“I’m not at your side, am I West?” I said softly. “I’m behind you. Voiceless. The only reason you ever chased me was because you wanted to ruin me all over again. From the very beginning, this has never been about love. It’s been about greed. Stop lying.”
“You want me to stop lying?” he asked. “Fine. I was only ever allowed to marry you because my father saw an opportunity. I could ruin your reputation and spend months looking for a coin right under your nose. It was the perfect plan.”
He’s been looking for that long? He had a months’ long head start on us. I tried to swallow back my hollow fear.
West tilted his head, reading me. “You can get so much accomplished when your wife loves another man.”
“Was anything real?” I whispered.
He gave me a look. “I don’t know, Angel, was it?”
I looked away. “I was honest with you. I told you I didn’t love you. You pretended to love me. You used me. Stop saying you love me, it’s over, you won—”
“You think I’ve won?” he growled. “I won’t have won until you love me again.”
“Then I guess you’ll always be a loser,” I gritted, “because there is no happily ever after for you.”
Silence descended, the sound of a soft wind blowing sand and snow along the beach outside.
Then he smiled, but his eyes were cold. “This is our happily ever after, Angel.”
Eighteen
STORY
I can’t stop thinking about Grayson on his knees. I went to church once, when my mom was seducing a pastor. The image of Christ on the cross still haunted me.
Naked.
Head down.
Suffering.
In my dreams, I saw Grayson this way. Thrown to his knees over and over again, the memory distorted.
I wished I could write Grayson more than anything, but I had no phone. No way of contacting him. Curious, I opened up my nightstand to see if Grayson’s notebook was still there…
It was.
I fingered the worn leather. If I couldn’t write him directly, I would write alongside his old words.
Dear Atlas,
The night we kissed you shone like a god.
I remember thinking you were cruelly, fatefully designed like only a god can be.
Angels will do anything for their god, right?
Fight, fall, bleed.
But angels aren’t supposed to kiss their god, and I did.
I kissed the lips of a god, so fate punished us.
The constellations ripped themselves apart.
Reworked and remapped;