Chapter 35 - Marco #2
He paused. “Because I was scared of what I felt for you. But then I saw you again.” Right, on the rooftop that was our second meeting.
And I tried to stay away.” His voice kept cracking and I hated it.
I wanted to take his pain away. “I really tried. I don’t know why.
Because I was scared of what I felt. Scared of what power you had over me. ”
His hands tightened on the ribbon.
The fabric stretched between his fingers. “So I tried to stay away,” he repeated. “But I know you were stressed. I know you were scared because you could feel me from the shadows. I know you were trembling every day.”
It was true.
I had been trembling every day.
For a year. An entire year of feeling watched, of sensing him at the edges of my vision, of the persistent awareness that something was there, something was watching, something was waiting.
“That must have made your heart hurt, didn’t it?” There was so much guilt behind that tone. “That must have made you in pain. Did you have panic attacks because of me?”
I was trembling while he kept talking and I kept listening. “I think you did,” he said, before I could answer. “But it didn’t stop there, right?”
I could only sit there and watch him take himself apart, piece by piece.
“I couldn’t stay away, and then I touched you. And I became impulsive, and I started controlling you, and forcing myself into your presence. I started forcing everything.”
He was listing crimes against himself. “I left blood on your drawings.” He shook his head. “That must have made you feel bad. You don’t like blood. Your heart must have hurt when you saw it.”
It had.
Finding evidence of him on the pages where I had drawn him, the places where my private obsession had been marked with his actual, physical presence left me terrified.
Which did give me a few panic attacks, but I got those all of my life for different reasons. He couldn’t possibly blame himself for this.
“So I do fucking owe you everything,” he kept going and I wish he would stop. I don’t want him to blame himself any longer. Our start was rough, sure, but he isn’t the cause why my heart is failing.
“Because I participated in this. I helped it get worse. I could have found you when you were younger and helped you. I didn’t. I could have stayed away and not made you feel so stressed all the time, but I didn’t do that either.”
He was breathing harder now.
“And I kept avoiding the fact you’re sick, even though I fucking knew. I fucking knew something was wrong. But I convinced myself I was wrong. That you healed. That what you had as a kid was nothing more than something temporary.”
He fell to his knees. “So Marco, please. Just take it, okay? If my heart is good enough to fit in your chest, just let me give it to you. Just…” He was on his knees. Pleading. “I’m begging you, don’t leave me okay? You are all I have.”
The man who had never begged in his life. The man who had never knelt in his life only to end up here, on the floor, in front of a dying boy, offering the only thing he had left to give.
His heart.
His life.
Himself.
“Please,” he said again, and the word was barely a sound. When he looked up at me, his green eyes were destroyed.
The ribbon was pressed against his chest, clutched in both fists like something he was trying to push back inside himself, like he was trying to return it to the place where it had lived for years - close to his heart, held against his ribs, the only proof that he had ever felt anything at all.
Every step was a negotiation with a frame that no longer cooperated, but I crossed the small distance between the chair and the floor where he knelt, until I was standing in front of him, looking down at the top of his dark head.
I put my hands in his hair.
My fingers slid through the dark strands and I felt the tension drain out of him, his head tilting into my hands, his whole body leaning toward me.
“Look at me, baby.”
His head stayed down and his shoulders stayed hunched so I brought my hand under his chin and I lifted his face, making him meet my eyes.
“You are the greatest, and best thing that has ever happened to me.”
My voice was shaky these days but right now my words came out steady.
“My heart has always been wrong. You didn’t make it wrong.”
He tried to look away but I didn’t let him.
“You didn’t worsen it. You made it better.”
His breath was heavy and I sighed. “Alexei, your heart is so precious to me.”
I caressed his face softly. “I forever want to keep it safe.”
His hands tightened on the ribbon and I lowered myself then I put my fingers at the corners of his mouth.
Both sides. One finger at each corner, pressing gently upward, and I lifted his lips into a smile.
“Your smile and your heart are my sole purpose.”
His breath caught and he seemed to want to say something but I kept going. “I don’t want to take either from you.” I let my hands fall from his mouth.
My fingers moved across his cheekbone, his jaw, the line of his temple where the scar lived. “You have to promise me you won’t do something stupid like that. Okay, amore?”
I had been meaning to call him that for some time now. I held back but now I wanted him to know he is my love.
“Don’t play with my heart like that, and I’m referring to the one in your chest.” I pressed my hand flat against the place where his heart lived, where it beat strong and reliable in a way mine no longer did.
“Because it belongs to me so let it stay right there,” I said, my hand pressing against his chest, feeling the beat under my palm. “Let it beat for me, okay?”
I gave him a smile. “You have to promise me, you won’t even think of those tests anymore. Positive or negative, okay?”
I watched the desperation, sadness, and the love collide in his expression, all of them fighting for space, none of them winning. “No,” he shook his head. “Marco, please…”
“Promise me.”
He shook his head again and I brought his head to my chest.
I pulled him forward and I pressed his face against the place where my heart lived - the failing one - and I kissed his head.
My lips pressed against his dark hair and held him.
He whispered it. “I promise.”
Your heart for mine—
what a cruel little exchange.
How could I take your heart
knowing the earth would take you in return?
I would rather let mine turn to ash
than live beneath a sky
that no longer has you in it.