Jessie Walker

When I cost us a victory, I got the brunt of the backlash. When I won us a match, I got a slight nod as though Beckett approved of me doing precisely what I was supposed to do. As if I’d done the minimum and won.

He didn’t say I was his only. He said I was his favorite.

A loneliness in him that resonates with the loneliness in me.

I don’t want to die. Not now. Not yet, not yet…
I haven’t even gotten a chance to live.
It’s ironic, considering how I got in this mess in the first place.
But that was before…

Stars dance across my vision, and I think of the tattoo on Nolan’s shoulder.
The night sky.
If there’s a heaven, I hope that’s where it is.
Embedded in his skin.

It’s something I didn’t even know I craved, not until this very moment.
To be owned, wholly and completely. To be devoured, so consumed by another person that no fiber of my being is left untouched by this man.

You’ve flipped my entire world upside down.” He says it like it’s a marvel, not a curse, and my smile widens.

They failed me…
But I don’t have to fail myself.

“It’s like magic,” he murmurs. “You touch me, and it all quiets. You hold me, and it all stops.”

Forget the ocean—let me drown in him.
Engrave me in his bones.
Bury me in his veins.
Let me live as I died—as his.