Chapter 28

Twenty-Eight

“Not a sound!” I hiss in her ear, but it’s all wrong. I shouldn’t hold her like this, with my arm wrapped around her waist like a damn rope, but I can’t help it.

Resigning to her fate, she collapses in my grip, and through the silence, I only hear the paddles diving into the water in a nerve-wracking rhythm. In, out, in, out. Foreign words bounce over the waves. Dark laughter, like mockery. Still, my mind is filled with red fire. Roars, screams, burns. I just can’t let go of Lou, can’t loosen my arms. They’re stuck like the latch inside me.

The canoes slide on, away from us. Away from Lou.

Suddenly she fights back as if only now realizing that her chance is rowing away. With all her strength, she throws herself against my embrace. Her bare feet splash in the water as if they were oars that could take her away from me. Water sprays around us.

Another laugh in the night. Then, abrupt silence, a pause.

“Hush!” I pull her closer to me and press my fingers even harder over her mouth. The sound of swan wings floats across the lake.

Lou whines behind my hand. Her resistance weakens as if I sedated her a second time. It scares me even though I can feel she’s still breathing. She will hate me again. With every passing second, I grow more aware of what I’m actually doing to her. I’m hurting her. I hold her like a perpetrator grabs a victim, not like someone who cares about her. Not like someone who has already shared so much with her. Everything is wrong.

Fear and self-loathing choke me. The red fire flows from my head into my eyes. It glows like lava gutting my sockets. There’s a scream inside me that can’t get out.

Laughter rings out again softly, almost an inkling, and louder shouts follow, a jumble of voices, and then all is quiet.

Too quiet.

I still can’t let go of Lou. I hold her, cling to her like I don’t believe she’s still there. I don’t know how much time passes. She could be gone now, with the strangers. Happy and saved.

The thought numbs me. My arms and legs buckle and I let go of Lou, more gently than I thought I could.

For a moment, she stands there, motionless. Her breathing is ragged and the sweater sticks to her back like a second skin.

Lou, I want to whisper. Forgive me. I’m sorry. Forgive me.

But she runs away from me step by step as if I had beaten her and kicked her while she was on the ground. Nothing is the same anymore, I can feel it in the way she moves.

Lou…

When she has almost reached the trunk of the willow, she turns to me abruptly. As I look at her, I clench my hands and only now realize how much my fingers are shaking. She seems even smaller than usual, even more fragile, even more worthy of protection. Her face is flushed and covered in frantic red spots. Incomprehension, anger, and hurt pride shimmer in the mirror of her eyes.

“You didn’t have to do that.” Her voice trembles, but it’s not fear.

“Yes, unfortunately I did,” I whisper, feeling like I’m the prisoner of both of us.

“No!” She yells so hard I jump. “I wouldn’t have screamed.” She shakes her head wildly. “If I had wanted to, I would have done it. Long before you grabbed me so tight like I was merely the prey you obsess over.”

I don’t understand anything anymore. Her words don’t make any sense. “You wouldn’t have screamed?” I repeat, stunned. “I don’t understand…why… I mean, that was your chance…wasn’t it…” A deep fear takes hold of me, I don’t know why. The rest of the red raging in me dies down. “Lou,” I beg, helpless from incomprehension. “Why not?”

She looks at me with half-open lips. You know why! she seems about to scream, but an invisible force holds back her words. The moment I see her standing there, fragile and strong, I realize what it truly means.

She would have sacrificed everything for me. Her freedom, her past, herself. Because if she can’t go back, she’ll never be the Lou she used to be. She betrayed her brothers for me. Her friends, everything that makes her special. It is too much.

A raw pain surges from the bottom of my soul to the surface. When she wanted to prove to me what I mean to her, I mistrusted her. I have no reason not to believe that she had time to scream.

I shake my head with tears in my eyes. “I’ve done everything wrong again…” I slowly take a step toward her. “When I heard them…I thought they were going to take you away from me. There were six of them.” I slap my hands over my face, a cheap shield to hide the chaos inside me. “I thought that was it, that I’d lost you forever…” My body trembles, but I don’t care. For the first time, weakness doesn’t matter. The world has turned upside down and in front of me is the girl I love, who didn’t leave me when she had the chance. “Why didn’t you scream… I don’t understand you… Lou, why not?” I can’t stop repeating it. I comprehend nothing and yet everything. My fear is so great; the fear of hurting Lou, the fear that this sacrifice will go too deep. I just don’t deserve it—yet I really want it.

