Beauty in the Ashes

She bit her lip, her palm flat against my chest where my heart beat. “Is this okay?” She asked.

“It’s more than okay,” I murmured as I coaxed her to lay her head in the crook of my neck, “it’s pretty fucking perfect.”

Well, as perfect as my life got.

CHAPTER 21

Sutton

When I woke up Caelan was still asleep. He was too peaceful to disturb, so I let him be as I slipped from beneath the sheets.

I changed my clothes and since my hair was a hopeless mess it ended up in a messy bun on top of my head.

I left Caelan a note, letting him know I’d left for work. I didn’t want him to wake up and worry. In the state he was in I feared he’d have forgotten me mentioning it earlier.

I kissed his forehead, my lips lingering longer than necessary, before slinging my purse across my body and heading to work.

Despite the hours of sleep I was still exhausted. I’d been so worried about Caelan, and warred with myself most of the morning about what to do. The responsible thing to do would have been to call for an ambulance, but I hadn’t done that.

Why?

Well, because I feared if he woke up in a hospital, and knew that I’d called for help he’d hate me.

Silly, extremely so, in a life or death situation.

I hung my head in shame.

I should’ve called for help.

But he was okay.

What if he hadn’t been? A little voice inside my head told me.

The messed-up-ness of the situation was through the roof. There was something majorly wrong with me. Well, maybe not just me. It was us. We were both poison, and together, we tainted each other even more. In helping each other we only made things worse. I saw that now, but I didn’t see anyway to stop this train wreck. And I didn’t want to. I may have confessed my horrid past to Caelan, and he may have accepted me, but history was repeating itself. I was attracted to broken things, and Caelan was the most broken of them all. He was like glass, cutting in to me repeatedly. Making my wounds deeper. But…wasn’t I doing the same to him? I was. Somehow, despite our feelings for each other, we were making things worse instead of better. We were like an avalanche—bound together, rolling down a hill, gaining speed, until we obliterated everything around us.

My chest constricted.

I knew I should cut all ties with him and save us the heartbreak we’d no doubt face in the future.

But I knew I couldn’t, because I was weak.

There was nothing I could do now, but let the pieces fall where they may.

???

Caelan

My heart raced as Sutton drove closer and closer to the place where it all began, and ultimately ended.

It had been a week since I made the decision to come here.

And in that week, I’d changed my mind about doing this more times than I could count.

I kept telling myself that Sutton was here and she’d make it okay. She would keep me together when it all fell apart. I’d become more dependent on her than was healthy.

“Are you okay?” She asked me for at least the hundredth time since we’d gotten in the car, and I knew it wouldn’t be the last.

I nodded, looking out the window at the bare trees passing by. How quickly the colors of the leaves changed, and before you could enjoy their beauty they fell away, scattered by the wind.