Page 76 of Undone

“Meds are in my bag,” I say, tossing my bag toward her. She catches it and scrambles through the zipper pockets until she finds the bottle of generic painkillers, popping a few in her mouth before her eyes go wide and she’s reaching for the water glass on her bedside table.

She sits after swallowing the pills, her hands bracketing her stomach, eyes downcast in a glare.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying not to hate my uterus,” she mumbles. “’Cause then I can’t trust any babies that come from there.”

It’s an effort to make my laugh silent, to push my lips away from the upturned corners.

I’m still angry, my ongoing rage is still there, even if it’s dulled and more dormant. And she’s the source of it. Still, I feel entirely bound to whatever it is that ties our souls together so tightly, that forces me to seek her out over and over again.

She’s perched on her bed, the soft yellow light making the purple and blue hues of the room feel like a spun magical version of Starry Night. It almost makes me sick.

Everything with Lillian LaBlanc feels surreal, like it’s not quite real when I’m with her.

The first time I saw her, I was seven. At twelve years old, I’d never seen her outside of the garden, outside the four walls of her pastel room. For most of my youth, I worried that she might not be real—and if she wasn’t, I didn’t want to be either.

Sometimes I still think maybe she isn’t real. That my brain created her to fix whatever fucked-up darkness was inside of me back then. Like an escape from the house of horrors I lived in.

Fuck it.

I sink into the mattress around her, grabbing her body and tugging it against mine, shuffling us back so we’re lying on the pillows, my body wrapped around hers. Spooning.

Mine. Mine. That possessive, darker version of myself threatens to rise. I set my hand on her stomach, beneath the tight shirt she’s wearing, where her belly protrudes just slightly. Swollen and tender.

She puffs out a breath, wiggling in my arms at the light contact. Her hair is in my nose.

“You’re like my own fucking hell, you know that?” I ask, voice halfway angry, halfway possessive. Fingers slowly descend beneath the loose waistband of the soft jersey boyshort underwear she’s wearing.

“What are you doing?” tumbles from her mouth instead. My other hand wraps around her throat, a light squeeze to pull her back against me.

“The same thing I always do, Lily,” I say, biting at her ear. “Everything I do is for you.”

The words would be romantic from anyone else’s mouth, but mine are soaked in years of pain and desperation.

“Tor—”

“Shh,” I breathe, a whisper in her ear. This is the easy part, my body pressed to her body, her in need of me. Cupping her, my fingers dance against the seam of her lips for anything she might be using, finding nothing. “Are you gonna be good?”

“Toren—”

“Hmm, pretty girl?” I ask, the light mocking tone back with a vengeance. “No. You’re never good for me. Needy, whining brat.”

She gasps out at my words, body wriggling for more in my grasp. My fingers play against her, light and teasing touches in contrast with the sharp heat of my voice in her left ear.

“Please—”

I curl my fingers inside of her, pushing until the whimpers and moans start pouring out. She’s soaked, trembling in my arms.

“You were always like this, yeah? Nothing has changed. Desperate, aching, but only for me.”

This time her moan is longer, louder, her nails digging into my forearm as she tightens around my fingers. She’s so fucking close and fighting it.

“Say it,” I demand.

“You and me, forever,” she pants. Those aren’t the words I was demanding from her, but hearing them spill from her mouth again after so long, my chest squeezes tight. Swallowing back the threat of adoration, I focus on the feel of my fingers inside of her, moving them faster, harsher, in a way that has her squeezing around me.

“Fuck,” I grunt, hips arching uncontrollably.