I meandered into the living room, aiming for the armchair, but he grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me onto the sofa next to him.
“I cleaned up your disgusting food, you can sit with me.”
I shrugged.
I liked to cuddle.
Curling into his side, I pulled the blanket over my legs.
“House of 1000 Corpses,” I said when he passed over it on the screen.
He laughed. “Seriously?”
“Shut up,” I growled. “And put it on.”
He did.
We finished the entire thing in silence.
Then we watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and ordered pizza.
Somewhere during American Psycho, I wanted to feel something else.
Lifting my head from his chest, I kissed the front of his throat and he groaned when I slid onto his lap.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling on his hair, and kissed him.
It was needy, and before I could really get anywhere, we were moving.
Sitting me on the breakfast bar, he pulled his shirt over his head.
I nipped at his chest and he pulled my hair tie so hard it broke, wet blonde hair falling down my back.
As he grabbed me under my ass, we kissed.
I bit his lip and he slammed me into the wall in the hallway, sending a picture frame to the ground.
My robe came undone and I lost it sometime between the guest room and mine.
We were impatient.
Maverick threw me to the bed.
His hand curled around my throat and I fought against it.
Our mouths were hot.
Our touch was greedy.
He pressed me into the sheets and I clawed at his back.
We didn’t appreciate each other. We consumed each other.
Raw.
Rough.
Animalistic.
Basic instincts.
I knew full well the extent to which women don’t recover from loving a man like Maverick Hart. All consuming lust of savage brutality coming from the strongest of touches, but leaving no survivors in its wake, not even those who beg for mercy in the end.
He was the monster under love’s bed.
And tonight, I fed him.
And me.
The sun poured in my bedroom window.
I rolled over to face the wall.
Something was wrong.
Stretching my hand, I slid it across the mattress and felt nothing.
I was alone.
Opening my eyes, I scanned the room.
No sound of running water.
None of his clothes were on the floor.
He was just gone.
“Fucking motherfucker.” I buried my face into the pillow. “Fuck, shit, fuck, fucking shit.”
I pounded the mattress with my fists and flailed around.
On a good day, I didn’t handle rejection well, but this week, of all weeks, I was raw, and rejection practically tore me in two.
“I’ve never seen a Princess do that.”
I heard him laugh.
Rolling over underneath the blanket, I slowly pulled it down to expose my eyes.
There, fully clothed and wide awake, was Maverick and two coffees the size of my bed.
I stuck one hand out and made grabby fingers.
He walked to the edge of the bed. “You thought I left.”
I didn’t answer, more grabby hands.
He shook his head and sat down next to me.
I pushed up against the headboard, keeping the covers over my chest, and watched him.
“Get dressed,” he demanded. “I put The Shining on.”
I frowned over the rim of my cup. “You’re staying?”
His back was already through the door and he didn’t answer me.
Sliding from the bed, I pulled on a pair of leggings, a sports bra, and an oversized knit before padding into the bathroom and taking care of business.
Maverick stayed for two days.
He didn’t leave, but he didn’t baby me either.
He made me bathe.
He made me order the food, though he answered the door.
He held me when I cried, and he had good taste in gore.
He made me drink water and put my tissues in the trash.
He threw me off the dock as I grieved and forced me to learn to swim in my misery.
I learned to grieve with my head above water.
He was there in case I started to drown, but otherwise, he let me be.
He knew I would adapt, and I did.
Maverick was right. He didn’t cut himself on my broken pieces, and neither did I.
Sunday, April 22nd, 2017
Strip down to the bare bones of your suffering and feel it.
Let the pain ripple through everything that you are. That’s the only way it passes—grief, I mean. If you don’t let it cripple you when it cries out to be heard, you’ll only worsen your fate in time. For grief, like poison, spreads under the skin of the ones left behind, and the longer you wait to let it have you, the more of you it takes. Until finally, when its punishment passes, all that’s left is an echo of the person you were before the cruelty of loss had its way with your soul.
I had been an echo.
In the wake of our family’s tragedy, I neglected to respect my suffering and had lost myself. Now, I was trying to find her again.
Today would be a hard day to do that.
Today was the anniversary of Henry’s death.
I stood facing the spray of my shower, letting it wash away my tears. I’d been awake since two. I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw his lifeless body.
Today was barely a day, and already it was killing me.
“You went away,” I whispered into the water.
My limbs trembled.