I breathe in shakily and hear a landing formation of swans and the gentle ripple of the water.

“You want to know why I didn’t scream?” I suddenly hear Lou ask directly in front of me. The challenge in her voice is as brittle as glass, like everything that binds us.

I can only nod and lower my hands. She stands a few steps in front of me. My gaze strays over her face and the tiny details seem oversized and intense. The silky lashes, the delicate cinnamon-colored freckles, the pale cheeks. However, it is the look in her eyes that almost brings me to my knees. A vulnerability shimmers in it that seems even greater than the sacrifice she made. It’s a silent, desperate plea not to hurt her. A plea to the part of me that loves her with that tenderness so foreign to me.

Come to me, Lou,I whisper in my mind. Come here.

As if hearing me, she takes the last step toward me, wraps her arms around my neck, and rests her head on my chest.

The gentleness of the touch has me frozen with fear like at the beginning of our journey. I can feel Lou everywhere, but my hands are paralyzed and won’t obey me. I want to hold and protect Lou; from the Brendan I fear so much myself, who knows no closeness and no love. Who always destroys everything and says the wrong words. However, Lou believes in the other part of me, unconditionally and much more than I do. She believes in the Brendan who drank the drug and who might be a good person.

I can!I mentally scream, awkwardly wrapping my arms around her waist. Then, I just hold her. Just hold her tight.

The feeling of falling shudders through me like I’ve jumped off a bridge, when Lou pulls my head down right into her hair. The smell of pine needles, river water, and smoke fills me. This is so real. So real. There’s nothing left but her and me, our tightly entwined bodies and trembling heartbeats. Being embraced in Lou’s arms makes me feel complete. As if I had been wandering aimlessly since birth. Blind, deaf, and dumb, and as if within her were the images, melodies, and words that were stolen from me.

The fabric of my hoodie gets wet and I realize she’s crying. Probably has been the entire time.

“Do you know now?” she then asks through a soft sob.

I can’t speak, not even nod. This love hurts. She’s breaking everything in me. Instead of answering, I pull Lou even closer and suddenly her hands are on my cheeks. They are soft and hot. The softness is driving me insane.

I don’t know if Lou inched even closer to me or if I leaned down closer to her. I can only feel her silky soft skin under my lips. Her smooth forehead, her delicate eyelids, the cool tip of her nose. Her mouth.

My heart is pounding in my chest. I kiss her as gently as I can and she opens her lips for me. Her warm tongue presses against mine, timid and shy, almost questioning. Am I allowed to do this? Will you ever hurt me again? Hot, cold shivers run down my spine. I think I’m going insane with happiness. She tastes so good. Like salt, like raspberries and peppermint. All I can think about is how much I want her. All of her. The whole Lou.

When her knees buckle, I pick her up, and she wraps her legs around my waist without breaking the kiss. She presses against me, tight, everywhere, digs her hands in my hair. Oh, God, my body aches with desire. A breathless tremor runs through me. I feel trapped by intoxication.

At some point, we pull apart, gasping for air at the same time. We gaze into each other’s eyes and I find something in her expression that I know I’ll never forget. Something deep, sparkling, enigmatic, something like shadow luck or dazzling night. Something contradictory yet at the same time, immensely strong. It awakens such a longing in me that I think my heart might burst into two if I don’t feel Lou right away.

We kiss again and I carry her to the shore. Everything flies by me, seemingly surreal. The screams of the wild geese, the golden leaves, the smell of the river, and the humidity. I carefully place her on the narrow strip of sand covered by the hanging branches of the willow and lower my body onto hers, covering it completely. I rest my hands on the sand on either side of her head and look at her from above. Her eyes flicker, confused but happy. She smiles and it encompasses so much, everything really. Everything I’ve always wanted. This can’t be reality. It can’t possibly be real. Things like this don’t happen to me. I must be making an odd expression because Lou digs her fingers into my hair tightly again and pulls me toward her until my lips hover over hers. I feel her rapid breath against my mouth. I suppress the throaty sound rising in me. My longing for her is killing me. My desire is killing me.

I find the hem of her sweater with my fingertips, slide my hand under, and feel her warm skin, her smooth stomach, and the tender curve of her breasts. I gently enclose them in my fingers; so sweet, so soft. Just like I always imagined.

