Chapter 12
TWELVE
NASH
We both passed out. The exhaustion was too much and pulled us both back to sleep. I don’t know what I thought dehydration would be like, but it wasn’t this. The dizziness is unbearable. The closest thing I can compare it to is when you finally get home from the club plastered and go to lie down, and the whole world is spinning. My head is swimming.
Then the exhaustion…
I don’t want to close my eyes; it only makes the dizziness worse, but my body reaches the point where it can’t fight it anymore. We’ve gone through that cycle too many times to count, and watching Ellie fight through it is an imaginary twist to the knife in my stomach.
I say her name, but nothing comes out of my mouth. Fuck, my voice is gone. Crawling across the sandy floor and sitting beside her, I place my hand on her thigh, simply not having the energy to touch her face to wake her up.
? * Finally getting my voice to work, I manage to say, “Elle…”
I’m hit with silence.
My heart starts to beat double-time, reaching up to feel her pulse. Thankfully I’m met with her artery thumping against my fingers, but not as strong as I would like. Maybe she’s in one of the wild-ass dreams that I’ve been having too. Every time sleep pulls me in, my mind is racing. If I’m not in some adventure or nightmare, I’m in between the three of them, fucking one of them or getting fucked. I truly wouldn’t mind staying in that world, but I always wake up right before I’m about to come.
Probably because my body couldn’t come if it wanted to right now; my body feels like a shriveled-up prune.
I move my hand up her neck, cupping her cheek and whispering, “Elle, Mi Amor. I don’t know how long we have, and I’m sorry I couldn’t get us out of here…” I lean my head over onto her shoulder, too exhausted to hold it up anymore, and confess, “I’ve never loved a partner, and I don’t know if this is just some kind of sick obsession… but I love you, Ellie Dixon.”
I’m not dying before she hears those three little words come out of me, even if she’s soundly sleeping.
I know that psyche of hers heard it.
* ? DIE FOR ME - Chase Atlantic