The ocean had a heartbeat.
As I stood outside the cave, with the ice-cold winds, I felt the ocean’s heartbeats, the gentle vibrations, stir inside my own chest. Our song played low from the stereo buried in the sand and the fire crackled as I waited for Stone, sipping vanilla cola and keeping my gaze fixed on the Atlantic toward Bone Island. The night inhaled my breath and exhaled the chill. Snow flurries drifted, delicate and dreamy, and I wished to stay here forever and not return to the Cantini Castle.
At least here, I had an enchanting view of the lighthouse.
At least here, I could feel my beloved black sea.
At least here, the beam could touch me.
And I wondered if Mom knew all along, as they say mothers should, that her daughters would be cursed in love.
“And one day, you will drown, too,” she’d said, and my jaw clenched. This great love story she’d written wasn’t just a haunting thing that had consumed her before the catatonia did. It was an escape hatch for the drowning. In a town of greed, fear, and hate, this book was a reminder that I could leave Weeping Hollow whenever I desired. A wardrobe to Narnia. A rabbit hole to Wonderland. A portal to Bone Island.
But I didn’t believe she’d ever expected Stone to happen.
Stone washed up on shore at the most inconvenient point in my life after years of sleepwalking to the ocean, waking up in the sand, standing in her waters, sharing my secrets, and admiring her. After all, this was how the greatest stories were born. Unexpected. Sudden. Cosmic.
But that was all we would ever be, wouldn’t it?
A story. A memory. Dust in the lighthouse.
The Crimson Eclipse was coming upon us in seven days.
The wedding was in ten days.
I only had ten days left with Stone.
Somehow, I truly believed I wouldn’t be able to survive.
I could feel him behind me then. The hum along my skin, the shake in my chest, his warmth a simmer on the back of my neck.
He came, my heart sang. He came.
He didn’t say anything. He only drew closer until I could feel his breath hitting the top of my head, his chest pressing against my back, his abs moving against my spine, his hips resting against my bottom. He just stood there until I was leaning backward, falling into him.
I laid my head on his shoulder.
Stone removed his hands from his pockets and wrapped them around me, anchoring me to him as we looked past the ocean to Bone Island.
We were quiet for a long time, content.
The sea breeze, the ocean’s waves, the punching of his heart at my back.
At that moment, I knew he could feel the clock ticking, too.
“Ten days,” I whispered.
And then he was turning me in his arms.
Stone was wearing borrowed clothes, black jeans, a Heathen’s boots, with ice from Norse Woods still in the grooves, and his face void. Like he purposely wiped it so I wouldn’t know what he was thinking.
He slipped the cola from my hand, took a few gulps, and bent down to leave it in the sand. On his way back up, he kissed my collarbone, my throat, the places where our secrets were kept, and my jaw. Then he caught my lips in a sweeping kiss, his tongue tasting like vanilla cola.
His hands found my hips, and he dragged me inside the cave where it was warm. Where the cave held us together in its palms. Where the heat from the fire licked our skin. Where the song played on repeat, the lyrics mocking us.
He fell back onto the pile of blankets, taking me on top of him, messy, desperate hands sliding down my body, yanking down my jeans, my red panties with them, like two teenagers in a beat-up car, not bothering to remove shirts or shoes or his jeans all the way. There was no time for that.
Once I was naked from the waist down, he sat up and eagerly pulled me into his lap, and wrapped my legs around his waist. He moved my hair off my shoulder and kissed my neck. When I grabbed his length, his lips dragged lazily across my cheek, and once I sank him inside me, he moaned in my ear.
He took my face and kissed me longer and deeper than usual.
He kissed me with a heart squeezing me tightly.
This time felt different.
This time felt like goodbye.
For good this time.
I tried to look at his face, to look into his eyes, but he wouldn’t let me.
Frustrated with my attempts, he wrapped his arm around my waist and swung us around until I was lying on my back. He locked our fingers together behind his neck, caging my head between his elbows, kissing me and pushing inside me, and I was already thinking about tomorrow without him, and the next day, and the day after that. My chest was burning and my throat was closing up because even though I couldn’t see his face or look into his eyes, I could fucking feel him in his kiss, his thrusts, the way he was holding on. I could feel the misery because he was thinking about life without me too and it was tearing us apart.