At that moment, I wake up as if I was in a dream. This is going too fast. Not for me, but for Lou. But I don’t want to stop. I want to keep tasting, feeling, and smelling her. But then I think how easily I can ruin everything.

“Maybe…maybe we should wait…” I whisper hesitantly, looking at her again: the oval face, the flushed lips, and the eyes blazing with heat, which have never been more unfathomable than they are now. “Maybe after what happened, you’re too confused to know what you want.” It’s hard for me to say since everything inside me is burning hot and cold. I try to hide it for Lou’s sake, but I have a feeling I can’t.

She doesn’t answer right away, but pulls me down a bit. The tip of my nose touches hers. “No,” she whispers. “No…I’m not confused. I’m simply sad because I can’t have it all.”

She means her brothers, her home. I back away automatically, but she pulls me down by the shoulders and begins kissing me again in her shy, innocent way. Am I allowed to do this? Will you ever hurt me again?

Dammit! Stop it, Lou! If you’re not certain, you should stop!

But she doesn’t. She sucks on my tongue, circling it with hers, sweet and promising. My abdomen starts to tingle. My mind is flying away.

Suddenly, the desire in me becomes as big and unstoppable as a fire in a dry summer forest. I rip my sweater off my body and pull Lou’s over her head. Pale and silvery, her body shimmers in the darkness. Her breasts are milky white, small and firm, the nipples bright as rosebuds. I trace the contours with my fingertips and kiss the goose bumps that form underneath. My stroking fingers and lips move upwards again and again and I kiss Lou. I taste her wet tongue as I take off my pants and then hers. We aren’t wearing anything underneath and I feel her everywhere.

My thinking, senses, and desire merge. Burn as if they were already a memory. There’s the patter of rain, cold drops on my back, and Lou’s hands timidly sliding over my body. Over my shoulder blades, down to my butt, to the back of my thighs, and back up into my hair. My lips and fingers explore Lou everywhere; warm, damp velvety areas. She trembles beneath me at my touch. Her lips in the hollow between my neck and shoulder. Her hands shyly feel their way down. Everything blurs and rushes past me. Kisses again. This time stormy and erratic. A shiver runs through me. My body tenses, I want all of her and as if Lou can feel that need, she opens her legs for me.

I enter her carefully. Her breath bursts in tiny gasps against my skin and her eyes flicker, a mixture of fear and desire. Suddenly, she gasps and I stop, startled.

“Lou? Everything okay? Does it hurt?” My words seem strange to the situation, but she nods.

“It’s okay,” she whispers back, breathless, and her fingers, which clawed at my hair, let go. “It’s almost over.”

I wait anyway and only continue when her eyes are open and round again. When I’m completely inside her, feeling her so intensely, I know I can never let her go. It’s only now that I realize how much I’ve longed for her. My body trembles with excitement, ecstasy, and happiness.

As if through a fog, I notice Lou slipping her arms under my armpits, holding on to me. Her sweaty fingers cling to my damp back. I hold back, move slowly and carefully. A soft gasp escapes her mouth. So untainted and full of wonder. It drives me mad, insane, makes my heart race. This is incredibly different from what I did in dimly lit basements. That was dirty, restless, filled with dark lust. This is beyond anything I’ve experienced. There is a beautiful pain somewhere deep inside me, like all my wounds bleed and heal simultaneously.

And I want a lot more of her amazement, her desire. I roll onto my back so Lou is on top of me.

“Now you,” I whisper with a smile.

Lou puts her hands on the sand next to my head, her cheeks are flushed, her eyes bright with fever. Her body presses against mine. She looks at me inquisitively and I think I understand her.

With a soothing gesture, I stroke her damp sandy hair. “Don’t worry, it will flow on its own,” I say quietly to take away her shyness.

I put my hands on her shoulders, straighten her up, and gently press my abdomen against hers. Lou doesn’t need more prompting. Slowly, she lifts her hips and then sinks down in a concentrated and deliberate manner. She peers at me, unsure if she’s doing it right. I nod slightly. Heavens, it’s killing me. Lou, her insecurity and constraint are driving me insane. My body is on fire. I see Lou as if through a bright, misty flicker. The blonde tousled hair, the shiny red lips, her thighs straddling me, the endless astonishment in her eyes.

