17. Haley
The door creaks, and all my attention focuses on the sound. My body goes so still I can feel my heart beating and hear my pulse. It’s after hours at my office, so there are only a few people who could be walking in.
“Who’s there?” I call, my voice steady.
“It’s me.”
The sound of his voice comforts me. I like knowing that the footsteps approaching belong to him. I like knowing that he came here for me, and nobody stopped him. Nobody can.
I unfold myself from my chair and get to my feet as he comes into view, the lamplight soft on his features. He knows he’s not supposed to be here. We’re not supposed to be seen together really, but I guess since the cops came and saw us it doesn’t matter. We couldn’t stay hidden forever.
“Aden?” I question. Unsure of which personality I’m talking to. Aden or Dean. His dissociative identity disorder was far too easy to diagnose when I found him. It’s fucking shocking the state didn’t diagnose him.
His mouth curves in a crooked smile. “Which do you want?”
“Aden,” I murmur his name and kiss him, needing to stand on my tiptoes. His hands wrap around mine. The gentle side of him. The side who doesn’t know all of what Dean went through. The side that doesn’t remember.
I smile back at him, although my heart pounds. “Is it done?”
The smile dims a little as I wait for his response, but it doesn’t fade completely. “Is what done?” he asks. Aden doesn’t always know. He doesn’t want to and he doesn’t need to. I love them both. I need them both. Even if all of me is irreparably broken and half of him is.
“The list I gave you. The one for him. For Dean?”
“All the names are gone. Or did he add more?”
I hesitate. I always choose my words carefully with all the patients I work with, but I’m the most careful with him. He means too much to me.
I shake my head no. “If they’re all crossed off, there’s no reason to worry.”
“Are you worried, baby?” he asks me with a sad smile.
“The news makes me worry,” I admit to him and he kisses me softly before whispering at my lips, “There’s no reason to worry. He’s been careful. I know he has.”
His eyes go soft. Part of that might be because of the light, but I know it’s also because of how he feels.
He takes a breath. “You stay with me, don’t you? When I’m him.” Aden doesn’t understand everything. But he knows how much I love Dean. I don’t compare the two of them. I love them both more than anything. I need them both too.
“Always,” I promise, looking him in the eye. The eyes really are the windows to the soul. That doesn’t mean it’s always easy to accept what you see when you look. I’ve seen lots of broken souls, hurting from years of abuse and losing hope that they’ll ever feel normal again. “I always stay with you, both sides of you. You know I love all of you.”
He squeezes my hand, a smile returning to his face. This one’s brighter. “Always,” he whispers.
“I love you both always.” I take his other hand in mine and let out a sigh. “But I’d love to confide in Dean now if that’s alright.”
He lets out a quiet laugh. “Do you need to compartmentalize, Doctor?” He smirks a handsome look, but I know he wishes I didn’t need Dean. I know he gets jealous. A part of me loves that. I’m selfish though. In more than one way.
He lets his eyes flutter closed for a few beats, then opens them.
“Dean?”
He doesn’t smile back. “Haley,” he says my name like an apology. I’m quick to kiss him. To hold him the way Aden holds me.
“You okay?” he asks me. It’s the first thing he asked when he saw me. Back when I found him years ago. As if he’d been waiting years to ask me that question.
“It’s been hard on me,” I admit, feeling the tension in my shoulders and back. It tends to sneak up on me. “All of this. You’re doing a better job than I am.”
“No, I’m not.” He kisses my forehead, his lips still slightly cool from the breeze outside. He smells like fresh air and cologne with a very faint undertone of oil from the shop. I also get a whiff of lemon from the soap he likes to scrub his hands with the best. “You’re doing perfectly, my angel.”
His mouth meets mine. I keep trying to decide which kisses I like best. Some days, all I want is something rough and biting so I can have enough sensation to forget. I want him to hurt me just a little to prove that I can handle pain—even enjoy it, if it’s at the right level. Other days, all I want is soft, tender kisses.
He explores my mouth, his hands moving to cup my cheeks, thumbs running gently over my cheekbones. It feels so good to be touched like this. To be treasured above everybody else in the world. A tiny moan escapes me, and he hums back as if he could taste it, and he liked it. His teeth graze my bottom lip, not enough to hurt, and the spark of pleasure shoots down to my core.
The way I feel when I’m with him is like nothing else in the world. I could forget all my plans. Leave those in the past, too. That’s what’s dangerous about him. He makes me want to lock the door behind us and never come out again. I could just let him have his way with me forever.
I get lost in that fantasy for a few minutes. His touch does that to me. It makes me feel like the world could be this gentle, and my life could be this gentle, if I’d only let him take me away.
