Page 1 of Equilibrium
His dark eyestwinkled under the light; happiness evident in them. That tousled black hair I loved so much fell over his forehead, and I had a sudden urge to hug him and never let him go. Our lives were unpredictable, dangerous, and I wanted to cherish every moment I had with him. I wanted to engrave it into my memory, because God knew, we didn’t have enough of these.
“How much do you love me?” Kieran asked, as he continued tickling me. I thrashed on the bed, my laughter echoing through the room. “Tell me!” He laughed with me, tossing the sheets from the bed, and diving in for another attack.
“Nooo!” I yelled, trying to push him off me, but he just squeezed harder, leaving a kiss between my breasts. “Kieran! I can’t… Stop it.”
But I didn’t want him to stop.
If I could, I would have hidden him a long time ago, so that nothing could ever harm him. Not his father, not mine, and definitely not all the terrible things lurking in the dark of the night, waiting to attack.
“Tell me and I’ll stop.” He kissed the corner of my lips, leaving me desperate for more. The cheeky bastard knew what he was doing, and he loved torturing me like this.
I wanted this moment to last forever. He and I, hidden from the world, cocooned in his apartment where nothing and nobody could touch us. The monsters in my head were quiet tonight, but I wasn’t surprised. They were always quiet when he was around. I knew he would always be the light I could reach for.
I would kill anyone, everyone, if it meant saving him. Because Kieran was mine. Today, tomorrow, in fifty years, he would always be mine. My savior, my light in the dark, my happiness.
And I was his.
“Tell me, birdy.” He blew a raspberry on my stomach, eliciting another round of laughter from me. “How much do you love me?”
His smile matched mine as he crawled over my body, settling between my legs. He was already hard, pressing, pulling a moan from me. I wanted, no, I needed him. I always would.
“Kieran,” I protested as he stopped circling his hips. “Please.”
“Only good girls get to come tonight, and you’ve been a very bad girl.”
“But what if I like being bad?” I taunted him. With a smirk on his face, he bit into my collarbone, the pain mixing with pleasure, with need, sending a thousand tiny shock waves through my body.
“I like it when you’re bad.” He replaced his teeth with his tongue, licking the spot he bit into. “But you still didn’t answer my question.”
“I love you, Kieran.” I touched his face, feeling the stubble he refused to shave.
“How much, Phee?” he asked again. “How much do you love me?”
“More than anything. More than my life.”
His eyes darkened and the smile he wore disappeared, replaced with a sneer. His hold on my body became punishing, his fingers digging into my sides. Before I could protest, he leaned down, his lips a feather touch over mine.
“Then why did you kill me?”
A startled gasp left my body as my eyes connected with the white ceiling, right above the bed I was lying in. That blissful moment people often talked about once they woke up was not something that happened to me. My body felt heavy and the memories of what happened kept slamming into me. The shirt I wore rubbed against the burned skin on my shoulder, right where Kieran branded me like fucking cattle.
They tried to fuck me up, but the game we were playing wasn’t the one they were ever going to win.
I lifted my right arm, staring at the bruised finger I could barely move. His malicious eyes reappeared in front of me, the satisfaction he felt from hurting me, it was all there. Kieran’s anger was almost palpable in that suffocating room back in their house, and I knew that no matter what we did from that point onward, there was no going back for the two of us. Whatever we had before, it broke the moment Kieran decided to break my sister.
Then why wasn’t I happier with this situation? Why wasn’t I elated at the prospect of him being gone? I did my job; I fulfilled my duty. I avenged the one that couldn’t avenge herself, and yet my heart felt hollow as I tried to erase the memory of his face and the pain more than skin deep.
The dream was a bitter reminder of what we once were. It reminded me of two people that had dreams bigger than the world that was trying to suffocate them. I thought he was the one. I thought he was going to be the perfect partner in this fucked-up simulation we called life.
My heart, my soul, my body, and my pain, they all used to belong to him. But this fairy tale was never going to end happily ever after. This story was never going to end with the two of us together, riding into the sunset. The white picket fence and beautiful family was a dream, and it was never going to be a reality.
I used to laugh at the stars in Ava’s eyes and her dreams of a better future with someone she loved, when actually, I wanted the same thing. I just wanted it with the wrong people.
Love was supposed to be enough, right? It was supposed to break all barriers and conquer even the scariest lands, but it wasn’t. The only thing we got from this so-called love was pain, suffering and eternal madness. If love was enough, it would’ve saved us both; but it didn’t.
It just threw us into an endless pit of despair until neither one of us could cling to anything but revenge. If this was love, I never wanted to feel it again. If this toxic, suffocating feeling came from loving somebody, I didn’t want it anywhere near me. I always thought that loving somebody would set you free, but the only thing our love did for me was cage me.
I pulled myself up and stared around the room I was in. Why did people try to cage me? First it was my family, then Kieran, and now Storm was repeating the same story, kidnapping me when I didn’t want to go with him. They all expected me to comply with what they wanted from me, but none of them ever asked me what I wanted.
