Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 26471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 132(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 88(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 132(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 88(@300wpm)
Mandy
On the way out the door, my legs are shaking and my heart is crumbling, but I’m proud of myself for doing the right thing. For reading the signs and knowing I should get out while I can. I’m going to be in pain for a long time, maybe forever, but I can put one foot in front of the other. I can focus on my studies and hope the rupture in my chest will mend over time.
It’s a long shot, but what other choice do I have if I want to be my own person?
Bobby
Searing pain strikes me everywhere at once.
I look down at the note in my hand and my world erupts around me, walls melting, the sky outside going from serene and blue to a malignant black.
Mandy left me.
She is not here where I left her. She is gone.
A pitiful sound churns upward from the deepest pits of my stomach and I pitch left, my shoulder ramming into the side of my desk and upsetting everything on the surface. I continue to the floor, landing on my knees, my sides heaving as I labor to breathe.
No.
No, this isn’t right. It’s not happening.
Please don’t let this be happening.
I looked into her eyes this morning and saw what I needed to see. This way we love each other is sudden and scary and intense and consuming, but it goes both ways. It’s mutual. As she says in her note, the way we operate might be considered by many to be unhealthy. There’s no denying that, is there? I’ve known it along every step of this wild journey over the last two weeks. That I was feeding my obsession too much. Giving in to too many jealous impulses.
That being said, there is no way out of this. Doesn’t she realize that?
We can’t simply go back to a time when we didn’t know one another existed.
Does she honestly think I could return to living my normal, everyday life knowing she is out there? Without me? Left to the mercies of this world? I would end up in an asylum…and I have to believe she would end up the same way. She is underestimating the power of us. It’s not a relationship that can be ended at will.
By God, it’s permanent.
She’s scared. Of course, she is. I’ve let my obsession run free, totally undiluted. I’ve kept her delirious from fucking. I’ve caged her up, despite my conscience trying to warn me that I was eventually going to drive her away. This is my fault. I came on like a tidal wave, separating her from anyone who might tell Mandy that I’m bad for her.
The scary part is, I don’t know if I can stop. I don’t know if I can change.
This insanity is only for her. It is written inside of me in her blood.
My twin flame. It’s not a myth—it’s real—and I found mine. My actions over the last two weeks have been reprehensible. They’ve also been necessary to maintain my sanity. Having her to myself. Becoming her world. Making her live for me, the way I lived for her starting that night in the bar. Those things came natural as breathing and I can’t simply stop breathing.
My hand lifts and grasps the edge of the desk. Slowly, I pull myself to my feet, struggling through the dizziness and denial. I’ve got to bring her home. My life depends on it. She won’t be able to deny the gravity between us when we’re in the same room together. I simply have to find Mandy and remind her we are not optional.
five
Mandy
I’m feeling reckless.
Rebellious.
Heartbroken and sick and starved, too. Maybe rebelling is my way of overcompensating for the terrible pain in my body. I left Bobby’s house this morning and I thought I would feel better, freer, but I don’t. The more time passes without him, the more taciturn I become. This has to be Stockholm syndrome, right? I shouldn’t miss him to the point of shaking, head to toe.
Even more reason to stay away.
He’s altered the chemistry of my brain. My body.
If I’d stayed at his home, he would have returned by now and he’d be inside of me, his husky groans in my ear, our skin sweaty, slip sliding together, our mouths voracious. As if we hadn’t seen each other in years, when in reality it has only been a matter of hours. Afterward, he would kiss me everywhere. My tummy, my neck, my buttocks, my toes. It’s like a ritual, the way he praises me in those after-moments, licking salt from my skin and whispering reverent compliments until I’m clinging to him with tears in my eyes.
Dizzy, I command myself to focus on my reflection in the mirror. To stop replaying every second of the last two weeks over and over again, hard as it is.