Total pages in book: 260
Estimated words: 245483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1227(@200wpm)___ 982(@250wpm)___ 818(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 245483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1227(@200wpm)___ 982(@250wpm)___ 818(@300wpm)
I dunk the tea bag in and then again, watching as the light brown water turns darker and the color consumes the inside of the white ceramic tea cup.
My eyes lift at the sound of John picking up the boxes in the living room. The cardboard rustles as he lets out a heavy sigh.
“Why is there so much yellow?” he asks me. The question makes me smile into the cup and I nod my head once, recognizing the odd obsession.
“Yellow makes you happy,” I say simply. “Just seeing the color makes you happier than you were before.” I smile at him, but there’s a sadness in his eyes from the admission.
He may think he’s the fucked up one, but I needed him too. Desperately.
“Is this the last of it?” John asks and then leans against the doorway to the kitchen, ignoring my answer. His white shirt has a bit of dust swiped across the bottom which only makes him appear that much more masculine. His muscles flex under the thin fabric, pulled tightly across his broad shoulders and I absently blow across the top of the mug as I nod my head yes.
Slowly, we’re making this place ours. A complete home. It’s funny how even our décor seems to need each other for balance.
“Thank you for bringing it all,” I tell him. I almost say Jay, but instead I say nothing.
It’s odd calling him John, because he’s always been Jay to me. He never told me, but I can understand why. In a lot of ways, we’re learning more about each other, but in other ways, we’re learning who we are ourselves.
Love isn’t something we have to learn though. Love was a given from the moment we saw each other. Something in our very souls told us we were meant to be together. Without each other, we wouldn’t have survived what life had planned for us. Not back then when we were only children, and not today or even tomorrow.
I need him as much as he needs me. It’s the only thing I’m certain of.
“Thank you for staying with me,” he says easily as he walks across the kitchen and wraps his arms around my waist. I set the cup down on the counter and the ceramic clinks before I look back up to him. I notice how his hands tighten on me as I lift my hands to his shoulders and rise up on my tiptoes to kiss him on the lips. It’s short and chaste, but I want all the kisses from him. Every sort he has for me.
When I pull away and my heels hit the floor, his eyes are still closed. It’s the raw emotion and truth that drew him to me. And maybe me to him.
“Tell me what you remember?” he asks me in a whisper and my gaze falls, but I rest my cheek to his chest and nod my head, listening to the steady sound of his heartbeat.
Together we’ll get through it all. Together and always.
“I think you loved me when you saw me, didn’t you?” I ask him.
“Which side of me are you asking?” he lets out an uneasy sigh, avoiding my gaze and the question.
“Both, neither, it doesn’t matter really. I already know you did,” I speak with feigned confidence. I want to hear him say it. I need to, really. I need to know that he’s always felt this way. I know I have. I’ll never stop loving him and I’m terrified that one day, he’ll stop loving me.
“He showed me a picture,” he starts to say and then covers his face with his hands. “I… I,” John says. I bite my lip, hating how much pain it causes him when he tries to recall a memory and he reverts. But it’s normal. He has to learn that. He has to accept it.
“When I saw you, all those years ago, I knew I was to protect you. When I looked at your picture. When I knew I was going to take you and face this… this hell in order to be with you. I looked at your picture and I knew I was going to love you.” He nods his head, closing his eyes and I know it hurts, to merge the memories and meld the scene in his head. The medication helps the present, but the past is hard. Nothing’s going to change that.
“I love every part of you, the man who wants to forget and the man who suffered for his father’s sins.” I cup his face in my hand and kiss him on his jaw and then softly on his lips.
He stares back at me with nothing but pain in his eyes.
“I don’t know how you can love me,” he says in a whisper.
“I don’t know how you can think I ever didn’t love you. Even when I ran. I’ve always loved you.” A weak smile forces its way to my face as I struggle to use his name. He doesn’t want me to call him Jay, but he’s always been Jay to me. “My wolf.”