I didn’t know why he was doing this to me, why he was holding me under him like this, why he was ending us like this on this night, but it was breaking my fucking heart, and I couldn’t breathe. His movements were passionate, a slow grind, and I found myself crying. And then he was wiping my tears and kissing me and making love to me, and I couldn’t handle it anymore.
I clawed at his shirt and shoved my face into his neck.
Stone dropped his head into the curve of my shoulder, wrapping his arms around me, his thrusts slowing until he came to a stop. And we just stayed like that, clinging to each other.
Neither of us came that night.
But I don’t think that ever really mattered.
And the song was playing, and all I could think of was how this song would always be that song. The one that would haunt me for the rest of my life. The one that was the background to our love story, from the moment we first arrived at the lighthouse, and he was watching me from the dusty floor as I swayed, until the moment we said goodbye.
I didn’t know how much time had passed. Eventually he pulled himself away from me, zipped up his jeans, and stood with his back pinned to the wall of the cave.
I stood and yanked my jeans up over my hips, feeling empty as I watched him reach into his pocket and grab a box of crushed cigarettes. Then he lit one, inhaled, his breath shaking.
“And to think this is where our story picked up,” he whispered on exhale, the sounds of the waves crashing onto shore and the wind crying all around us. “I’d say started, but we both know this isn’t true.”
It was a goodbye.
It was a fucking goodbye.
I felt sick at that moment. Like that feeling when walking up a flight of stairs, and you arrive at the top before you thought, and you step up onto the last step that was never there. This was the feeling living inside me.
“I feel like you and me are ashes,” I whispered, and Stone’s eyes were bloodshot when they swung to mine. I’d never seen them bloodshot before. Ink and blood. “We’re ashes,” I repeated. “We hold our shape until someone pokes at us. We last hundreds of years. We don’t dissolve or float; we sink, and oh, do we sink. But at the end of the day, we’re still ashes. Simply born with tragedy in our bones.”
It was quiet again, aside from the stupid song.
Another drag. Another exhale.
And then, “Adora, I cannot keep going on like this.” And just from the way he said Adora, I could already feel my heart breaking all over again. “I can’t see you with him. I can’t exist in the background while he’s touching you and kissing you. It’s killing me, and I can’t bear it any longer,” he said. “You are my obsession, and if neither of us lets go, there will come a day where you’ll suffer the consequences of my actions.”
I cannot keep going on like this, my mind repeated, slowly, as though it couldn’t make sense of it.
“Please don’t do this to me,” I whispered, anxious, feeling something that took up so much space inside me slowly slipping away. “I have ten more days with you. Hang on for ten more days. Give me ten more days. Then you can hate me. Then you can never want to see me again.”
Stone looked up at me, dumbfounded. “You’re absolutely helpless.” He flicked his cigarette into the fire and stalked toward me, taking my head into his hands. “Before I go, just tell me one thing,” he said, eyes sliding between mine. “Right here, right now. Nothing less than honesty. If you had the choice to leave, would you have come with me that day I asked you in the lighthouse?” He shook his head. “Would you leave with me right now if we could go?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Neither one of us has that option.”
“It does matter!” His eyes never looked as dark as they did then—a slice of the night sky. He lowered his voice, more gentle. “It matters to me.”
“Why?”
“Because it will be what you want. Not what the town wants, or your coven, or your fiancé, or your father. If you had the power to choose for yourself, would you ever choose me? Even if it’s a three-letter fairytale?”
His eyes bounced between mine.
If he knew me at all, he would already know the answer.
My sisters were here. I couldn’t not be here to ensure safety and fairness while Augustine was high priest. I couldn’t not be there to hold Fable when she would cry herself to sleep again. Or witness all her special moments, should she have any, like a wedding, her ascending ceremony. There was then Ivy, who I had already disappointed so many times. I couldn’t leave her alone. Not after all we’d been through together. At least if I were here, Ivy and I could be broken-hearted and alone together.
