Page 155 of Ghost Ribbon

It had.

Finding evidence of him on the pages where I had drawn him, the places where my private obsession had been marked with his actual, physical presence left me terrified.

Which did give me a few panic attacks, but I got those all of my life for different reasons. He couldn’t possibly blame himself for this.

“So I do fucking owe you everything,” he kept going and I wish he would stop. I don’t want him to blame himself any longer. Our start was rough, sure, but he isn’t the cause why my heart is failing.

“Because I participated in this. I helped it get worse. I could have found you when you were younger and helped you. I didn’t. I could have stayed away and not made you feel so stressed all the time, but I didn’t do that either.”

He was breathing harder now.

“And I kept avoiding the fact you’re sick, even though I fucking knew. I fucking knew something was wrong. But I convinced myself I was wrong. That you healed. That what you had as a kid was nothing more than something temporary.”

He fell to his knees. “So Marco, please. Just take it, okay? If my heart is good enough to fit in your chest, just let me give it to you. Just…” He was on his knees. Pleading. “I’m begging you, don’t leave me okay? You are all I have.”

The man who had never begged in his life. The man who had never knelt in his life only to end up here, on the floor, in front of a dying boy, offering the only thing he had left to give.

His heart.

His life.

Himself.

“Please,” he said again, and the word was barely a sound. When he looked up at me, his green eyes were destroyed.

The ribbon was pressed against his chest, clutched in both fists like something he was trying to push back inside himself, like he was trying to return it to the place where it had lived for years - close to his heart, held against his ribs, the only proof that he had ever felt anything at all.

Every step was a negotiation with a frame that no longer cooperated, but I crossed the small distance between the chair and the floor where he knelt, until I was standing in front of him, looking down at the top of his dark head.

I put my hands in his hair.

My fingers slid through the dark strands and I felt the tension drain out of him, his head tilting into my hands, his whole body leaning toward me.

“Look at me, baby.”

His head stayed down and his shoulders stayed hunched so I brought my hand under his chin and I lifted his face, making him meet my eyes.

“You are the greatest, and best thing that has ever happened to me.”

My voice was shaky these days but right now my words came out steady.

“My heart has always been wrong. You didn’t make it wrong.”

He tried to look away but I didn’t let him.

“You didn’t worsen it. You made it better.”

His breath was heavy and I sighed. “Alexei, your heart is so precious to me.”

I caressed his face softly. “I forever want to keep it safe.”

His hands tightened on the ribbon and I lowered myself then I put my fingers at the corners of his mouth.

Both sides. One finger at each corner, pressing gently upward, and I lifted his lips into a smile.

“Your smile and your heart are my sole purpose.”

His breath caught and he seemed to want to say something but I kept going. “I don’t want to take either from you.” I let my hands fall from his mouth.