Tear You Apart Read online

  He offers coffee, tea. Wine. And though I’m thirsty, still so thirsty, I decline with a shake of my head, and move past him to the space beneath those tall windows where the gray light turns everything to pearl.

  I take off my clothes, piece by piece. The boots, the stockings. The dress, which buttons from throat to hem. In satin and lace I stand in front of him, and then I take those off, too. Hiding nothing.

  Will takes up his camera. Eye to the lens. The whir and snap of the shutter tastes brittle and dry, like dust. His voice, murmuring instructions, saying my name, is the ocean.

  He will always be my ocean.

  Taking picture after picture, he moves around me. Posing. Adjusting. And then finally, just touching me, over and over. He puts the camera down and his mouth finds the spot at the back of my neck. The slope of my bare shoulders. He moves along my skin with the sureness of familiarity, but with hesitation, too. His fingertips trace the knobs of my spine. The length of my arm to my wrist. He takes my hand, and our fingers link, and I don’t care anymore that I’m naked and insecure, because in front of him, I feel beautiful.

  This is it. The last time. I tug open the buttons on his shirt and draw it off his arms. His belt, his jeans. I kneel in front of him and nuzzle the soft, fine hairs on the insides of his thighs, while my fingers find the waistband of his briefs and pull them down. I take him in my mouth.

  I map him.

  Every part of Will, with my mouth and hands, tongue and teeth. I pay attention to every beautiful inch of him because this is the last time I will ever touch him, and I want to have this with me for the rest of my life. The inside of his elbow, smooth and sweet. The back of each of his knees. Ankles, bony and hard under the pressure of my teeth.

  Every finger, knuckle by knuckle.

  I press my lips to the pulse in each wrist. His palms. The scoop of his collarbones has me undone and shaking, and I nuzzle the hollow at the base of his throat until I stop. I kiss the line of his jaw. His cheeks. I cup his face against mine and flutter my lashes against his skin, over and over, while he laughs softly, and then I kiss his closed eyes.

  I thread my fingers through his hair. I study the curve of his ears, the slope of each shoulder blade, with my fingertips and then my mouth. I kiss his spine all the way to the base, and then the sweet spots of each dimple above his ass.

  I take everything, and I make him mine.

  I want to never forget it. His smell, the taste of him, everything about him. I love him so much it is like dying. The pleasure, like dying. And I want to die with it, but I won’t. I will just go on and on, even though it kills me, like nothing ever has, and oh my God, I wish I could be with him forever.

  You could call this a lot of things, but I will always call it love. Even when the pace gets frantic and grasping, when I rake my nails into his skin and he bites me hard enough to bruise, even when he turns me so he can take me from behind and pounds into me, flesh on flesh. When the headboard creaks from how hard I’m gripping it, and when he yanks my hair until my head tips back. When he tells me how much he hates me for staying away so long, and all I can do is murmur his name, over and over, each time a little louder, like a plea.

  And yes, yes, yes, even when I beg.

  The universe gives us what we need, but not always how we want it. Spent and gasping, I lose track of how many times I tip into orgasm. There’s too much pleasure. Too much pain. And at the end of it, when he buries himself inside me and my name sighs out of him with the rush and hiss of waves on sand, all I can do is hold on tight and love him as much as I can.

  “What do you want me to do with the pictures?” he says after a while, when we’ve dozed to the spatter of icy rain against the windows.

  Night is falling.

  “Keep them,” I say. “They’re for you. If you want them.”

  Will shifts in the tangle of sheets, his hand splayed on my belly. “Do you have to get back?”

  There’s nothing to get back to but an empty apartment I haven’t yet filled with things I love.

  Without answering the question, I turn to face him, our heads together on the same pillow. He’s so close to me that even in the dimming light I can see the shimmer of gold in his greenish eyes. “Remember when we didn’t know each other?”

  “Yes,” he says. “I remember.”

  “Will...do you think we could ever really be together? For real, I mean.”

  He doesn’t pull away, but his expression goes guarded. “Yes. I’ve thought about it.”

  “You don’t think it would work?”

  He hesitates. “I think...I wonder if maybe you just think it would work better with me because you don’t like where you are. I think we’d work for a month and then we’d fuck it up. And then what?”

  And then what.

  “At least we’d know,” I say. “At least we’d have tried. Could we? Try?”

  Will says nothing, and I kiss him so we can both pretend there were words. I kiss him until my mouth is numb, and when he curls against me, his face against my chest, I stroke his hair until his breathing slows and he falls asleep. Then I get up slowly and quietly and dress, and I leave without a note or another word, because the kindest thing you can do for someone you love is to never tell them how much they have broken your heart.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  I take another train, and at the end of it, I stand and stare at the ocean.

  The water comes in. The water goes out. The ocean always changes, and yet it’s eternally the same.

  For an endless moment all I am is the ocean. All I have become is the sea. It kisses me with salt, and I wonder if I will always taste tears when I think of him.

  Yes.

  The memory of his voice will always taste like salt and smell like sand and wind and the cry of gulls.

  Some people live their entire life and never once feel how I felt every time he looked at me. So yes, this hurts. And yes, I feel as if I might die. But I won’t. And somehow, I find a way to let it all go...just let it go. No regrets. No grief. It will always hurt a little, down deep in that secret place, but it’s become a pain I can handle. Besides, if it didn’t always hurt, just a little, it wouldn’t mean as much.

  At my feet, the water leaves behind shells and seaweed and rocks. Black and beige and white and gray. Among them is one I need; all I have to do is look. And there, half buried in the sand, hidden in a way it would have been so easy to miss, is the one I’m looking for.

  Heart-shaped rock.

  The universe gives us what we need. I wipe away the sand and trace the rounded edges. It is the most perfectly heart-shaped rock I’ve ever found. It would be the best one in my collection. So of course I throw it as far out into the water as I can.

  Someday.

  Not a demand, but a wish.

  Please.

  And with this, with that, the colors all come back. The wind whispers music and the sound of birds is the tinkle of bells, and the way my heart beats is a steady one-two thump that works the way it’s meant to.

  The well of my heart is a very deep place, and at the bottom, it’s dark.

  He was my ocean, and I didn’t know if I would drown until I learned how well I could swim.

  * * * * *

  Playlist

  I could write without music, but I’m so very glad I don’t have to. Included is a partial playlist of the music I listened to while writing Tear You Apart. Please support the artists by buying their music.

  “Tear You Apart” —She Wants Revenge

  “Oh No” —The Commodores

  “Missing You” —John Waite

  “You Won’t Let Me” —Rachael Yamagata

  “One More Night” —Maroon 5

  “Crazy” —Stars Go Dim

  “Everything Change