My heart is beating hard and rough in my chest. It’s searching for the rhythm in a place only she knows. It’s like the heartbeat of the earth, a dark, slow beat. Deep inside, I feel it vibrate and swell. Faster. Hunting. The images of the moment race past me. Lou’s sweaty skin, her pale breasts that glow in the dark and bob up and down.

The heat inside me becomes an unquenchable burn. When I think I can’t take it anymore, I grab Lou’s hips. A surprised sound comes out of her mouth. It drives me crazy with lust and longing. I have the feeling of overflowing. I dig my fingers into her ass hard, wanting to hold her down so she stops, but it’s impossible. Her breath catches. My pelvis bumps against hers over and over. Harder, deeper. Eventually, her back arches and she throws her head back. A dark sound escapes my throat. Everything in me pulses. A shiver of excitement floods her body and ends in mine. Her sweet, stormy gasps fill the night, a sigh of relief and a whimper. It fills me and something inside explodes. The burning shoots out of me. I hear myself scream as I’m carried away momentarily on a wave. To Lou, to us. To what is happening to us.

Seconds later, Lou descends on me with a strangled breath. Her body is soaked with sweat and her hair tickles my chin. I silently wrap my arms around her and hold her tight. Against my chest, I feel the pounding of her heart, a wild, stormy drumming. Da-da-dam-da-da-dam-da-da-dam. I stroke her damp back soothingly, and in response, she wraps her arm even tighter around my neck.

This is forever. It just has to be.

For the second time, I feel like I died and rose again. The echo of our love connects me to a place deep inside me, yet I feel infinitely far away.

I have to think about how everything can change forever in the span of a few moments. Maybe Lou is right. Maybe someday I can become a better person. With a sigh, I pull her even closer to me, feeling her soft body, her heart slowing, and her wonderful exhaustion.

I don’t know how to breathe and live without her.

I close my eyes. I don’t want to think about it, not after what just happened. I simply want to lie here and feel like the past has no power over me. As if Thorson Ave, my stepfather, the beatings, and the darkness never existed. Like I’m a normal boy and Lou is just the girl I love and who I came to the lake with. With her so close to me, for the first time I manage to feel innocent as if I had no past at all and, inside me, it’s like the little boy is reaching for my hand.

Later, Lou and I get up and walk back to the fire hand in hand. We silently fetch the bundle of firewood from the edge of the forest and add a few logs before we crawl into the warm sleeping bag together.

I can’t stop looking at or touching Lou. My longing for her has only grown stronger now. I whisper to her how beautiful she is and silently add how much I love her. Everything about her. Just like before yet different. The Lou I love is no longer a fantasy. She gets scattered red spots when she’s nervous. She doesn’t like to eat rabbit and she’s not just a bright light, she laughs and cries. She’s funny at times, often sarcastic, and mostly brave. She gets to the bottom of things. And she has a big heart, not just for wolf pups. She is a fighter. Her stomach is ticklish below her navel. She likes to be kissed tenderly and stormily. She’s barely responsive before her first coffee in the morning and she tugs at her hair when she’s nervous.

I knew so much about her before and yet nothing.

I stroke her hair and we make love again, this time not so quickly and breathlessly, but carefully and slowly as if we have all the time in the world.

When I wake up the next morning, I hold Lou in my arms like I did the night I warmed her. Her back nestles against me as her butt presses gently against my abdomen. For a moment, I’m tempted to pick up where we left off last night, but then I think of the twenty miles I have left to cover today. Besides, I don’t want to scare Lou. As if reading my mind, she snuggles into me and I sigh and pull her closer.

“We have to go,” I whisper hoarsely into her sleep-warm neck.

I hear her yawn and mumble something that sounds like lying down.

There’s nothing I would rather do. To motivate myself, I slide away from her and focus on the area. In the pale light of dawn, the first chirping can be heard from the thicket. A high-pitched whistling concert alongside the splashing of individual drops that fall to the ground after the long rain. Only now do I realize how odd I feel. Strangely speechless at what happened. And I don’t know how to deal with Lou. What does she expect from me? Does she expect anything at all?

As we crawl out of the sleeping bag and dress, I sneak a peek at her. There is a faint smile on her sleep-reddened face.

Is she happy? She can’t truly be happy with me, can she?

We roll up the sleeping bag together and when I go to pick a few berries, she comes along as if it was natural. Later, we take turns stirring Grey’s milk. We hardly talk. Maybe I’m not the only one afraid of the words. There are so many things I need to say to Lou: I love her and I can’t accept her sacrifice. That I’ll take her back to her brothers. But none of that comes out of my mouth. Saying it makes it true because to do otherwise would be cruel. I can’t raise her hopes if I can’t fulfill it.

