31. Nate
If you’d told me that this was how the night was going to end, I would have said… well,nothing to you, probably. Then, once you’d left, I would have laughed to myself, realising that the likelihood of this happening would have been useless even overthinking.
The way Addy”s fingers danced over the muscles in my neck forced me out of my thoughtsand back into the elevator, leading to the room I’d checked into that morning. Our mouths hadn’t left each other for a while now, reality a distant memory and something I didn’t want to remember. Not when her body was pressed against mine, the swell of her breasts lighting my chest on fire in a way that made all my senses burn.
As her arms wrapped around my neck, I let my hands fall to her waist, her dressscrunching under my grip. The way her skin felt under my touch upset my balance, the nearness of her, of what we’d never done before, made my heart hammer between us.
In the moments when we remembered to breathe, I hovered my mouth over hers for asecond longer, shaking my head against hers as I breathed,“Adaline Moore, you are—”
“What?” she breathed against my lips, the word spiralling to my soul.
Another part of me ached at how low and commanding her voice was, that primal surgeunearthing the daydreams I’d had about this moment.
I dropped my head, a smile I only let her see spreading across my face, before meetingher sultry eyes. “Mine.”
And before she could say anything else, I crashed my mouth onto hers, the ding of theelevator forcing my steps to move us backwards into the room. And she followed.
Somehow we’d made it through the drive home without a hitch, the roof of theconvertible I’d rented down, the star-dusted sky watching us as my hand remained on her thigh, her hands coursing through my hair, holding the back of my neck. I don’t think I wanted to question whether this was the right thing to do, and I got the feeling that neither did she.
We were ignorant of our past. As though it had never happened.
The end table colliding with the backs of my legs thrusts me back into the moment, theinside of the room now nearly as dark as what lay beyond the windows. Part of me wanted to find a lamp to switch on, to see every part of her, see how unravelled she could become. Remember every detail of what was happening, in case I woke up tomorrow morning and had to guess whether I’d dreamt the whole thing.
But part of me wondered whether the dim glow from the hotel lamp would shine lightonto everything that we kept unspoken. Everything that needed to be addressed before we undressed each other.
I swept her legs, weightless, up in my arms until they were wrapped around my torso,walking her until her back met the wall. Her hands fell down the muscles of my back, clawing until my shirt was practically over my head. I tugged the thing off and cast it to the floor, enjoying the way Addy’s eyes drank me up, in a way they never had before.
“Eyes on me, Firefly.” I reminded her, and with a delicate tug of her chin, her mouthcrashed back onto mine, each swipe of her tongue like striking a match, igniting something that had never had a chance to be lit.
I dropped my hands to the curve of her ass, barely gripping it before those wantingbreaths laboured through her.
There had always been something about Addy, something that I’d always foundattractive. The combination of her features and the soul that lay beneath her curves was what drew me to her, what made the rope I felt synched around my waist drag me to her, as though not a force on earth could separate us.
The way her soft curves contoured my body was proof enough that we were made foreach other. It was proof that this must have been right. How could something feel so fucking good if it was never meant to happen?
As though she could hear my thoughts, her head pulled back, her eyes doing that thingwhere they asked me everything she didn’t have the voice for.
Do you want this? Her fiery stare asked.
I’ve never wanted anything more. My eyes replied, holding hers before dippingto her swollen lips.
My mouth was back on hers in a heartbeat, as I pulled her away from the wall and placedher in the centre of the bed. Her legs still clung around my waist, allowing my body to mould over hers, her hands raking through my hair as we fell deeper into each other.
Her gasps and breaths mingled with mine as our mouths reacquainted, those subtle moanslike siren calls. I loved kissing her. I loved the familiarity of it all. My mind ticked back to the first time I kissed her, how I remembered the way it always felt like her mouth was hung open into a smile when she kissed me.
Thinking about that evening made me smile too, and I knew she could feel it against herlips.
I felt her head pull back when she noticed it. “What are you smiling at?” she asked methrough bated breaths, her hands tracing the lines on my chest.
I let a laugh flow in the space between us. “I think I’m trying to convince myselfthat this is really happening.” I kiss her again, my hands raking past her jaw and gripping the base of her neck. “And I’m remembering how right it felt.”
