Chapter Twenty-Five

Miles

M y mom's stay in Boston is short.

Two nights, and she's off on a plane back home.

For two nights, Zoe and I share a bed that never felt mine—and now thoroughly feels ours . To my delight and, in all likeliness, to fuel and further my delusions, any awkwardness or shyness or embarrassment that might show the truth of our relationship (or the lack thereof) are perpetually missing.

Zoe, the architect—the little control freak—doesn't miss a detail in her orchestrations of my mother's surprise visit. To make sure Julia won't suspect we don't share a bed, Zoe has concocted a plan for our nights.

She will stay with me only long enough that no suspicions arise, then flee to her home office, where she'll crash for the night. Stubborn as she is, I know it's a lost battle before I even voice my disagreement.

"Hey," she says, our eyes locking in the mirror. She's in my room, wrapped in her favorite bees, removing the fifteen earrings she always wears in front of the dresser. I hold my smile, my breath.

"Happy birthday, Blackstein. I hope you had fun at your party." Her reflection is bare and unguarded—effortless walls of ice gone. I blink, afraid the mirror plays me with my own hopes.

"I did. Thank you," I say softly.

Zoe's eyes are shadowed in the dim lighting of the bedside wall lamps, but they swim with something I've only dreamed of before. I want to stretch this moment forever.

"Let's watch something?"

"Just one episode."

Soon, Zoe is yawning next to me as we laugh at The Great. She yawns, again and again, until her eyelids become too heavy to stay open, her body too heavy to stay up. She sags against the pillow, quickly drifting off to sleep.

I can't look away, overwhelmed by her mere existence here, by my side, at the same time, same place, same space as me. By coincidence, fate, or whatever God-entity, this is right .

Although every fiber of my being revolts, I make my way to leave. As soon as the mattress shifts without my weight, Zoe pats my pillow and murmurs, never unpeeling her eyes, her almost unintelligible voice heavy with sleep, "Let's go to sleep."

We don't discuss it. An unspoken understanding—what's done in the darkness of the night should not be brought up in the light of the day.

So, I don't tell her how I wake up both nights, sweaty with the heat of her sticking to me, her face crushed against my bare back and her arm clinging around my torso. I don't tell her she's a cuddler, the big spoon spooning me in her sleep.

I know I'm using my mother's presence as an excuse to steal touches and moments, but I don't feel bad for a second. I'll take, steal, and possess every second I can with Zoe—each of them overwhelming and never enough.

Suddenly, it's clear.

I can't possibly go back to just sharing a house in cold distance—who knows until when. It's been over 3 months. Sooner or later, Zoe will call it time to end the deal—it's only a wonder she hasn't already. What will I say then?

The infatuation I fought and nurtured for a year is child's play compared to what consumes me now. As much as I've tried to keep myself away in the wake of tragedy, my feelings for Zoe have only deepened to something that can't be called love—something that can't be bound or tamed by the English dictionary—and they seem to grow with every breath and every blink.

How am I supposed to ever let go when she's the best part of me?

With Mom in town, and Zoe occupying the entirety of my mind's landscape, I haven't been able to start sorting through my mother's—and my own—revelations, though it's been nice to reconnect tentatively with Dad via text.

But I do know I refuse to have a repeat with her. I refuse to let all the things untold fester and steal my happiness.

Though I love my mom, part of me is (shamefully) glad she's leaving. I drive her to the airport and see her off through gate 54 with heaviness in my heart, the nostalgia of a forever little boy who would always ache for a mother's hug, and a renewed urgency to go home. I can't wait and waste any more time.

My urgency morphs into dread as I swing the front door open and enter a horror movie .

Crimson, crimson, crimson.

Little puddles of crimson everywhere—covering tile, staining carpets, paving a path through stairs. Little paintings in shades of blood, abstract patterns of my nightmares.

The start of a movie I've seen before.

Heathers in the voice and beat of Surf Curse blasts through the home sound system, the walls shaking with the volume. Or maybe it's me. I'm shaking.

"Zoe?" I call out, but I can't tell if her name is a scream or a whisper with the thundering beat in my ears. "ZOE?"

Everything else looks the same. I think. I can't really see past the red everywhere.

My heart constricts inside its cage. A thousand scenarios blend with memories, screaming in my mind and smothering the beat of the music.

What if it doesn't have a happy ending, this time?

I screw my eyes shut, evicting all the what-ifs from my mind. Zoe needs me to remain level-headed, right now. It's her rasp in my ear telling me not to lose my shit.

Keep it together, Blackstein. There's a moment for everything , her voice, the voice of reason that never cracks under pressure, says. And it's not time to freak out — yet.

Ironic, isn't it? That the motive of my panic is the source of my strength, the glue keeping me from breaking.

I follow the crumbs. One thing at a time. If I can just do one thing at a time, take one step at a time, I won't trip and fall down the precipice into the abyss of full panic. One step at a time.

Upstairs, reigns the unspoken rule of always leaving the doors open when we're not inside. Right now, the only door that's closed is the master room—the one we shared the past nights.

I don't give myself time to think. I twist the doorknob and enter. The bed is unmade, ruffled sheets and crumpled pillows and only oppressive white—no trace of her. Earrings are scattered in the dresser, the scrunchies I steal and collect next to the polaroid of us.

"Zoe?"

Her name hovers in the air under the stomping notes of the song. No answer. Nothing.

The bloody path angles towards the ensuite bathroom door—closed. I bulldoze right through the door.

"Oh my God!" Zoe's scream slices through the tension-filled air. It doesn't tilt with the note I was terrified of. It's the familiar infuriated inflection. "What the hell, Blackstein? You scared the fuck out of me!"

