Chapter 41 – “Stargirl Interlude” - The Weeknd, Lana Del Rey
VIOLET
“STARGIRL INTERLUDE” - THE WEEKND, LANA DEL REY
Everett
Talked to Dal, and we’re in. Let’s set aside some time to
talk about it more this week.
Thank fucking God. I close Everett’s text and slip my phone back into my pocket before hopping out of the driver’s side of my Bronco and walking around the back to meet Elena at the tailgate.
After the impromptu ash-spreading of my brother on Sunday, and both of our therapy appointments this past week, we’re drained.
Everett, Leo, Elena, and I climbed back up that cliffside in the darkness, soaking wet, and emotionally raw.
We’re still working out where we go from here, because the truth is, healing doesn’t work like time does.
It’s not linear, moving only in one direction, always onward.
The “ball in the box” metaphor surrounding grief is accurate—the ball starts out huge, relentlessly pressing against the sides of the box.
Over time, the ball shrinks, not always hitting the pain button inside the box, but it never disappears entirely.
I think that healing can work much in the same way.
Healing is the free space. At first, it’s nonexistent.
There is only pain. As that ball shrinks, our healed soul fills the space around it.
We never lose the ball, though, and sometimes we press the pain button on purpose, because we know it’s going to create more space for healing in the long run.
We spilled our truths and our lies, and all of us will be better for it eventually, but we also flooded ourselves with pain, and we’ve got to tread through it until we’re standing on solid ground again.
I took some time to myself over the past week to envision the future I want for Elena and myself, and how I want us to keep making as much forward momentum as possible.
I pulled aside Everett this week to float an idea by him, and now that I have confirmation that he and Dahlia are on board, I can run it past Elena too.
Hopefully, everything works out, because I’m already several steps ahead.
“Are we here to stargaze again, Augustus?” Elena asks, smiling mischievously as she leans against the back of my Bronco.
“Not exactly.” I take her hand, pulling her away from my truck and off the gravel lot. The same lot I brought her to a few weeks ago. I walk us to the center of the field behind it. The same place we spent so much of our youth.
“You know, they’re building a neighborhood up here. In a year from now, these will all be houses.”
“I know.” She sighs as I spin her to face the horizon, wrapping my arms around her shoulders and holding her back to my chest. “Even when it belongs to someone else, I’m still going to consider this spot ours.”
The moon reflects on the ocean below us, providing a strip of white light over the rippling water. Vast darkness stretches far beyond it on either side, only the sprinkling of boat lights in the distance, a reflection of the stars sparkling above our heads.
A balmy breeze rushes over our faces, the grass dancing to the music of the palm leaves.
I can see it. Quiet nights. This view. The peaceful silence best accompanied by her soul. What I’ve been searching my entire life for.
“What if it belonged to us instead?”
She tilts her head, glancing up at me with glittering, curious eyes. “What do you mean?”
“What if I told you I just put in an offer for the plot of land we’re standing on right now, we’ll have a house built here, and you get to design it however you’d like?”
She rears back, untangling from my arms, disbelief gracing her features. “Don’t lie.”
“I’m not lying, Little Vice.” I laugh.
“But the house…Zach.”
“I’ve got a buyer.” I smile. “Great couple. They have a preteen and twins on the way, so they’ll make good use of all the extra rooms.”
Her jaw drops, head shaking. “I… I don’t know what to say.”
“Zach wanted that house to be loud and lively and full of family. He loved that house, and it’s why I haven’t been able to let it go, but it’s never felt like mine, and I don’t think we’ll ever be able to make it feel like ours.
” I step into her, grasping her cheeks with both hands and guiding her eyes to mine.
“Now, it can have all of the things he wanted, and it can be filled with people he loved and would’ve loved, and we can have something to call our own. ”
Her long lashes flutter, eyes blinking rapidly as a blazing smile overtakes her face. “Are you being serious right now? We’re going to build a house right here?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “I want nothing more than to spend my whole life loving you in the same place I grew up with you. We don’t need anything else. Just the two of us, and this patch of earth.”
Her hands find the back of my neck, dragging me to her as she kisses me fiercely. Laced with passion and heat, her tongue slips against mine—she tastes like stardust.
“But how?” she asks.
“My mom was the co-signer on the mortgage. I called her last week and asked her to agree to sell to Everett and Dahlia. I also asked her to give me enough for the down payment on this development, until I can pay her back with the equity we make on the other house.”
“I can’t believe she agreed,” Elena whispers.
“Well…” I chuckle, rubbing my jaw. “I may have been a bit manipulative.”
Elena glances up at me with a bemused expression.
“My mom has been calling for weeks. Since that day at the bakery. She claims she wants to apologize, that she wants to sit down with my dad and me to resolve our issues. That she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about what we said about Zach being ashamed of her.”
Elena only raises her brows unconvinced, and I know she’ll likely never forgive or accept my parents. I don’t blame her for it, though.
“I was ignoring her…” I sigh. “I wasn’t ready to address anything with them, but…
I told them I’d come visit them soon if she helped me out with selling the house.
” I press my lips to Elena’s forehead. “I won’t ever be close with my parents, but I don’t want to hate them, either.
So, I’m going to keep trying, and in the meantime…
” I lift my head to gaze at the stars, and Elena follows my line of sight. “At least we’ll get all of this.”
“And a dog,” she whispers, smiling up at me. “I want a dog.”
“You want a dog?” I pull back.
She hauls my lips to hers again. “I want a dog.”
“Okay. I’ll get you a dog.” Anything she wants.
