The villa was silent, but it wasn't a comforting silence. It was stifling, settling over me like something I could never rid myself of, heavy in every room of the house with an unspoken silence that was even more deafening than anything that ever could have made a sound.
Out there, the sky dissolved into pink with the final dying strands of day, the gold and rose streaks flowing upwards into the sky. The sea stretched on as far as my eye could see, the waves rising up over the next, crashing onto the sand in a perpetual beat — a reminder that the world didn't stand still, however still my own world had.
But the house was vacant. It gasped for air, just as we both did.
Two days had passed since Caspian kissed me on the beach like he was fuse us together. Two days since he'd sworn on my lips and held me like he could hold on to me to this world.
And now he was a ghost.
Not literally — he was still there, striding around the villa with stiff, outraged rigidity, his voice barely above a whisper as he shouted orders into the telephone. But in his mind, he was out of here. Somewhere way back in his head and locked the door behind him.
I stood in the kitchen, clutching a cold mug of tea for hours, observing him through the glass doors of the balcony. He was standing at the railing, phone in hand, the wind blowing through the loose ends of his black top. His hair was blown around by the wind, his untidy locks falling over his brow, but he had not appeared to have noticed.
His jaw was awry, muscles quivering underneath his skin as he spoke.
He had not touched me since then.
Not kissed me. Not even swished a finger along mine as he went by.
As if touching me would break me. Or worse — break him.
I set the mug down on shaking fingers, china to marble. The clatter was too rough in the empty house, ringing out into the hollow room like gunfire.
I couldn't continue like this anymore.
Couldn't remain here in this suffocating limbo, waiting for him to come back to me.
I had to understand why he was pulling away from me.
I needed him.
The wind swept past, carrying with it the heavy perfume of jasmine and sea as I went out onto the patio, the wind ruffling my skin. What I was witnessing in front of me was a sight of loveliness — sun low in the horizon, water aflame with gold light above the apparently interminable sweep of sea. Waves crashed against the beach, their drum-like pounding broken only by the sporadic splash upon the rocky spur which protruded from the shore.
But the cuteness of it was barely registered.
All I could see was him.
He stood with his back to me, fists clenched around the railing in a white-knuckle grip. White knuckles, tendons pulled tight across the skin as if the only thing holding him together was the tight grip he had on the metal.
"I thought you were resting," he said in a rough voice, not even turning his head to look at me.
I shoved the lump in my throat back down and eased forward. "I couldn't sleep."
His shoulders rose and fell on a harsh, rasping breath.
"You need to sleep, Lily," he answered, his responses brief. Stern. As though he were addressing someone he did not particularly like.
I huddled arms around me, clasped tightly, and a hurt hit me in the chest. "I need you."
He flinched.
It was almost imperceptible — the stiffening of his shoulders, the tiny, infinitesimal shift in his stance. But I saw it. Felt it like a blow to the ribs.
"I'm right here," he said to me, the words a gentle lie.
"No," I gasped, my breath shaking. "You're not."
He turned to face me at last, and what I saw in his eyes broke me.
Because what I saw was not coldness.
It wasn't indifference.
It was agony.
The kind of bare, unadorned agony that stripped a man to the bone.
"I can't do this," he growled, his words scraping at the edges. "I can't pretend not to see it when I look at you."
"See what?" I went toward him, the sand-tiled floor cold on bare feet.
He paced, stomping the ground, as though he could not keep the tempest raging inside him. "You. Bloody. Dead." His voice shook, and he had glared at me, his eyes wide with heartbreak leaving my knees trembling. "I see it every time I close my eyes, Lily. And it's my fault."
My breathing stopped too, tears burning my way up.
"It's not your fault," I attempted to struggle away.
His laughter was acid, bitter. "Of course it is. You weren't in trouble until I brought you into my life." He breathed, his chest heaving. "I'm poison. You'd touched me, and now all the things in your life are falling apart."
He clung to the railing as if it alone was holding him up.
I walked without thinking, covering the space between us and laying hands on his back. His muscles tensed beneath my fingers, but I gripped him.
"You didn't ruin my life," I panted, shaking voice.
"You saved it."
His head dropped against my chest, shoulders convulsing with rough gasps.
"I almost lost you," he whispered, fractured voice that sounded like broken glass.
I rolled over on top of him, palms sliding across the rough texture of his shirt. "But you didn't."
He looked up at me, and the intensity of his eyes took my breath away.
The way he looked at me — as if I was the very center of his whole world. As if he couldn't quite make up his mind whether he would love me or destroy himself for having ever allowing me to get hurt.
It was almost unbearable.
His fingers crept uncertainly up, palms cradling my face in sorrowful tenderness. Shaking fingers drew patterns on my cheekbones with the fingertips as if he required touch reassurance that I existed. Alive.
"You deserve better than this ," he breathed against my brow. "Better than me.".
Tears overflowed my eyelashes, running down my cheeks. "I don't want better." My fingers crawled up his shirt, curling the fabric into fists. "I just want you."
His chest hitched, his breathing harsh as he searched mine, lost and desperate.
And then he broke.
His lips slammed into mine, his kiss brutal and biting, as if he was trying to tear himself in half on me. As if if he kissed hard enough, deep enough, he could suffocate the fear under the hunger for wanting me.
I returned his desperation with mine, the two of us embracing desperately, our hands tangled in the other's hair, pushing him into me as the pressure of the kiss sent me stumbling a step back. He caught me, lifting me up off the ground like I weighed nothing, pushing me back against the cold metal railing.
The villa dissolved around us, the universe contracting to the pounding pressure of our flesh. The spume of salt exploded around us, the waves piling up to a whine of white as we wrapped ourselves around one another.
When finally he broke away, he didn't let me go.
His brow against mine, our breaths mixing in the space between us.
"I don't want to lose you," he whispered, shaking.
I molded his face, thumb tracing still-bruised flesh on the side of his jaw.
"You won't," I swore, the words vows.
He kissed me again — slower this time, gentle. As if he were attempting to heal himself with each touch of our lips.
And I let him.
Because maybe he wasn't the only one who needed to be made whole.
Maybe I was too.
And maybe, and maybe we could heal each other.