In a closed system, entropy can only increase, therefore the process is irreversible.
You can never return to the state at which you started.
Blakely and I are inside an isolated system of our making. The cascade of the waterfall. The current of the river. The isolation of the cliffs. The forest and night that surrounds, cocooning us in a sheltered haven.
And yet, the uncertainty is in a state of increase.
The moment Blakely dives into the river, all sure and measurable knowledge of what I know about her, about us, becomes corrupt. Fear is the result of uncertainty, and my fear of the unknown escalates as I jump in after her.
I splash to the surface near her. “What are you doing?”
She wades through the dark water, searching and collecting her clothes. “I’m cold.”
“Wet clothes won’t remedy that.” I reach out for her, but she avoids my touch.
Pain lances sharply, a knife plunged right through my chest wall. She won’t stop moving, searching, running her hands through her tangled, wet hair.
“Blakely, stop.” I try to gain her full attention. “You’re acting erratic.”
She shrugs her shirt on over her head, fighting the soaked material down her body. If she’s trying to hide herself from me, she’s failing, because I can see every beautiful curve of her body, the contour of her breasts, her pebbled nipples.
&nb
sp; I look her over, remembering the feel of being inside her, the connection. “You could roll around in mud and you’d still be the sexiest woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
Her breaths are labored, chest heaving as if she’s just swam the length of the river. Her eyes flare and take aim on me like lethal weapons. “And you’re sick. The most sadistic creature I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
I wipe the water from my face. “Erratic and irrational,” I say, reasoning the lingering side effects. “Your neural pathways are new, like a muscle that needs to be conditioned. We need to take this slow—”
Her mocking laugh clips short. “I think taking it slow failed majorly the moment you sank your cock in me.” She shoves at the water, as if trying to push me farther away. Then, with a resolute expression, she goes still. “Logic won’t explain this, Alex. This is just…fucked up.”
Insult lashes at my pride to wound deep. “You regret it…us. Guilt. It’s what you’re feeling. Still, very natural.”
She claws at her hair, an act of desperation to make whatever is assailing her stop. I did this to her, and if I wasn’t so excited about what it means, I might share some of her shame. But she’s beautiful in her tortured state, feeling emotions she’s never experienced before.
“Guilt doesn’t quantify this, Alex. Disgust. Pure, deplorable revulsion…that’s closer. I fucked my abductor, the guy who tortures me. Like some Stockholm victim.”
“I’m not… That’s not who I am, Blakely. I’m your salvation, if you could just imagine the potential—”
“You’re not a god, Alex!”
My head notches back, her words a smack to my ego.
“You’re not a god,” she says again, her voice more reserved. “And I’m not your goddess. This has to end.”
“You’re right. I’m no god, I’m barely a scientist anymore. I set my whole life’s work aflame the moment I craved your lips.” I stride toward her through the water. “But you’re everything now. The result, the antidote. You’re my salvation, Blakely. I’m…obsessed with you.”
“You’re obsessed with the idea of me,” she fires back.
“We’re all just ideas. Concepts. That doesn’t mean my need for you is any less real. You make me weak, I admit that. I lose all purpose around you. I’m just a man with this insatiable need inside him that will never be sated. All I want is you.”
Her eyes meet mine with steel malice. “You’re deranged. You want me now—now that you think I can have real feelings for you? How sick is that?”
“Oh, you have no idea. You are my sickness, Blakely, and there’s no cure.” I tentatively reach for her, and she allows me to touch her cheek. “I wanted you before you were capable of loathing me.”
Her eyes close briefly as she drags in a breath to fill her lungs. When she opens her eyes, letting me glimpse the green that has tortured me, she spits in my face.
“I wish I could loathe you,” she says, “but that would require an emotional depth I’m not capable of.”