“It’s not my business?—”
“Bullshit,” I cut in. “It is your business.I’myour business. You’re mine. There’s no way I’m going to let him ruin the last bit of time we have together.”
“He called you his girl,” he said tightly, his mouth barely moving.
“And?”
“I don’t share, Phoebe.”
I huffed out a sarcastic laugh and threw my hands out to the side. “Who the hell is asking you to? Certainly not me. I hate the guy!”
“But—”
“There are no buts, so don’t try put them in my mouth. You want me, Henry? You come get me.” I let my hands fall down by my sides. “I’m yours for the taking. Have been for the last fourteen days and nights.”And I will be for all the days and nights after it if you’ll let me be, no matter the distance, no matter the hardships of living far apart. I’ll do it all for you if you think I can make you even a tenth as happy as I know for certain you’d make me.
Henry seemed at war with himself as his eyes searched mine, the old him no doubt ready to flee at the mere possibility of rejection, the new him fighting to stay with me, withus, for whatever small amount of time we had left.
“You aren’t leaving me like this,” I said quietly, shaking my head. “I won’t allow it.”
“I don’t know the right way to leave you at all, Phoebe. That’s the problem.”
“Then, don’t. We still have time.” I took a step closer. “You can still have me.”
Once more.
Twice more.
However many mores you need.
“I’m still here,” I told him. “I’m still yours. Not his. I’ll never be his again.”
“Mine.”
“Yours.”
With a sharp intake of breath, Henry charged forward, wrapped his arm around my body, and he hoisted me up against him until my legs circled his waist, and my back slammed against the wall, the power of it almost winding me.
“You belong to me now,” he said on a breath. “You got that, Phoebe? Mine.” Then he kissed me as though inhaling every part of my existence, forgetting to breathe until a heady moan rumbled in the back of his throat, and he pressed himself into me. My head spun, and my body tingled with everything I felt: desperation, desire, adoration… or was that? No. It couldn’t be love. We weren’t meant to create that together. We were only supposed to be this. Fire and ice. Two people going to war and using each other’s bodies as battlegrounds.
But as he kissed me with an urgency I’d never been kissed with before, that little voice in my head started to warn me that this did, in fact, feel a lot like that four-letter word I’d never dare to say out loud.
“I can’t do it,” he said roughly against my mouth.
“Do what?” I gasped.
“Say goodbye and not have it hurt. It would be so much easier if we really had hated each other. Maybe we should pretend again.”
“You think that’ll make it easier for you to let me go?” My tongue swept across his top lip. “You want me to call you a piece of shit and tell you I think you’re the worst?”
“Yes,” he panted, grinding into me.
“Fine, then fuck me, you piece of shit, and let’s get this over with.”
Henry pulled his lips away from mine and looked into my eyes, wedging me against him and the wall impossibly tighter as he traced his thumb over my mouth. “I’m going to miss this smart mouth of yours.”
The way he said it, and the reverence in his gaze had tears forming that I refused to shed. He’d said too many bad goodbyes in his life, and I didn’t want ours to make the list. No matter how much I already knew I’d hurt after all this, I needed him to only ever think of me with fond memories. I needed him to remember me in all his dreams as someone who gave him something good. Something to be remembered and treasured.
Still, “I’m going to miss all of you,” fell free from me anyway.