That’s the point. I don’t know what I’m willing to give. Maybe Lou and I have a chance here in the Yukon. Maybe Lou’s sacrifice is our future and we’ll be happy in the wild.

As we spoon oatmeal from a bowl, we hold hands without looking at each other. Later, much later—we’ve been underway for a while and I feel her warmth on my back—confused images spin through my head. Spinning around, we let ourselves go and sing with outstretched arms around the campfire at the RV. The next moment, we walk hand in hand gravely and silently across the frozen Quiet Lake. Then, we make love in the cabin’s bunk. Finally, I see Lou running across the dry grass to her brothers.

For the first time, I’m seriously thinking about what it would be like to let Lou go. What it would really mean to me. Can I live with that decision? The answer is no. Nothing makes sense without her. Not even the Yukon makes sense. Without her, my life would be worthless, a lifetime of dying.

Eventually, I snap out of my thoughts because Lou’s teeth are chattering. I stop abruptly.

“You’re shaking,” I say in surprise and glance over my shoulder. “Are you cold?”

“A b-bit.” Lou rests her cheek against my head and I can feel the heat radiating from her through my hair. Something is wrong with her.

I gently slide her off my back and manage to grab her under the shoulder before she falls over. She looks at me with glassy eyes, reminding me of the twin girls from the slums who died of pneumonia one particularly wet winter.

With a bad feeling, I put my hand on her forehead. She’s hot as a coal stove.

“You’re hot. You have a fever.” Damn it, that’s the last thing we need.

“N-now what?” Teeth chattering, she’s holding on to my arm, seemingly exhausted.

I lead her to a tree stump at the edge of the forest and gently push her down. I hope she doesn’t get the flu. Back at the RV it wouldn’t be a problem, but out here, she’s exposed to the cold and harshness of the wilderness without a place to recuperate. I quickly put my down jacket on her, nervously unlace the backpack, and take out the thermos with the raspberry leaf tea.

I silently hand her the mug and watch her anxiously as she sips the tea.

She is pale, only her cheeks are glowing like two red baked apples.

“Are you feeling warmer now?” I ask after a while.

She gives a weak nod.

“You’re still shaking,” I say, raising my eyebrows a little sternly because she’s trying to pretend.

Lou puts her hands on her cheeks and looks up at me trustingly wide-eyed. “It doesn’t matter,” she mumbles. “Your back warms me when you carry me.”

She looks so cute it makes my heart ache. “I don’t have anything with me to bring down the fever,” I tell her, eyeing her doubtfully. “Do you think you can hold on a little longer?”

“Sure.” She tries a smile that’s pathetic enough to touch me.

As I pick her up, I think I can feel her heart pounding against my back. I’ve barely started walking when she leans her cheek against my head.

“You think we’ll last forever?” she whispers into my hair.

I stop abruptly. Her heart is really pounding. “Of course,” I say, even though I don’t know anything and am just as confused as she is. “Why do you ask?”

“No idea. I’m just scared…”

“Scared of what?”

“Of everything… Of us, the future… Of what will be…”

Perhaps it is precisely this fear that is actually making her ill and not hypothermia. Who knows what she’s imagining. Maybe she believes she’ll be my prisoner again once we’re back at the RV. Is she no longer a prisoner? I close my eyes briefly and take a deep breath. What are we to each other now if we are no longer kidnapper and victim? I can’t find an answer. I never want to hurt her again, that’s the only certainty in me.

“Lou…” I say softly, as gently as I can. “I love you. There’s nothing to be afraid of… I thought you knew that.”

“Okay,” she whispers through chattering teeth.

“Really okay?”

“Yes.”

I doubt her words, but she’s too sick to talk about it, so I keep walking, pointing across the lake, sparkling in the midday sun. “There’s a spot up ahead where we can wade through the water to the other side. It’s where the lake turns into a river again.”

“Bren?”

“Lou?”

“If we’re together, forever, then we can have a normal life, can’t we?” She wraps her arms tightly around my neck and leans against my back.

As if struck by lightning, I stop again and feel myself tense up.

“I can’t live a normal life, Louisa,” I say, harder than I want to. It’s almost like old Brendan is bursting out of me like an eggshell.

