She. Was. My. Muse.
My girl.
My Junie.
“Open your eyes. Open your eyes and look at me. Just fucking look at me.”
I did.
She kissed my forehead, my cheeks, my neck, pecking her way up to my lips. Stopping when they were centimeters apart, the closest they’ve ever been to one another.
“Junie,” I whispered in a tone of pure agony. “Show me what love is.”
It was the first thing that came to mind.
“I’m going to show you what love is, Cash McGraw! You’ll see! I’m going to show you!”
It was a memory I thought about often. The night I said goodbye to her, she was so little, so determined, so wholeheartedly loving. I never saw her as anything other than a baby girl with a crush on me.
At this point, there was no holding back, no starting over, we had nothing but this moment. Where she was with me, we were together, and for the first time in my life, it felt right.
She felt right.
We felt right.
The urge was too consuming, too powerful, too life-changing.
I. Kissed. Her.
Grazing her lips at first, teasing her with the tip of my tongue all along the outline of her mouth. I wanted to remember this kiss as if it were my first, as if it were...
My last.
Tenderly.
Slightly
My tongue sought out hers.
It was the best kiss of my existence. The sweetest embrace I’d ever experienced. I took my time with her, not wanting to lose a second between us. Needing it as if she was the air in my lungs, the beat in my heart, the love of my life.
I kissed her with everything left inside of me. Wanting her to understand my shame and remorse, the agony of what I gave up for a life to be spent alone with no one but the memory of them left in their place.
With each kiss.
Each caress.
Each groan that escaped from my lips, she felt the weight of my truths fall upon her.
There was no running away from them. I never could. Booze and drugs were the only things that kept the demons at bay, which was only borrowed time. A limited number of minutes where they didn’t wreak havoc in my day. Silencing the error of my ways.
Journey was proving to have the same effect.
I kissed her one last time, allowing my lips to linger for a few more seconds before resting my forehead on hers. My hands were still clutched onto the sides of her face. Her eyes were closed as her chest heavily panted for air. We were in our own little world. Both trying to find our breathing. When she finally opened her eyes, all she saw was me staring profoundly at her. Seeing my future in her hands.
She knows all your truths, Cash. She knows, and she’s still here. In your bed. In your arms. In your world. She’s with you. Through it all, she’s still here with you.
I couldn’t process it fast enough. I sought out her refuge, her light, her fuckin’ heart and soul. Only darkness surrounded me for so damn long. I was so tired of it all.
Exhausted.
Drained.
Giving in to her.
Her words.
Her love.
Mine.
She was submerged in my sea of agony. Drowning right along with me. Praying we’d come up for air, together. She wouldn’t leave me. Nothing could make her leave me.
“Junie,” I rasped against her lips. “Show me what love is.”
Broken hearts.
Shattered souls.
Coming together...
As one.
There was no thought, no hesitation, no indecision. She was mine. She’d always been mine. I wasn’t going to let her go.
Not now.
Not ever.
Then.
Now.
Forever.
Coming full circle, I demanded,
“Marry me.”
Chapter 3
“The sun is gone, but I have light.”
-Kurt Cobain
<>Journey<>
Now: Eighteen-years-old
“What?” I scoffed, my mind blown.
“You heard me.”
“No, I don’t think I heard you correctly. Did you just ask me to marry you?”
“Yeah, Junie. Marry me.”
“Are you high?” I spewed without thinking. My emotions and thoughts were running a mile a minute.
What the hell?
He narrowed his dark, entrancing eyes. “No.”
“Are you drunk?”
“Journey,” he stated in a stern, dominating tone. “I asked you to marry me, and that’s all you gotta say? Questionin’ my state of mind?”
“That’s not asking, Cash.” I pulled out of his grasp, needing a second to breathe. Away from him. Where his hands, his presence, his influence weren’t taking ahold of me.
Swiftly, I slipped off his bed to pace around the room. Dragging my hands through my hair, wanting to pull it out. The walls suddenly closed in on me with my heart beating erratically, pounding for a whole different reason.
Has he lost his mind?
“We’ve only been together for less than a week.”
“You’ve known me all your life.”
I peered at him with wide eyes. “Cash, you can’t be serious right now.”
“I ain’t ever been more serious ’bout anythin’ in all my life. Marry me, Junie.”
I stood there staring at him. I couldn’t stop staring at him. He had to have lost his damn mind.
“Are you hearing yourself right now? Because if you were listening, you’d know how crazy you sound.”
“Crazy ’cuz I want to spend the rest of my life wit’ you?”
“Yes! You don’t even know me!”
“We’re back to this shit again?”
“I wasn’t aware we left it.”
“Junie...”
“Don’t Junie me, Cash.” I adamantly shook my head. “We can’t get married.”
“So your answer is no?” He frowned, making my chest ache. “You’re turnin’ me down?”
“You’re not even asking me, Cash. Marry me is not a proposal, it’s a demand. You’re demanding I marry you, and just last night, you were pushing me away and taking off. How do you expect me to say yes to that?”
He deeply sighed, narrowing his gaze at me. It was as if he was searching for answers to questions he couldn’t ask. Trying to find some sort of reaction other than what I questioned.
Was he expecting me to say yes?
I had to get through to him. Make him understand marriage wasn’t the solution to his problems. It was simply an escape.
“Please stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you expect me to say yes. We haven’t even gone on a date. Up until a moment ago, we hadn’t even kissed. There’s been no exchange of I love you, nothing. You need to take a step back and hear what you’re saying because you’re not making any sense.”
He strode over to me until his body was looming over my small frame. Staring into my eyes, he tugged on the ends of my hair.
“That what you want, Junie? You want me to take you on a date? Hold your hand? Buy you dinner? Take you to see a movie? Then what? Huh? We come back to my tour bus and I bury my face in between your legs and make you come for the first time in your life wit’ just my tongue and lips? That what you want, baby?”
I swallowed hard. His talent of going from one extreme to the next was giving me whiplash.