrow loves me.
That’s why he’s been writing me letters. That’s why he hasn’t left. That’s why.
Because he loves me.
Because I make him want.
Because I want…
Because I’m the girl for him.
“You love me,” I whisper again, my eyes getting blurry, a smile trembling on my lips.
His jaw clenches for a second before he whispers gutturally, “I know I hurt you, Salem. I know that. I know I don’t deserve you. You were right to send me away at the hospital. You were right to scream at me and hit me and… I’m rude and uptight. I have so many rules. I could be so focused and self-centered. So emotionally stunted. I have this sickness, this need to be perfect all the time and it can consume me. But I’ll do everything in my power, every fucking thing in my power, to make you happy. You said that to me, remember?”
“Yes.”
His eyes bore into mine. “Now, I’m saying it to you. I’ll do everything I can to make you happy. I’ll tear my heart out and throw it at your feet if I have to. Because it’s yours. My heart that I thought I’d killed is yours. It beats for you, Salem. Like a crazy fucking maniac that doesn’t know when to quit. And if you want, you can stomp on it and set it on fire and stab it with a knife. You can do whatever you want to it, it will still be alive. It will still beat for you. Just give me—”
“I won’t,” I whisper and he freezes.
It’s okay though.
It’s okay because I’m about to tell him as well.
All the things.
All the pretty, lovely things.
“I won’t stomp on it.” I lean my body against his, giving him my softness, and he grabs onto it. “I can’t. Because you’re that guy for me too. You’ve always been that guy for me, Arrow.”
“What guy?” he rasps and I hear the sweet tinkling of hope in it.
“The one who makes me feel warm,” I reply, hardly believing that I get to tell him, hardly believing that he loves me. “The one who protects me and takes me out on rides. Who buys me ice cream and complains about my chick flicks but still watches them with me, who makes all the rules that I love to break. You’re the guy who gave me this.” I fish out the chain from under my sweater and show it to him. “I put it on the day you gave it to me. I’ve had it on for two weeks now.”