“Me?” Those gorgeous eyes grow round with surprise. Right now, they’re a beautiful blend of honey with specks of pine. When she’s like this, all soft, and the strong façade is gone, that’s what I love. Because it’s her. Her face free of any makeup, hair free of any dye. Just the Mackenzie she was always meant to be. I want to breathe her pain and share her air because she is vital, a vital piece of me I am sure I’ll never be able to let go of.
I smirk down at her, remembering that night. “You wouldn’t have noticed. You looked at Trent the whole night.”
She groans, burying her face in my chest, making me laugh. “Teenagers are so stupid, aren’t they?”
I sober as I stare down at her. It’s odd, I’ve looked at her like this so many times, and I think this is the first time I can clearly see pieces of her sister in her face. The black hair masked it well, but with her natural hair, I’ve been seeing the parts of her she’s tried so hard to keep hidden from me. “I was leaving the bonfire when I ran into her. She was upset and angry, and well, I was drunk.” She stiffens on top of me, and I know she expects the worst of me, just because of everything else that’s happened. I’ll never admit it, but it bothers me. That she can think so lowly of me.
That’s the problem. When I think she’s giving me an inch, she isn’t really giving me anything at all. She purposely has a shield up around herself, a vine of thorns wrapped around her heart as her form of protection. Whenever I reach out to grab it, claim her as mine, those thorns embed themselves into my flesh, leaving me to bleed out. As much as she wants to, she’ll never truly trust me or let me in.
“I sat beside her anyway and tried to figure out what was wrong. She was scared. That was all I knew.” That cute little crease forms between her brows.
“What was she afraid of?”
Brushing a stray blond lock behind her ear, I shrug. “I don’t know. But she did tell me one thing. She wanted me to protect you.”
That frown deepens. “Why?” Her tone hardens, and I can tell the calm moment we were enjoying together has now evaporated.
“I’m guessing it has something to do with whatever was happening between her and Vincent. I didn’t stick around to find out. That conversation, though short-lived, stayed with me long after her death. When I looked at your sister, especially that night, she reminded me of someone who was lost. Barely keeping her head above the water. Alma perdida.”
“Don’t you have that tattooed on you?”
“I do.” I watch for her reaction to that news closely. “Got it a few years after her death. I felt guilty for what happened. I left her there that night and got on a plane. If I stayed, I always wondered if things would’ve been different for her. For you.”
She sits up suddenly, keeping her back to me. Her spine is stiff, and I wait her out, letting her work through whatever it is she’s thinking or feeling.
“So…” She clears her throat, emotion thick in her tone. “You have a tattoo on your skin dedicated to my sister?”
I slam my eyes shut, realizing now how that sounds. “It’s not like that.”
She turns back around to face me, tears pooling on the edge of her lids, on the cusp of falling over. “I don’t know how I should feel. The fact that you cared enough to mark your skin for her makes me want to kiss you, but there’s this other part of me. Some sick part of me that’s jealous. Jealous that, even in death, she has a piece of you that I don’t.”
An unbearable weight settles on my chest. “I get it.”
“Do you know what it was like for me as a kid? Always being second-best to my sister. Every part of my life, I have been competing, trying to keep up with her in some way, trying to stay afloat. Trying to be just as good as her. You’re wrong. She was never lost. She had everything in her life worked out. She was the better one of us. Do you get why now it’s so hard to hear that every moment I’m with you, I’ll still be competing with her in some way? Always wondering if you see her in me?”
The tears slide down her cheeks, and the organ in my chest constricts. That foreign sensation is back, making it hard to breathe. Pushing upright, I reach out to her, pulling her into my arms. I slide one hand behind her neck, keeping her gaze in line with mine, and the other, I use to wipe away her tears.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I’m convinced she was the lost one, and you were always meant to be who you are. After her death, you lost sight of that, of yourself. That’s why you need to find it again. She let you believe those things because she knew you looked up to her.” Her bottom lip trembles as though she’s on the verge of bursting into hysterics. Taking her face in my hand, I cup her cheek. “And there is no competition, Mackenzie. It’s you. It’s only ever been you.”
I press my lips against hers, tasting the salt from her tears and her. She falls back on the bed, eyes begging for all the things she’ll never admit out loud. I take my time with her the rest of the night, taking a slow perusal of her body with my tongue and fingers until she’s moaning my name well into the night.
I spend most of the rest of the night watching her as she sleeps. She looks peaceful when she’s like this. Not like the broken woman who’s lost her way. I want to protect her, but it’s getting harder and harder. She wants to know so much, and she’s too much of a wild card to have her privy to anything that’s happening. I can’t do what I need to if she’s there every step of the way, fucking up what I’ve already put into motion. I should probably get up now and head to work. I’ve neglected my responsibilities for far too long.
Bending down, I press a kiss to the top of her head, and she stirs. I freeze, thinking she’s waking up, but she just turns onto her side, the sheet sliding off her legs, exposing her perfect curves to me. It takes all my willpower to leave, but, just as I do, her next mumbled words in her sleep halt me in my tracks.
“I love you, Baz.”
My chest squeezes, and my gut tightens painfully, only proving what I already know. This isn’t right. What I’m doing isn’t right. If this is ever going to work, Mackenzie needs to find that happiness she so desperately craves on her own. As much as I want her to come to me for it, it’s unfair. Love is setting someone free even when you don’t want to and hoping they somehow find their way back to you.
That is exactly what I am doing.
I thought after that night in Baz’s bed, we were in a good place, but I was wrong. I woke up the next morning to him gone, and he didn’t come back for two whole days. There were no calls or texts, but then again, I didn’t reach out to him either.
That is the problem with Baz. I can never tell what is really going on in his head. He is impossible to read, impossible to get a read on. With his heart buried in secrets, I’m sure I will never really be able to have him as a whole. He will give me pieces of himself, and I’ll just have to be okay with that.
Saddest part? I am. I’ll take pieces of him if it means I can have him.
I am still angry with him, uncertain of what this means for us, and I can’t deny there’s a part of me that still doesn’t trust him. I want him to share everything with me, but I wonder if he thinks I’m too unstable to do that. And maybe I am.