Chapter Eighteen #3
My laugh is no more than a huffing of air, but the lack of sound is pittance for the blessing of being able to breathe at all. Being able to draw in enough air to make my lungs burn, to hold it in until I am red in the face and Azizi is struggling not to laugh in return.
“Yes, enough, darling. Let’s not kill our little poet by denying him air.
” But there is laughter tripping alongside her words and she is smiling so beautifully that I cannot help it when Theodore’s heart gives a mighty throb in our chest. And isn’t that a wonderful thing? To feel my heart beat again?
You look at us sometimes like it hurts. Like every time Azizi and I touch each other, your heart breaks even more.
Helpless in the pitching ocean of feelings swirling through me, I reach for her like a ship to a lighthouse, anchor my fingers in the carefully pinned pleats of her hair, and I kiss her.
I have no memory of what a kiss was like before this, but I cannot imagine it could have possibly been better. Azizi laughs against Theodore's mouth, patient with my fumbling and lack of grace. She humors me before she takes his head in her hands and guides me into something deeper and slower.
There is something smokey and earthy in her taste, a little bit salty and sharp, almost sweet, but not quite.
Theodore's monster putters around inside me, and I realize the taste is blood, such a constant in her diet that there is no reason for her to taste of anything else.
I should be disgusted by this, but I chase after it all the same.
Perhaps it is Theodore's monster, or perhaps it is my own craving for the experience, for the chance of knowing. I do not care which.
I lean forward until I am practically on my knees before her, licking into her mouth as if I might be able to fall into her completely.
But this body still needs air, even if Azizi’s does not, and once my lungs begin to burn and my chest begins to ache, I am forced to pull away for a gasping breath.
Azizi’s eyes are wide with desire, and her lips part with a smile of her own as she plants another kiss to my lips.
This one gentler, achingly so, and she allows me to follow after it with a few more excited pecks before pulling away completely.
For a moment, I consider chasing after her anyway—I want to keep kissing her, keep touching her—but there is a playful warning in her eyes as she places her hands on Theodore’s shoulders, so I settle back on my bottom in assent as she looks at me, takes me in.
I wonder what she sees.
Theodore’s face, of course. His messy curls and his big autumn eyes. But can she see me? Can she recognize the shape of me inside Theodore’s skin? Can she see me pressing up against it, threatening to spill out as I gorge myself on every touch and taste and sensation I am allowed?
Her fingers trace the bags beneath Theodore’s eyes that never seem to disappear, and a smile settles on her lips when she cradles his chin in the cup of her hand.
“There you are, petal.”
Theodore's heart skips another beat at the softness of her words, and I think about asking if it is normal. If it is safe. I open his mouth to speak, knowing he has a voice with which to use, but nothing comes out.
It hurts a bit—knowing that I am given this body to experience, and still I cannot express the gratitude I have in receiving it.
I want to tell her how much it means that she has seen me.
How much it means that she and Theodore have filled the hollow tomb my home had become with something closer to life. Closer to love.
I want to tell her—
"It's alright," she assures me, and she presses a finger to his lips when I try again, only for a cracked sort of sound to escape. She guides me into another kiss before saying, "You do not need a voice for me to hear you, dearest Kolfina. I hear you already."
Tears spill from Theodore's eyes once again, and my vision swims. I gasp for air when I realize I have not been breathing, and I cling desperately to the hand she cradles against my cheek.
Please let this be real. I don't know who I am begging to, but I send the plea out regardless. Please do not take this from me.
"Come now, we should not let you linger too long on this first try," Azizi says with a gentle kiss to Theodore's forehead. "We've no idea the effect this will have on our Theodore, so let us spend our time wisely."
I might have argued that this is spending the time wisely. That I would spend eternity in her grasp and never again know a moment of sadness. But Azizi is a stubborn and dominant creature, so I allow her to pull away.
She turns on the bench to face the piano again, flipping the pages of my manuscript back to the beginning where we started all those weeks ago.
"I would like to hear it played by the heart that wrote it," she says when my breath hitches again. "If you don't mind playing it for me, of course."
I never dreamed of being given any of this back again.
Of being given my senses, of being given kisses and affection.
But if there was the one thing I knew I would never ever have again, it was my music.
Even now still, my voice is trapped at the bottom of the ocean.
My words sprinkled across the brine and the sand, and I can only be grateful that I do not spill seawater from Theodore's lungs when I have tried to speak.
My piano feels like home beneath Theodore's fingers. The first few notes like hesitant breaths of fresh air.
And like the namesake Azizi chose for me suggests, I feel myself bloom in the radiance of her attention. Feel something inside me that long ago curled up to wither away alone, now spread its wings and begin to breathe again.