Chapter 84: Chapter 84
Music Recommendation: Let Down by Radio head.
......
Dominic’s breath turned shallow again. His gaze darted over her face as if trying to memorize it, and to trap her image in a corner of his mind he could run to later.
"I don’t... I don’t want to blink," he said hoarsely. His fingers, still damp from the shower, pressed against her wrist like he was checking if she was solid. "Because if I blink... you might not be here when I open my eyes."
Her chest ached. "Dominic—"
"I mean it," he cut in, his voice shaking harder than his hands. "You feel... real right now. But so did my mother last week, when she sat beside me in the study back at the estate, and asked if I’d eaten. I talked to her for ten minutes, Celeste." His voice broke. "And then I remembered she was in a coffin." He smiled, but his smile was torn.
The words hollowed out the air between them.
"I can’t... I can’t do that with you," he whispered. "If you disappear when I take a breath...." His throat closed, his breath hitched hard. "I’ll stop breathing altogether."
He drew in a sharp gut wrenching breath, and clenched his fists. He couldn’t change a lot, but he could be the best version of himself that’d be worthy of her.
Celeste moved closer, close enough that her knees brushed his. She took his face between her palms.
Her hold was firm, and grounding, so he could feel her warmth. "Look at me," she said softly but with a steadiness that anchored the room. "I’m here. Not in your head. I am not a dream. I’m here."
His eyes searched hers like a man trying to read a map while drowning. The panic still hovered, waiting to drag him under again.
There was desperation in the depth of his eyes, as he tried to blindly believe she would never leave. He had gone through hell but not amount of torture would worth her not staring at him as softly as she does at the moment ever again.
"You’re too close," he rasped, though he didn’t move back. "If I touch you more, I’ll—God, Celeste, I’m not ready to wake up from you."
He said those words like his heart was physically hurting, and he held it in his palm, as he clenched it, and hurt himself.
The sound that left her throat wasn’t quite a laugh, but it wasn’t quite a sob either. "Then don’t wake up. Stay here, with me." She urged softly.
She smiled lightly. "Stay with me."
She slid her arms around him, pulling him forward until his forehead rested against her shoulder. He clung to her like her body was the only solid thing in the room. His breath was still uneven but now, it synced closer to hers.
"I can’t lose you," he murmured against her skin. "Not you. Not after her."
"You won’t," she said, and for once there was no doubt in her voice. There wasn’t even a guarded pause before the promise. And that was when she knew she finally meant forever with him if he wanted it.
He made a low sound, somewhere between relief and despair. "You can’t promise that."
"I can promise one thing," she said, pulling back enough so he’d have to meet her eyes. Her thumbs brushed the damp hair from his temple. "I love you."
For a second, the world stopped moving for him. His eyes tightened immediately, and something like disbelief flashed through them. The disbelief was quick, and almost frightening.
"You... don’t say that," he said slowly, as though testing the words on his own tongue. "You’ve never... do you realize what you’ve just—"
"I’m saying it now," she interrupted. "Not because you’re falling apart. I’m not saying it because of today. I’m saying it, because it’s the truth, and I’m tired of pretending it’s not."
His chest rose sharply, like he’d been holding air for hours. He stared at her, every part of him taut with the effort to believe her.
"If you’re lying—"
"I’m not." She assured.
"If this is just...." His voice cracked again. "If it’s just because I’m broken right now—"
"It’s not." Her grip on his face tightened just slightly. "I love you when you’re strong, and I love you when you’re here like this, scared and shaking and human. I love all of it."
His breath finally left him in a shudder, and for the first time that night, he let it happen without fighting. And when he inhaled again, he found she was still there. She was whole, her hands, her gaze, and her steady heartbeat under his cheek was still present.
For the first time since the burial, Dominic closed his eyes... and didn’t fear opening them.
The silence between them thickened, but it wasn’t the heavy, hostile silence of the past days. This one was softer, fragile, the kind that made you afraid to speak in case it broke.
Her fingers threaded into the damp strands at the back of his head, her touch slow, deliberate, as though memorizing him.
"I don’t know how to... take this," Dominic admitted, his voice barely more than a breath. "I don’t know what to do with the fact that you just said that to me."
"You don’t have to do anything," she said. "Just hear it."
"I hear it," he whispered. His eyes closed, but his grip on her tightened, as if to anchor himself to the sound. "I’m just... afraid I’ll forget what it sounds like tomorrow. Or worse—that I’ll remember, but it’ll feel like it happened to someone else."
"It happened to you," she said firmly. "You. Not the Dominic you think you have to be, not the Dominic you’ve been forcing yourself to be since the funeral. Just... you."
He pressed his face into the curve of her neck, his breath hot against her skin, as he dropped soft kisses there, before saying. "If I let myself believe that, I won’t be able to go back to being without you."
"Good," she murmured, and that single word cracked something deep in him.
"I wish you’d told me sooner," he said after a long pause.
"I think I did," she replied softly. "Just not with words."
He huffed something that wasn’t quite a laugh, but wasn’t sad either. Though it was weary, Celeste took it as a good start after what she just experienced with him.