I kiss him until I have to pull back for breath. His eyes are dark with his blown pupils, and when I run my fingers through his hair he shivers in a way that’s unique to him.
“It’s over now,” he reassures me. “It’ll blow over. They’ll never find out it’s us.”
“Not yet…” I murmur, feeling guilty. I’m the one who made the list. The one who planned it all.
“We aren’t done?” he asks softly, his brow arched.
I whisper back, “There’s one more.”
He blinks, his hand coming to rest on my cheek. He tilts my face up another inch and holds my head still. “Who?” We wrote down every name. Every single person who laid a hand on either of us. They got their punishments that were due.
“My mother. She’s snooping around and she’s seen you. We can’t risk her putting the pieces together. Besides, she was never punished for what she did. We have to do the right thing. We have to punish them.”
He starts to pull away, but I get my hands to his neck and bring him back. “That’s?—”
“Dean, listen to me.” I need this. I don’t want to start off by saying so, but I need to be free of her interference. I need to be free of wondering if it’s her when the door opens. I never want to answer my phone and hear her voice again. I’ve implied that to him before, but there were always other people to worry about first. And if she’s watching us… she could ruin everything.
Now they’re all gone. Everybody’s been crossed off the list but she added her name to the fucking bottom. All she had to do was leave me alone. I would have let her live. But she couldn’t do that.
There were times I thought I could let it go and just forget about her, but that’s not going to be possible. She’s never going to leave me alone. She’ll keep trying to get back into my life until I put a stop to it.
Every person on that list deserved worse than to be killed and forgotten.
My throat closes, and I can’t speak for a minute. Part of me still wishes she would change. I wish she would write to me and tell me how wrong she was for disregarding me.
I’d still want her gone, even if she did that. There are some things you can’t take back.
She can never take this back. And I would do anything for Dean. She should have never laid eyes on him. She’s not worthy of judging him.
It takes a few more beats to steady myself.
I finally tell him, “She deserves it as much as the rest of them do.”
He closes his eyes, his dark lashes coming to rest on his cheeks. I’ll never forget how he looked the first time I saw him, back at school. The warmth I felt when his eyes met mine kept me alive for months after that. It gave me hope even when there was no reason for me to be hopeful.
Somehow, I just knew. Most people would say that you can’t know so much about a person from a single glance. They’re wrong. You can know everything you need to know about that person if the circumstances are just right to let you see .
And I saw him. And he saw me.
I’ll always see him just how he was, and just how he is.
How both of them are.
Dean opens his eyes and strokes my hair again, centering himself. It takes a little longer this time, but finally his fingertips trace my cheekbone and down over my jaw until his hand drops to mine. He twines our fingers together. Whenever he does this, I fall for him all over again. It’s his way of telling me without words that it’s us against the world.
It’ll always be us.
“Is this the last one?”
I step closer, still holding his hand, and kiss him.
“I promise.” Another kiss. I’m sealing my promises with them. They were forbidden for so long, and now that they’re not, I’ll give them whenever I can. “And then we’ll get the happily ever after we should have had.”
“Okay,” he whispers, and presses a final kiss to my forehead. “Did you write me a note?”
I take out my notebook. The time and location are already there on the page. I tear it out, fold it up, and hand it to him. “Leave it in your pocket until he’s ready.”
“I always do.” He traces the note with the pad of his thumb, then slips it into his pocket. His eyes come back to mine with another question. “You won’t leave me, right?”
“I would never leave you. I love you both.”
He looks away. It’s my turn to put my hands on his face so he’ll look at me. I’ll never be able to erase the pain those people caused, but I can do my best to make sure he doesn’t feel like I’ll cause him more.
“We’ve talked about this,” I say gently. “You’re both worthy of love. You’re both worthy of so much love.”
“I’m the one who’s a monster,” he whispers.
“You’re human. Just like me. They broke us, but we survived.” He swallows thickly, the muscles in his neck tightening. “We’re not the same as we were, but we’re healing, and that’s what matters.”
“You think you’ll try to leave if I’m healed? Like if?—”
“That’s not going to happen.” I lean up and kiss his lips. I mean these words with all my heart and all my soul. “I promise. It’s just like I told Dean. You deserve more than me. I love you so much. There’s nothing you could ever do that would make me not love you. I’ll protect you from everything and everyone. I promise.”
He drinks in that promise, whispering some of the words to himself.
“Do you love me too?”
“I only survived because of how much I love you.”
The truth is in his eyes, undeniable and forever. I’ll never have to spend a day without him once all this is over. It’s so close I can almost taste it.
All the people who hurt us, gone for good, and then the rest of our lives.
That future begins here and now.
We start it with a kiss.
Thank you so much for reading However You Want Me, Amelia and I appreciate each and every one of you!
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