Page 25 of Relapse

For a few seconds neither of us moves.

Just breathing and shaking.

Trying to recover from whatever the fuck that was.

And somehow, in the heavy silence afterward, the truth settles deeper than before:

This isn’t something either of us knows how to quit anymore.

He pulls out slowly, and I wince at the loss, feeling his come trickle down my thigh. He doesn’t let me go. Just turns me around, cradles my face in his hands, and presses his forehead to mine.

I try to think of a sarcastic comment. Something to break the tension.

But his eyes are wrecked. Dark-rimmed, glassy, full of something that terrifies me because it looks like feeling.

His thumb traces across my cheekbone. “I’ve got you,” he says, voice gravel-rough. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I swallow hard. “Yeah. Me neither.”

He lets out a shaky breath, then pulls me into his chest, still gripping me like I might disappear.

Afterward blurs together in warm flashes.

Dagger hauling me upright when my legs stop cooperating properly.

Steam curling thick through the bathroom while glitter and sweat disappear down the drain beneath my feet. His hands moving through my hair carefully despite how rough he was five minutes earlier. One of his shirts dragged over my head afterward while exhaustion settles heavy beneath my skin.

Then dark sheets and warmth.

His arm wrapping around my waist the second we hit the bed like even half-asleep he still doesn’t trust me not to disappear.

The sleep that hits me afterward is so deep it almost feels drugged.

Theres no nightmares. No static. Not even any loud buzzing in my head clawing me awake every hour.

Just quiet darkness, and him.

The best sleep I’ve had in months.

Which feels deeply emotionally inconvenient.

Unfortunately, when I wake up hours later, reality crawls back in almost immediately.

Dagger’s still dead asleep beside me, tattoos disappearing beneath tangled sheets while weak afternoon light cuts across the room. One arm’s stretched across the mattress where I was laying a second ago, fingers flexing slightly every now and then like even asleep he’s still checking I’m there.

And there it is.

That familiar itch.

Like my skin suddenly doesn’t fit right anymore.

The apartment feels too quiet and my thoughts start getting loud again.

The kind of loud that makes staying in one place feel impossible.

Suddenly staying here feels harder than leaving.

Once my feet hit the floor, it’s over.