“The kiss in your apartment?” She questioned, pulling her head back to see me, ourmouths barely brushing.
I met those candle flame eyes, before shaking my head. “How right this felt when I kissedyou for the first time. How I knew… how I always knew that this was it for me. You were it.”
“And is that a good thing? Me being it?”
I nodded, brushing our noses as I leaned down to reach her. “You are everything good in thisworld, Adaline. And the fact that you’re here with me right now, after everything…” I pecked her lips once more, before locking the eyes I’d fallen in love with more than a decade ago. “I’ve never felt calmer.”
Her eyelids batted, like my words had a physical effect on her. I didn’t know whether thatwas a good or a bad thing as she pushed her hands against my chest, my body straightening as she sat up. Her eyes held me like her hands had, solid and warm and stable. All the things she made me feel without realising it.
Then she looked around, for what I wasn’t sure, until she made a beeline for the lamp bythe bed, flipping the switch and illuminating the room.
“Sit.” she instructed softly, pointing to the bed. I did as she said, as she sat across fromme on the pristine white sheets, her legs crossed underneath as she tucked her loose curls behind her ears.
A soft inhale broke the silence, before she looked at me, her hands lacing through mine,and said, “No more secrets.” her head fell forward before cranking back up. “Before this goes any further, before we…”
I held her eyes as she whispered. “This ends tonight. All of this. Everything we won’tsay to each other. It stops, right now.” Another inhale. “Because I think I’ve finally released how much I missed having my best friend in my life, how much I missed having you fill my days, all the quiet moments.” her pulse pounded through my hand as she barely whispered, “I missed you, Nate.”
It felt as though the castle walls I’d built to keep her out, built to forget Adaline Moore and the love I had for her, crumbled brick by brick as I cupped her jaw and whispered, “I miss you.”
She nods, a glimmer of a smile gracing her lips. A smile of relief. “So, no more secrets.Okay?”
I nod back at her. “Okay.”
Her hands drop mine as she says, “You start.”
“What do you want to know first?”
“Everything.” She sucked in a breath, readying herself. “I want to know everything.”
I chuckle. “Well, that narrows it down—”
“Sunfall,” she says, her face graced with a whisper of a smile. But her eyes held nohumour at all. Instead, they told the story of a girl who’d waited far too long for the truth. “I want to know why you never came back for me.”
I ran a hand over my stubble, a groan slipping out from my lips that I could still feel heron, before meeting her eyes again.
Here goes nothing.
“I did come back for you.”
It was awful how I felt her fear. How I felt the way her stomach dropped. How I felt hermapping out the truth behind my words. All the while, her mouth began to gape, and her brows became threaded with questions.
But the way her eyes welled up almost instantly was what broke my heart.
“Wha… what do you…” She shook her head. “What?”
My head fell forward in a nod. “I came back for you, the day we promised to see eachother again.” My eyes held hers as an ocean of tears perched on her lash line. “That was how I had a copy of the last book you wrote before we never saw each other again.”
“You came back?” I nod. “Well, why… why didn’t you—”
I shook my head at her. “No… this is the part where you tell me your secrets, Addy.” Hereyes grew wide again. “This is the part where you stop lying about you and Asher.”
Part of me felt gutted, by the way she pulled her head back, a smile like she didn’tknow what else to do except laugh at what I’d said spreading across her face. “Me and Asher? What are you talking about?”
My head fell backwards, a groan I’d kept trapped since the moment I found the Polaroidof those two erupting out of me. “Addy, stop it. You just said you didn’t want any more secrets. That you wanted to know everything.”
“Yeah…”
Sarcasm pulled my head back. “Well, excuse me for thinking you would do the same.That you’d finally stop denying that you cheated on me with Asher. Which, by the way, I don’t even know why you keep denying, seeing as though I have the evidence to back it up.”
“Woah WHAT? Are you kidding me?” She stretched her legs out from under her andclimbed off the bed. “Just, rewind a second. Let me get this straight.”
She did a little spin with her steps, as though clearing her mind for the fucked-up timelineI’d just laid out for her.
