Echo(21)

I want to skin him with my tongue, loving him with every lick.

Alone is where I sit though, here in this bed and breakfast, in this room I’ve been calling home since I arrived. Too scared to go back to Brunswickhill for fear of what will greet me. Declan isn’t a man one can push. He thrives on utter control, so keeping my distance is the only choice I have right now unless I want to throw him over the edge. And I don’t. I want him to be able to see that not all of it was a lie, that I did love him, that it was real, and that I didn’t want to destroy him the way I wound up doing anyway. I need him to know that, to understand his heart was something I wanted to take care of—I still do.

Hours pass as I sit, staring out the window at the snow-covered hills, wondering what my love is doing. It feels strange to be in a world where he exists and to not know, to not be a part of that world with him when we had become so enmeshed with each other. He was a part of me—still is. He lives within me; I can feel him in my bones—breathing inside of me, keeping me alive.

He is all I have to live for.

I grow impatient and anxious in this room, feeling like a caged animal. I grab my coat and scarf and head down to the car. As I drive the slick streets, I wind up on Abbottsford Road without thinking. It’s all I know in this town, it’s all I crave. I tell myself I won’t stay long, that I’ll just drive past, take a quick look. But when I make the sharp turn around the bend, I slow the car down and stop.

Was it all a dream? A hallucination?

Looking at the gate, I wonder if I was really on the other side.

Did I just want it so badly that I dreamt it up?

I know I shouldn’t be here. I know what I did to him was so awful that seeing me will only make it worse on him. I want to give him that space, the courtesy of staying away because I know that’s what he wants. But I’m too selfish. I want him too much, and now that I’m here, the energy collides inside of me. I want to jump over that wall, run up the hill to his front door, break it down, storm the property to find him, hug him, cling, paw, scratch, and ravage him like the animal I am.

Tingles dance up my fingers, into my hands, and up my arms.

I can’t sit still.

Hopping out of the car, I rush over to the gates, grab on to them and shake them, screaming at the top of my lungs, “Declan! Please let me talk to you! Declan, please!”

My voice strains as I plead and beg for him. Tears begin to coat my cheeks as I call his name, because simply having it on my tongue and lips feels like a kiss from him. So I scream even louder, a protest of my love, and my voice shrills painfully as I call out, “Declan!” over and over and over again.

I don’t stop—I can’t.

I’m nothing without him. I’ll die without him. He has to forgive me. He just has to. I can’t live with him hating me as much as he does. So I fight these gates, screaming and crying and breaking, falling to my knees—absolutely crumbling.

I’m weak as my voice slowly gives out, and I have to catch my breath around my pounding, severing heart. Dropping my head, I weep while the damp ground seeps through the fabric of my pants.

I startle and jump up when the gate begins opening. I turn to see the black Mercedes SUV he was in the other day coming up the road. Desperate to talk to him, I run out in the middle of the street, blocking him. He slows and stops, and with my hands on the freezing hood of his car, emotions overwhelm as I beg, “Declan, please. Please let me talk to you. I love you, Declan.”

My words fall out in a blubber of panicky cries as I look at him through the windshield. The car shifts under my hands when he puts it in park and then opens his door. Menacing eyes greet me once again, but I’m frantic for his attention.

“Declan, please, just let me talk to you.”

“I thought you understood that I didn’t want you coming back here,” he snarls in his thick accent, stepping in front of me.

In quick movements, he grabs my arms in both his hands. Faster than what I can fight, Declan drags me over to my car while I cry, “Please, stop. Just give me a few minutes to explain.”

“There isn’t a goddamn thing you could possibly say to me.”

He then yanks me around so I’m facing away from him and slams my front side over against the car, knocking the wind out of me and pinning me down. With my arms bound in his hand behind my back, he presses the side of my face into the hood with his other, needling against the ice. His body hunches over mine and his breath heats my ear as he seethes, “In case I didn’t make it clear, I f*cking hate you.”