May fell asleep on the way home. Her little head was resting against the window, her knees were drawn up to her chest and her arms were holding them to her tightly.
With her electric blue eyes closed I felt like I was seeing her other features for the first time. Her eyes normally steal the show for me, and I don't have any time to admire just how perfect her set of lips look, how her cheeks are high and narrow, and how her hands are so small and scar free. It's hard for me to imagine that she had them covered in blood before.
"You look at her like she is the cure to cancer," Archer says as we pull into my driveway.
"She's the cure to my cancer." My cancer was revenge, and she was the cure. Despite her last name when I looked at her all I thought about was how she was mine to hold and protect.
I struggled ...
I've been struggling for a while now and just haven't admitted it to myself. I want her in ways that I knew I couldn't have her. I wanted to breathe her in, I wanted to hold her so close to me that no one could tell where her flesh met mine. I wanted to keep her as my actual shadow and the thing I was most ashamed of was that I wanted to kiss that pouty perfect mouth of hers.
The thought startled me because I think this is the first time that I have actually let myself admit that fact. It didn't matter either way because none of those things could happen, because this was all unhealthy.
This whole messed up situation was bound to blow up in flames and when it did, I want her to be able to walk away from it with herself intact.
I knew I was strong enough though. I knew where this was all headed and I was honestly just a passenger all I could hope for was that I could hold on to the little bit of modesty and decency I had left.
"I hope you know; your bed is mine tonight, right? I have waited three long months to get a good night's sleep." I rolled my eyes.
"What would you do without me?" I asked partly as a joke but partly because I wanted him to confirm to me just how much he needed me.
"Go crazy from sleep deprivation and loneliness. Sawyer and Killian are dull company and sleep talkers." He shuts the car off and I glance back at May one more time to see she is still knocked out, that walking must have really tired her out. "You know Killian has been sleep-talking about a woman, August? A woman! He kicked me out the first time I confronted him about moaning her name. Georgia. Unless he's having a wet dream about peaches and peanuts, I'm a hundred percent positive he has a thing for some woman named after the state."
I let Archer ramble as I make my way around the car, I hope she didn't wake up. She needed the sleep.
I ease the door open, so she doesn't fall out and hurt herself. I catch her swiftly, one arm under her knees and the other under her back securely holding her up in my arms. She felt as light as a feature. Her flesh was warm through her clothes, making tingles erupt through my chest.
She sighs softly and her cheek gets pressed against my chest. God, she fit so perfectly in my arms that I don't ever want to let her go.
She feels like fitting the last piece of a puzzle into its designated spot, she felt like pulling in a ten-pound bass, like feeling the dew on the edge of the grass seep in between your toes at seven in the morning with a cup of coffee in your hand.
She felt like home. This in front of me was a house. It housed memories that would haunt me as soon as I stepped into its doorway, but she was a home that stole those memories and replaced them with the present.
Just her being this close eased the pit in my stomach that was waiting to attack me when I spotted the first toy on the floor, I never made it back to pick up.
YOU ARE READING
My Little Shadow
浪漫In which a man slowly falls for his daughters murders, daughter. ~.~.~.~ She peaks through her thick eyelashes, awe-struck, and I can't help but feel maybe I'm giving her the wrong impression of me. She's looking at me as if I was a God that just gr...
