Page 113 of Equilibrium
My heart screamed at me, but my mind was made up. I wasn’t thinking, I never really do, but I wanted to forget everything about Storm. I didn’t want to feel like my heart was about to burst from my chest.
Kieran’s eyes were pleading with me, and in that moment, it was like old times—only the two of us, loving each other, holding each other. If I had to use Kieran to rid my body of Storm, I would. I would do anything to forget about those green eyes or the way he felt inside me. I would sell my soul to the devil just so that I wouldn’t feel him in my heart.
I pulled him by his neck, meshing our lips together. He moaned into my mouth, and I climbed in his lap, my center connecting with his dick.
“Are you sure about this?”Kieran asked as I ground on top of him.
I definitely wasn’t sure about this, but it was a welcome distraction from the mess swirling in my head and in my heart. I had to stop thinking about Storm, and if this was the way to do it, well, fuck it.
“Yes,” I moaned, kissing his jaw, going lower to his neck. His grip on my hips tightened, reminding me of the times in the past when he became rough. When he was exactly what I wanted.
This attraction I felt toward Storm, it had to go away. I couldn’t live like this, with him inside my chest.
“Touch me.” I took the hoodie off of me, throwing it somewhere in the room, leaving me in the tank top I wore underneath. “Touch me, Kieran.”
He hesitated and I thought he wouldn’t do it. The thought itself sent a new wave of panic through my body. If I couldn’t forget with Kieran, I wouldn’t be able to do it with anybody else.
This man in front of me, this dark-haired, lost man used to be my everything. My days began and ended with him, and if he couldn’t erase the man that haunted me now, no one else would.
“Please, K. I just want to forget. Just for a minute, for a day, I want to be free. Please, set me free.”
Something flashed in his eyes and in the next second, I was in the air, my legs wrapped around his waist. The thing that I always loved about him was the strength he possessed. The way he always handled me, it was never soft, but it was what I needed.
Maybe I wasn’t made for sweet loving. There was something in my head, some wire that went bad and I didn’t know how to enjoy the sweet sides this life could have. There was an irreparable damage inside of me, and I didn’t know how to stop the rotting.
It was spreading from my soul to all my organs, and there was no cure.
I never knew how to process everything that was happening around me. I never knew how to process the loss, sadness, anger... love. I never fucking knew how to process love. I could do physical. I could torture, kill, kiss and fuck, but I couldn’t tell you that I loved you.
Maybe Kieran knew it and he never pushed me for more. Maybe some part of him always knew, just like some part of me always knew, that we would never last forever.
I liked to think that Ophelia from the parallel universe had it all figured out. Maybe I was just a shadow that was supposed to pick up all the bad things that should’ve happened to her. A shadow self, a mirror, just an image of a happy person.
If that other Ophelia was truly happy, I didn’t mind carrying the burden of this life. I didn’t mind being the demon everybody thought I was. Somewhere, in another universe, there was a version of me that knew how to love.
There was a version of me that had a loving family, a normal family. Maybe that version had Kieran or Storm, and she was happy. Just your regular girl.
“Phee.” He brushed the hair from my face. “Stay with me. Just, be here.”
Be here.
I understood what he was talking about, because Kieran knew better than I did how my mind worked sometimes. Those countless nights when he held me close, when that line between hallucinations and reality became too thin, he knew.
I deserved all of this. All this pain, all this suffering, this damned feeling inside my chest. I deserved to be forgotten and unloved.
I almost choked when the realization hit me.
I was unloved and unwanted. The child that was made into an assassin. The child that no one ever asked about her feelings. They didn’t want me.
“Kieran.” I choked on the emotions clouding my mind. My throat felt tight, something erupting from inside. Something I hadn’t felt in a very long time. “This... It hurts.”
“I know, baby. I know.” He kissed my forehead as he took me to the table in the other corner of the room. I couldn’t see him in the darkness, but I could feel every plane of his face as I touched it with my hand. His beard had started growing, but those eyes shone with all the love directed at me.
So why did I still feel unloved?
“I love you, birdy. I will always love you.”
I wanted to tell him that he shouldn’t as he took my tank top off, but I couldn’t. I needed to hear this more than he needed to say it, because these words were the fuel that would help me to keep moving.