“So, the day you promised to meet me, and never showed up, you actually did show up.But you didn’t meet me because… you found something that proves I was cheating on you with Asher.” I just nod at her. “Asher Hartford, I’m assuming?”
My neck rolls, as do my eyes. But before I can say anything, she beats me to it.
“No, hang on. I’m not finished… so where did you find this—” She raises her hand toair quote the word, “—proof.” Which pisses me off.
I let out a sigh, stretching up to stand too. “I found it a few weeks before I left for college. It fell out of your bag one day when we were at the pier. That was why I went back that day, I went over to your house to find the Polaroid of you two, I don’t know why, but I thought having it with me would stop me from falling back in love with you. That didn’t happen, by the way. I still love you just as much as the day I met you. And that also explains why I had a copy of your last book, because I stole it when I stole the Polaroid—”
“Stop talking.”
Deathly still. If you asked me to describe how her words felt, how she looked when Iclosed my mouth and gazed at her… that was how I’d describe her. The fire had died in her eyes, like someone had drank the very last drop of her soul, leaving nothing but a grey and lifeless vessel behind.
The Ghost of Fire. That was how she looked.
“What? What did I say—”
“Nate,” She brought a hand to her mouth, like my name almost made her nauseous. “Tellme again.” She finally looked at me. “Say it again, why you came back for this Polaroid.”
I shook my head slightly, not taking my eyes off of hers. “To remind myself of how yougave up on us, how you lied to me, how you promised that you hated Asher and then someone had a photo in your bag of you kissing him—”
“Oh God.” Her back arched forward, a hand resting on her bent knees. Maybe she reallywas nauseous.
“Addy, what? What is it?” The signature erratic thumping of my chest was kickstartedthen, by the sight of her hunched over and pale. “Hey, hey, hey look at me. Look at me, Add’s.” I urged as I reached her, both palms cupping her cold cheeks. But they didn’t stay there for long though, as she pulled herself away from me.
“You never watched it… did you?” It wasn’t a question, but I still took it as one. Butbefore I could say anything, her mouth was spitting fire again. “You never watched that fucking movie. Mine and Ashers.”
I pulled my head back. “Why would I want to watch a movie with you and—”
“That’s why you hate him. Hated him. Because you thought…” She went quiet again, andI could practically see the cogs turning in her mind, before her eyes darted across the room, scanning every corner.
Before I could ask what she was doing as she darted across the room, she reached for theTV remote that was neatly placed on the dresser, the home page on the screen brightening the room with a harsh synthetic glow.
“Addy, what are you doing?” I asked, but I may as well have asked the question to thewall, it would have given me more of a response than Addy. She was scrolling, searching, practically shaking as she stood there flicking through the apps on the TV.
It was only when I felt her sigh, one of relief, and when I lifted my eyes to the TV screenand saw her select her movie with Asher on some streaming sight, that my heart rate picked up, my hands went clammy and suddenly the penthouse felt like the smallest room to exist.
She skipped through the movie when the opening score started to play, flashes of teenageAddy and Asher blurred the screen. I wanted to look away.
I suppose it had been a pride thing when the movie came out and I refused to watch it. Ididn’t want to be transported back to that time in my life. I didn’t want the memory of what happened to control me, my life. Looking back I think it always did, obviously, but what had I—
My thoughts died as I felt Addy turn around, felt her eyes on me, over me.
“Is this punishment? For lying to you?” I asked her, pointing at the frozen image of herand Asher.
She sucked in a breath, still and quiet. Controlled. Before she brought her now glassyeyes to mine. ”I… I don”t know what to…” The pain in her voice was enough for me to reach for her, and graze her arm before she pulled it back.
“I cannot believe I wasted seven years of my life… still loving someone who jumped so farto their own conclusions. Seven years gone over something that never…” My hands ached with the urge to wipe the tears that were falling off her face, dragging her away from anything that hurt her.
I was beginning to wonder whether that meant ridding her of me.
She shoved the remote into my chest, before storming around me and heading for thedoor. My eyes fell to my chest, the remote in my hands, before turning around to see her already by the door.