I would sacrifice it all for them, so how dare he ask me to choose.
I’d prepared for a life without love.
I’d never prepared for a life without my sisters.
“No,” I finally said.
Stone ripped his eyes away and blew out a breath. “And to think I was coming here to finally get somewhere with you before time ran out.” He clenched his jaw and dropped back a step. “You pretend to be many things, Adora, but I didn’t think you were pretending with me. You’re one hell of an actress.”
“I wasn’t pretending.”
“Then you’re afraid.”
“You’re scared too!”
“No, Adora,” he said, a grin. “I’m not afraid to admit what I want.”
“What do you want then?”
“Only you, and nothing more.”
“Then tell me you love me,” I said in a whisper, desperate. In two weeks, I’d either die or be trapped in a loveless marriage. This could possibly be the last time, and how could I go on never knowing how it feels to hear him say it? “Even if it’s just a three-word fairytale.”
His body turned rigid, his expression stunned. “You are incredibly selfish. You’re giving another man a lifetime, only to leave me here to rot,” he said, frustration screwing in his throat. “In less than two weeks, you’ll have his last name, he’ll have you in ways that’ll make me sick, and I’ll be another cursed Heathen who will forever desire a girl who will never be mine.”
“So, fight for me!”
“Fight for you?” He blinked, his eyes wide. “Fight for me! For once, choose me!” He breathed in, pain etched into his voice. “Adora, I set foot in this town for you. I trespassed onto another man’s property, climbed three stories to a window, entered unwelcomed, and shoved my cock inside his fiancé. I deserted the Heathens to be here tonight. I’ve betrayed every moral code I stand by for you, a girl who refuses to choose me and hurts me every chance she has. I’ve been fighting for you, only to watch him kiss these lips six hours after they were on mine. But my torment isn’t enough. Now you want the gods to know you own my heart too, is that it? What’s next, my spine? My soul? You want me on my fucking knees to rip me apart and watch me bleed like I’ve been once before?” His eyes were angry and bouncing between mine. “Well, look who’s the monster now.”
My head was shaking, my throat was tight, and everything was blurry.
Stone’s eyes narrowed when he grabbed the back of my neck and lowered his head to meet my eyes. “My lungs would have to be ripped out, last breath stolen, before that ever happens again.”
He let me go, his chest heaving.
“You’re broken,” I whispered. “You’re angry and broken.”
Stone dropped his head back and exhaled.
“Broken infers there is something inside me to be fixed. I’m not broken, Adora. It’s that I’m not whole without you.” His eyes swung to me. “There’s a difference.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, unable to hear the song play again. I turned it off and started packing up the vanilla colas, the blankets, the date I stupidly created for us. “None of it matters. I still have to marry him for the well-being of this town.”
“No, you don’t have to do anything,” he said. “You’re the author. I’m just the blank pages you whisper your secrets to, then the thing you crumble and toss to the side. I’m the book in the palm of your hands. In the end, this story is yours. You can write it whichever way you want.”
I shook my head. “If I could change things I would because I’m scared of living without you.”
Stone kicked off the wall, leaving. “You looked happy today. It should be easy for you to pretend you’re not miserable tomorrow.” Then I saw his back as he walked toward the secret passageway to the tunnel. My heart was screaming at me. My blood was trying to leave me and run to him.
This was it. This was the end. And I couldn’t stop it.
I refused to let those words be our last.
“Hey, Stone,” I rushed to say, exhausted, defeated, but he had to know.
He turned back around, and I took him in. All his details.
His hooded eyes, his long black lashes, his mouth too sensitive for a man.
“I’ll always want only you,” I finally said out loud, not a whisper. Not a whisper at all. “It will always be only you for me. And that will never change.”
I turned first, scared, shoving the blanket into the bag, my fingers shaking, unable to bear the sight of his back again.
“Hey, Adora,” he called.
I couldn’t help it. I straightened my spine and turned to catch his eyes again.
“I’ll always choose you. In every story,” he said out loud, not a whisper.
Not a whisper at all.
“That will never change.”