Best of 2017

I find her curled into herself, her face resting on her knees. She does not look up, even though she knows I'm here. She continues to cry. Shattered. Defeated.

Her feet are bloody, and her knees are skinned. She is scratched from head to toe.

I scoop her up into my arms, and she does not fight me. She does not say a word the entire walk back to the house. She does not say a word as I draw her a bath and clean her wounds. She remains silent even as I bandage her. It is only when I put her to bed that she looks up at me.

Broken.

Empty.

Her eyes are absent of the light that used to shine so bright.

"I was wrong," she whispers.

"Wrong about what, Bella?"

"I don't love you," she tells me. "I despise you."

I swallow. And I wish I had just let her stab me. But I give her the words that she needs to hear now. The only ones that matter.

"Then your transformation is complete. And nobody can ever hurt you again, my sweet."

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

MY BONES ARE weary and everything aches, right down to my very soul.

Javi lays me in bed. His bed. If I had any energy left to argue, I still don't know that I could.

I certainly don't have any fight left when he lies beside me and swallows me in his arms. He holds me while I cry. Comforting the hurt that he caused. The despair that is so much a part of me now I doubt I'll ever be right again.

I think that Javi is correct. He has broken me completely this time.

He thinks I can protect myself now. But I've never been able to protect myself from him. Because even as we lay here in the solace of darkness, unburdened from the heavy strain that still lives between us in the light- his presence does comfort me.

I bury my face into his chest and breathe him in. I beg him to stop. What, I don't know. I just want it to stop. I want it all to go away.

Either let the blackness swallow me whole, or push me back into the light. It’s too much. Too much to be torn between the two.

He holds me closer still and tells me it will all be over soon. Then he kisses me. He kisses me like it's the last time he will ever kiss me. And we fall asleep.

Together.

I WAKE with a sluggish heartbeat and an invisible pressure bearing down on me.I don't know where it came from, this foreboding feeling inside of me. Because when I open my eyes, Javi is still there. Watching me silently as he strokes my arm.

Desolation shadows his eyes, and I think it is only fair. I wonder if he slept at all, and then I remind myself that I don’t care. Because I hate him.

We all lie to ourselves, sometimes.

His scars are unsheltered in the early morning light. Old and new, they litter his body in shades of pink and white. Today, my monster is visibly fraught with sorrow.

This battle has raged within him for so long. Whatever torture Javi suffered, it extended far beyond his body. It embedded itself within his mind and made a home there.

He’s been caught between two sides, just as I have.

Only now, he’s made his decision. It’s written in his eyes. What’s done is done. But I don’t have a map to his secret language, and I am too weary to guess anymore. Whatever my fate is, it’s for the gods or Javi to decide.

He pets my cheek and brushes his lips against my forehead. Gentle. Sweet. Reverent. It terrifies me. It soothes me. And I cry when I reach out to touch him.

I'm in too much pain to move. Javi does not smile this time. He does not exalt in this kind of pain. Instead, he tells me to hold tight while he retrieves some pills and a glass of water. He helps me to sit up and waits until I have swallowed them before he lays me back down.

The distance between us now may as well be an ocean. He remains on the edge of the bed. His thoughts are somewhere else.

"What is it, Javi?" I ask him. "What's happening?"

His eyes move over me, and they are open now. Mournful and reverent.

"I was only thinking that perhaps I would like to be selfish," he says.

"I don't understand what you mean.”

His lip curls up at the corner in the faintest hint of a smile.

"I think you have made me want to keep you. And that would be the most selfish thing of all, my Bella.”

I don't want to hope. I don't want to fall for any more of his cruel deceptions. I can’t afford to get stung again. Not when I am so empty. But it does not feel like a trick anymore. Not with his eyes on me like this. Not with his voice gentle and sad and thoughtful.

"You said you would always keep me," I remind him. "Always."

I don't want him to throw me away. Maybe that makes me pathetic. Maybe it makes me so fucked up in the head I can't be fixed. But when he even mentions a scenario where we don’t exist together, I can't cope. The possibility douses me in fresh terror.

Javi is the poison I drink so willingly because nothing else has ever tasted so sweet.

He is everything. The light and the dark. The solace and the pain. The torment and the peace. And I can't imagine not having him here with me. I can't even consider it.

My nails dig into the flesh of my palms until I draw blood.

"You promised," I tell him again. "You promised that you would keep me forever."

"My Bella." He comes back to me, tilting my chin so that his lips hover over mine. "It is alright. I am here now, yes?"

I buckle in his arms, and he catches me. His touch hurts like nothing else ever has.

It is the best kind of pain. The only pain I ever want. Javi drags his nose down my throat, breathing me in.

"Say what you said before," he whispers. “Say it, and this time, I will try to believe it."

It scares me. It scares me so much I hold onto him so he can’t let me go. But I say the words. I tell him the irrefutable truth in our bed of lies.

"I love you, Javi. I love you so much. You've fucked me up so bad. You've messed with my head, and I don't know... there are so many things I don't know. I don't know how to fix them. Or unbreak them. But this is the one thing I know. I love you."

He does not lash out this time. He holds me. He kisses me.

Whispered apologies flow from his lips over and over. He tells me everything is going to be alright. He says he will protect me and never let me go.

For once, my mind and my heart are at peace. There is light in the darkness.

And I believe him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

JAVI TRIES to rouse me from my sleep, and I dig in deeper. My dreams are too sweet, and his touch is so warm against me.

I don't want to move. I don't want to go anywhere other than this space between my dream and reality. But he is insistent.

"My Bella, I need you to wake up. Wake up and be a good girl for me, yes?"

My eyes are cemented together, and the thing that he asks of me is easier said than done. The pills he gave me knocked me out. I don't know how long it's been.

Days, months, weeks.

I’m groggy and confused when I realize that I’m already dressed. Not just dressed. But dressed for outside, with a coat and shoes and socks. My hair is braided too.

I blink up at him, and he is still blurry until my eyes adjust to the light.

"It is time to go," he tells me. "There is something we must do together."

I shake my head and tell him no. Whatever it is, I don't want to go.

"You will want to see this, my Bella.”

Still, I try to pull the blankets back over me. Javi sighs.

"It is about your father."

And now he has my attention.

"What about him?"

My voice is froggy. I sound weird. Terrified. Terrified that he will have bad news for me. But Javi's only answer is to help me from the bed.

"Come," he insists.

I follow him. It isn't easy. I'm still in pain. But he helps me every step of the way, allowing me to lean on him for support.

He unlocks the front door, and my leg

s grow weak before locking into place. I don't want to leave anymore. I only want to stay.

The caged bird is me.

And I am afraid. More afraid than I have ever been in my whole life to step foot out that door. But I know that I must. Whatever news there is of my father, I must go. I must find out.