"What the hell, Zoe ?" I yell back, ridding my windpipe of the crushing pressure strangling me from the moment I got home. My voice breaks, shaking as my hands do. "What the hell?"

I have enough presence of mind to direct all my senses to cataloging her, making sure all her limbs are intact. I can't.

Because her body is obstructed from my view from the neck down—Zoe is in the bathtub. She soaks in the porcelain freestanding tub as bubbles and a light fog dance around her, giving her an ethereal aura. All rested and relaxed as my insides crumble upon themselves and fight to realign.

"Miles?" she says around a tentative smile, laying back down against the welcoming slope of the tub. "Come here."

My legs flutter like they might give out under me. But I'd do anything Zoe asks. So, I walk over to her, unsteady but determined steps hovering above her mere inches away .

Unmoving, she awaits with a fierce soft look, as though she knows she can chase my demons away with the flick of a finger.

I drop to my knees and, without a second thought, push her damp strands to her back in order to wrap my hand around her neck. My thumb seeks her heart on her collarbone, the steady rush of her pulse working like a tranquilizer, soothing mine.

" You scared the fuck out of me." I lean into her, fusing my forehead to her temple. "You scared me, Zoe." The warmth of her wet, pebbled skin under mine assures me she's real, the beat of her heart rising and retreating on my thumb with her breaths assures me she's okay, and I can breathe again. "God, woman. I come home to find bloody—literally bloody —floors and screaming music… It was a horror movie scenario down to a T."

"And how would you know that? You don't watch horror movies. You get scared, then can't sleep at night."

That is Zoe's way of apologizing, I realize—trying to draw pull my lips into a smile. It doesn't work. The muscles of my face are strung too tight to do anything but gulp in her sweet scent.

"Not an appropriate time for jokes."

"A bit ironic, coming from you," she murmurs under her breath.

It's like we've both agreed to keep our tone low, a lull. Even through the roaring song, we don't have to be loud to hear each other. Our whole world resides in the small inches between us.

"I'm serious."

"Now that sounds like a joke. "

"I mean it, Zoe. Can you imagine what I thought?"

"I'm sorry." She sighs. Suds of soap swallow her palm as it emerges, smearing them on my face as Zoe cups my cheek. "I cut my foot on some glass we must have missed at your party."

She lifts her foot to rest up on the rim of the tub, revealing a diagonal gash right in the middle of her sole. It doesn't seem too deep—only enough to write an ominous bloody script all over the house.

"I came up searching for a band-aid or antiseptic or something. And then I thought, well, why not try the tub while I'm here? It's been tempting me for days. It didn't occur to me how it would look to you. I'm sorry."

"You don't know. You don't understand." I release a frame-shaking breath, purging the poisoned air that stuck to the walls of my lungs when I saw the first spectrum of crimson. "If anything happened to you—"

My finger releases her heart to brush a featherlight kiss across her scar.

I can't finish my own sentence. I can't bring myself to even imagine a world without Zoe.

"I'm okay," she reassures, drawing sudsy circles on my skin with her thumb.

"Don't you ever scare me like that again," I plead.

It sounds like a confession and the beginning of our downfall. But then, it feels like we've been falling for a long, long time.

I know I have.

From the first time I saw Zoe Beatrice Westwood, I was doomed.

"Okay," Zoe promises .

I close my eyes, rolling my forehead on hers as I draw in a deep breath, allowing the flowers in her shampoo to dislodge the tension that tightens my muscles. "Jesus, you'll be the death of me."

Fear evaporates in the steamy air of the bathroom into tiny drops of condensation as they race in vertical lines down the mirrors and window glass. The tension remains, unrelenting. It morphs and blends into a palpable scorching flame stoked by our every breath.

The playlist moves on, indifferent to the world of things exchanged inside these four walls. Fallingforyou by The 1975 , I distantly recognize.

Sensing the shift in the air, Zoe's nails become claws in my scalp. The water moves to the tide of her ragged breaths, bubbles lapping at her collarbones like sea foam in the wake of violently breaking waves.

I pull back, though every bone complains at the loss of her warm heartbeat, and look at her.

Zoe is clad nothing but a thin layer of bubbles. Her curls are the blackest black ink, tinged by the water droplets running marathons towards where half of the length is drowned. Her dainty foot still rests on the rim of the tub, a blurry trail of light red, water and blood, painting pristine porcelain. The foamy water hits mid-thigh, exposing her toned leg to me, wet and glistening as the droplets of water glide down smooth golden skin.

The sun is blurry through the large windows, playing with the greens and blues of her eyes in a hypnotic spell until I believe I see in them what she sees in mine.

Fuck.

She will be the death of me .

Blood flees every corner of my blood, furiously shooting for my groin, as we bathe in this brewing knowledge that this thing between us is no longer one-sided.

It has never been.

Slow, slow, slowly, I dip to kiss her, giving her all the torturous time in the world to push me away. Her heavy lashes fall to my lips on their way to close, and I think she'll let me. I see it in her thinning breaths through parted lips.

She'll let me kiss her like I've been so desperate to.

That's what I am—desperation.

To stay away, aware she deserves better than someone who only brings destruction to her door.

To stay close and become everything she deserves.

I've disrupted her peace, her safety, weaseling my way into her life because I selfishly had to have her. I brought nothing but chaos and crisis to her door.

She'd be better off far, far away from me.

And still, I can't make myself leave.

Desperation grows, fueled with determination. I will kiss her, if she lets me. And if she lets me, I will hone myself into the man she deserves with my bare hands if necessary.

The startling sound of her ringtone puts the music on pause, upsetting the water surrounding her into tiny tidal waves. Our noses briefly brush as Zoe adjusts in the tub, the long since tepid water singing my skin.

"We're late for lunch with Grandpa," she croaks out through the tsunami.

"Fuck," I groan. "This isn't over."