“No.”
Pike walks over to me and crawls onto the bed, sitting on the other side of me, across from Declan.
“No!” I repeat fervently as I feel the fibers of my soul shredding apart.
“You can’t keep hanging on to me like this.”
“But I need you.”
“I can’t let you do this to yourself anymore,” Declan says, and when I look back to him, I cry, “But I need him.”
“And I need you. You have to let him go,” he insists. “You have to take your pills and get better.”
I turn to Pike again, and when I do, Declan adds on a severed voice, “As much as you need him, I need you more.”
“I don’t want to lose you, Pike.”
“It’ll be okay.”
“It’s not okay. None of this is okay.”
“It’s time to let me go.”
His request burns pieces of my heart into ash. I can feel it—scorching hot and blistering inside me, and I can’t seem to cry hard enough to temper the flames. How do I let go when I don’t know a day of survival without him?
“Don’t leave me!” I sob frantically.
“Baby, this is killing me to see you like this,” Declan says, breaking by my side.
“Say goodbye to me, Elizabeth.”
My face crumples as the agony of losing my brother for good strangles my heart, paralyzing the ventricles. Tears force their way down my cheeks, cutting me like shards of ice.
“Don’t leave me.”
“You’re the best sister anyone could ever have, and I was so lucky that you were mine.”
“Don’t you dare say your goodbyes, Pike.”
“Look at Declan. Look at what we’re doing to him.”
I turn to my other side and see Declan’s head in his one hand while his other is holding on to me, and he’s crying.
Oh, my God, he’s crying.
“Declan, please don’t cr—”
“I need you,” he beseeches desperately.
“We can’t continue this.”
I watch as tears fall down Declan’s face, and it’s a punch to my gut to see how much pain he’s in. A man who never cracks is now crumbling before me—because of me. Every tear of his is a fissure in my breaking heart, cutting its way deeper into the delicate tissues.
I can’t do this to him.
I love Pike. He’s sacrificed himself again and again, my whole life, just to protect me, and no words exist to express how much he means to me. But now it’s my turn to protect. And it’s Declan that I need to take care of, because I need him strong so he can care for me in return.
As much as this kills me, I dig deep inside all my rotted wounds to grab on to the strength I need to say goodbye. “I never would’ve survived this world without you, Pike.”
“But you did survive. And you’re going to be okay without me.”
“I love you.”
“I need you to promise me that you’ll listen to Declan, that you’ll start taking your pills and get yourself healthy.”
He’s adamant, and I give him my word through the strain of my throat. “I promise.”
I watch as his solid form ghosts into opacity, and I cry harder.
“I love you.”
“Pike!”
Opacity transfuses into a cloudiness.
“I’m going to miss you.”
“I’m gonna miss you too.”
Cloudiness disappears into nothingness.
And when the lingering vapors of his scent fade away, I fall into Declan.
“He’s gone,” I wail amidst the trauma of freshly crenelated wounds that bleed inside me.
“I’m going to take care of you. I need you to believe in me.”
“I do believe in you. It just hurts to let go of him.”
“Look at me,” he demands, and when I do, his face is streaked in tears shed. “I love you to the point it hurts, but I relish the pain of it because it reminds me that what we have runs so deep within me. And I swear to you, I will never stop loving you.”
I wipe the trail of tears from his face.
“Tell me it hurts you to love me too.”
Bracing my hands along his jaw to feel his stubble against my palms, I give him the purest part of me. “There’s nobody in this world I could possibly hurt for more. Pike helped me survive, but it’s you who helps me live. I was never able to do that until you.”
And in the madness of heartache and profound love, Declan takes me as his, holding me, fucking me, healing me. Tears never stop falling from my swollen eyes as I open my heart and allow Declan the freedom to climb inside and take full ownership of all that I’m made of.
I no longer know where I end and he begins as we cement the amorphous lines between us.
We’re serpents who feed off one another for sole survivorship.
We’re everything love is meant to be.