“But…”

“No but. You know what happens to me during a flashback, don’t you?” I try with all my might to push back the Brendan who is so uncompromising. I don’t want him to ruin everything again. Nevertheless, he is right.

Lou still holds me, undeterred by my harshness—or at least she doesn’t show it. “But I’m not leaving you,” she says so lovingly that my insides tighten. “That means we can go somewhere together.”

“No,” I say unkindly. “I get blackouts when I’m around a lot of people. Did I tell you about the man I knocked unconscious during a flashback?”

“Yes. At the very beginning, after the thunderstorm.”

“He didn’t press charges only because I paid him more for his suffering than he probably would have gotten in court. There are too many triggers in everyday life that provoke such seizures.”

“You lived in the slums. Were there no triggers?”

I snort bitterly. “The entire slums are one big trigger, but that doesn’t matter now. If I’d had flashbacks there, no one would have even noticed.”

She is silent. She’s probably trying to figure out how to convince me. Maybe she truly thinks we can live together among other people. In a cozy small town with stuffy neighbors and the supermarket around the corner. But how could that possibly work? Inevitably, when I freak out for the first time, it would all be over. And Lou would leave me one day when she realizes how hopeless I am. No, I can never go back. I belong in the woods with Lou.

I think she had dropped it when she asks, “Your flashbacks didn’t start immediately after…” She falters. “…after whatever?”

“No.”

“How long have you had them?”

I sigh loudly. “They started when I was fighting for money. So years later. I thought I had overcome everything until then. Could live without thinking about it all the time.” I laugh cynically. “Sometimes, one word was enough. Or a blinding light. Shopping centers were really bad—because of so many stimuli. A certain perfume, the way someone walked, or talked…” Like months ago at Trader Joe’s in Los Angeles.

“I can go shopping,” Lou murmurs. I almost smile at her optimism, but only almost.

“Bren?” she whispers again.

“Lou?” I reply.

“Do you think they might get better someday?”

I sigh again. “Perhaps. One day.”

“Bren?”

“What now?” I grumble, impatient and tense.

She presses her cheek into my hair. “I love you too.”

The world around me begins to sway and suddenly my eyes are wet. I swallow hard, wondering why I’m so sad right now.

I release Lou’s leg, only holding her on one side and pull her head close to mine.

“Oh, God, Lou…” I can barely speak. “You continue to surprise me… I want to make you as happy as you deserve.”

“Bren?”

“Yes?” My throat is scratchy. I don’t want to cry, not now.

“Maybe we should talk less and hold on to each other more?”

“Maybe you should stop talking and get well first,” I say firmly, covering up my weakness. I grab her thigh and pull her back up properly.

“Good idea,” Lou mumbles sleepily, and I start moving again.

No, I’m sprinting. Nobody has ever told me they love me. And now it’s a shock. Maybe not. It seems unnatural and sick to me. You can’t love someone like me. All the people who should have—who had to!—left me. Lou, however, fell in love with me. She loves me. Doesn’t she? I would love to believe it and cling to those words. But maybe that”s exactly what happened, which is why I kidnapped her in the first place. Because that”s what I wanted.

Now, however, I wish I had the reassurance that her love is real. But I will never, ever know. And that seems almost worse to me than if she continued to despise me. Because that I could believe. That would make sense.

Over the next few days, Lou is getting worse and nothing helps bring down the fever. Neither the leg compresses nor the peppermint tea baths or the Emergen-C bring about any improvement. After a short time, I realize that I have to double my daily distance. I clench my teeth and walk in total silence to conserve my strength, but I don’t know how much longer my body can withstand the strain.

Soon, the nights are freezing cold and we have to sleep close to the fire to get enough warmth. I barely close my eyes, so I can hold Lou in my arms, but I don’t know if she notices. Sometimes, she wakes up in the middle of the night and mutters unintelligible things with feverish eyes. Each time, I stroke her hair soothingly, kiss her temples and cheeks, and tell her how much I love her and that this love is forever; that she fills my darkness with light. I tell her that what she makes me feel scares me. This wonderful feeling of freedom, sky, stars, and the size of her heart. It clouds my head like I’ve inhaled too much oxygen and has me reeling in reality as if it were a dream. I tell her I’m afraid my love might overwhelm and devour her like a spirited creature, but I’d take good care of her. But I never tell her I’d let her go. And yet my heart grows heavier every day.