“Addy—”
“I don’t think I ever stopped loving you, Nate. Even after everything, every look, everysilent conversation… I always knew my heart belonged to you.” She stole a breath, and shrugged, the sudden movement shaking free a tear that slipped down her cheek. “But we”ve done this dance for so long, Nate, that I”m beginning to wonder whether we were fucked from the start. Whether we were just a lesson.” Her cry weaved through her words. ”How many times will we nearly make it? How many times will we nearly surrender to the truth before something else is thrown our way? I mean… have we been so stupid, trying to fight for something that was fucked all along?”
”No, Addy—”
”Don”t.” Her eyes, no fire to be seen in them, found their way to me. ”Don”t try and say I”m not right.”
Her chest rose and fell at a speed that made the ghost of panic dig its claws into my back, pinning me down. She gained control over them shortly, enough for her spine to straighten and the realisations splash across her face. I couldn”t move as her lips pried open and she whispered, ”I can”t be here.”
And with that, she slammed the door, the notion rattling the lamps and furniture in itspath. I don’t know how long I stood there, replaying every second of what had just happened.
The play button was taunting me, until I realised how pathetic that sounded in my headand I pressed the damned thing, the music from the montage that was playing making the silence flee.
I took a seat on the edge of the bed, my eyes glued to the blur of auburn and blonde andsmiles and laughs and everything else the directors thought to squeeze into the montage. Until the music died down and Addy and Asher were on a beach, somewhere I presumed was near where her parent’s house was, just from how the cliffside looked, whereabouts the sun was balancing on the horizon.
The laughs stopped, and the looks between them went still. And what happened nextmade me feel hollow, like it was my turn for my soul to leave my body, leaving me a shell of the man I was just a second ago.
“Oh, fuck.” Slipped out of my already parted mouth, none of the adrenalin that wascoursing through my body backing those words at all.
It was the reaction to seeing Asher’s character whip out a Polaroid camera that causedthem. It was the result of seeing their bodies morph into the pose I’d had engraved in every corner of my mind that made me stand up. It was the way I watched their mouths crash into each other, how I’d imagined the Polaroid would have looked if I could press play, turn it into a moving memory.
It wasn’t real. The kiss. It was… pretend.
My knees grew weak at the realisation. My head was spinning with all the answers I’dbeen searching for since the moment I found it. My eyes stayed glued to the TV screen as the photo fell from the camera and onto the sand, the coastal air sweeping it away, coursing a squeal from Addy as they both chased it down the sandbank, the camera panning upwards the sunset before fading to black.
I felt like my life was fading to black right now. I felt so sunken, dead. I was dangerously closeto the end and I didn’t know what to do with myself. It took me longer than I would have liked to realise this was the worst panic attack I’d ever sat through. One that I had to go through alone, in a room that was getting smaller by the second.
I went back into survival mode.
Breathe in.
Hold
Think of Addy—
No. No. No.
Thinking of her only projected what I’d just watched and replayed in my mind.
It wasn’t working. Why wasn’t she helping?
I tried again.
Breath in.
Hold
Addy—
Fuck! Fuck! No!
My hands held my head, and I dropped to my knees, before curling them up to my chestand sobbing like I never had before. My breaths not really breaths at all. Instead, they were gasps with nothing to back them.
I couldn’t feel my heart, and yet I’d never felt it beat this hard before.
I’d been wrong. I’d been wrong about everything. She never gave up on me. Never liedto me. Never stopped loving me. I was wrong. I’d messed up on a global scale. I was an idiot, who never deserved an ounce of love that she’d willingly given to me, after everything I’d put her through.
She was right. Maybe we were doomed from the start. I’d wasted so many years of what we could have been. And for what? I’d wastedcountless minutes. Millions of hours that could have been spent figuring out the world together. I’d wasted years hating her for something she never did. I’d fucked up.
And now I’d lost her.
I’d lost Adaline Moore.
She wasn’t mine. She deserved so much more than what I’d given her; seven years ofhatred… hatred that she didn’t do a thing to deserve.
I didn’t know what else to do as sleep captured me, dragging me into the darkness as myheart slowed down, my sobs became silent, and my world became bleak. Lifeless.
Every ember of fire had left my life, the one that had kept me warm, even when it shouldhave burned me alive.