She kisses me once more, and I can feel her smile on my mouth. Slowly, her hands slide down my chest, and when I open my eyes and look down, Elena’s on her knees in front of me.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“You bought me a fucking house, Augustus.” She fumbles with the button on my jeans. “I’m going to suck your dick.”
“Goddamn,” I mutter. “You are a work of art.”
Chocolate eyes lift, giving confirmation to the sentiment.
She’s a fucking vision, dark hair falling down her shoulders, gaze fixed on me as she kisses the tattoo she placed on my hip bone before pulling my cock from my jeans and sticking out her luscious tongue.
She runs it up the length of me, flicking against each of my bars before she swirls around my head and sucks me entirely into her warm and eager mouth.
My head falls back, a moan working from my throat as I knot my fingers in her hair and grip tightly. She bobs on my length, hollowing her cheeks and forcing me deep enough that her throat constricts around my tip, causing her to sputter.
“That’s the prettiest fucking sound, I swear to God,” I mutter through clenched teeth. “My girl’s hot little mouth choking around Daddy’s cock like that. Can you take me deeper, love?”
She moans, the sound vibrating against me and making me tremble.
I inch my hips forward, feeling her jaw drop as she takes me as far as she can go.
Saliva drips out the sides of her mouth and down to my base.
I pulse at the feel of it. Her mouth is warm and soft, her throat tight.
I could come like this, just holding myself inside her.
I retreat. “You’re going to make me come, baby.”
She drives forward, choking on me again as she lets out a moan of protest.
I twist her hair around my fist, pulling tight enough to make her hiss as I pull out of her mouth. I drop to my knees in front of her, slapping her cheek before grasping her jaw and forcing her to look at me. “You’re going to be a good girl and let me come inside your cunt?”
Her tongue darts out between her bottom lip before she slips it between her teeth, sparks lighting in her gaze. “Yes, sir.”
Still holding her hair, I pull, turning her so that she’s in front of me.
Pressing my hand between her shoulder blades, I force her to drop her upper body right into the grass.
I shove her leggings down her hips with my free hand, tangling them at her knees so she’s perfectly restrained.
Her ass is high in the air, legs spread just enough to give me a glimpse of her glistening pussy, even in the dark.
I lean over her, swiping my cock through her slit before positioning myself at her entrance. Pulling her hair to one side, I place my lips against her neck, over the tattoo of my constellation on her neck. “I love you so fucking much, Elena. You know that, right?”
“Yes,” she whimpers.
“Good,” I breathe against her skin. “Because I’m about to fuck you like I hate you.”
I thrust home, sliding inside her easily, filling her entirely.
Her breath hitches when my piercings begin to massage her inner walls as I set a quick, hard pace, moving in and out of her with abandon.
She’s so fucking wet, I can feel it coating me already, the sound of our joining obscene in the quiet darkness.
“My pretty whore,” I rasp, lips grazing the shell of her ear. “All I have to do is promise you gifts and I’ve got you on your knees? Your pussy dripping, begging me to fill her?”
I lift off her, pulling her hair tighter and causing her back to arch. I splay my fingers over the base of her spine, using it as leverage to fuck her harder, hypnotized by the way her flesh ripples with every thrust.
She mewls my name, but it’s not enough, so I smack her ass hard enough to make her tense and hiss, soothing the sting by running a hand over the new tattoo I gave her months ago.
“Louder,” I growl. “I want my name echoing off these cliffs. I want the waves and the moon and the earth itself to know who you belong to.”
“August,” she cries, voice hoarse and strained. She begins pressing back, meeting each one of my thrusts with a hunger of her own. The joining of our bodies mixes with her fierce moans, creating a riveting chord that seems to ricochet off the stars themselves.
“That’s it, baby. Earn it.” I pause, letting her throw her body back on my cock, and the sight is fucking unreal. Flames lick up my spine, and I’m barreling toward a powerful release. “You gonna come for me nice and pretty, Elena?”
I fall forward, spreading my legs and knocking hers together so that my knees rest outside hers. She gasps at the new angle, our bodies flushed so tightly there is no space between us. It’s so deep, incredibly tight. She squeezes around me, and we’re both pulsing—trembling.
Bracing one arm on the ground beside her shoulder, my weight falls atop her, but I know it’s a sensation she savors. I grip her throat with my freehand, rocketing my hips in a riotous rhythm, causing everything around us to blur.
It’s rough. Primal and wild. Even in the midst of our untamed chaos, when I grasp her jaw and tilt her head, forcing her gaze to mine, it’s raw emotion bursting in her eyes—pure love.
A kaleidoscope of brown, mixed with the light of the moon and the stars above my head, reflects back at me through those eyes. In them, I see my addiction. My salvation. My holy vice.
“I love you, Elena.” I lick her mouth, taste her tongue as she opens for me, swallowing my rattled breath with each pump of my hips inside her.
It breaks her. Her restraint ruptures, and her body goes taut, a cry loud enough to rupture stars falls from her lips as release rushes through her. I don’t stop. I don’t slow. I fuck her through it, ride it out with her, until we lose the place where she ends and I begin.
“I…” She whimpers into my mouth, body clenching with every word. “Love you.”
Her love sends me careening over the edge, scattering my soul to the sky, fusing our beings into something beyond bodies—a passion-hazed eternity.
“Augustus,” she breathes, long after we’ve composed ourselves, now lying side-by-side atop the earth that will soon be ours. “Is this our happy ending?”
“No, Little Vice.” I twirl her hair around my finger, studying the stars as she lies on my chest. “It’s the start of our happy beginning.”