"Shit!" Khalil winced, apologizing quickly as he attempted to right the potted plant he had accidentally kicked over in the dark of Mina's grandmother's house. "Sorry."
"Don't worry." She waved him off, leading him by the hand towards the bathroom across the hall from her room. "She's not home right now." She told him as she nudged the door of her bathroom open with her foot and pushed him onto the closed lid of the toilet.
He sat easily, peeling his sticky, blood-soaked shirt away from the gouge in his side that Mina's scissors had left behind. As Mina poked, prodded, and touched the sensitive skin around the area, Khalil refused to jerk, wince, or move once, tugging his lips into his mouth to keep from crying out.
"Just like old times, huh?" He joked in an attempt to distract from the excruciating pain he was currently enduring at Mina's hands as she strategically covered his open wound with gauze she had found in the very back of the cabinet beneath the sink.
At his words, for a brief moment, Mina's eyes flickered upwards to his from where she kneeled on the bathroom floor, but she just as quickly looked down again at what Khalil assumed was the intensity of his stare. He couldn't help himself, not when she was touching him with fingers as light as feathers and looking up at him through thick lashes.
Clearing his throat awkwardly and taking refuge in the fact that Mina couldn't read his mind, he laughed quietly to himself. "Hey-" He said. "-I'm sorry by the way."
"For what?"
"I really tried-" He stuttered out, clearly moving too much for Mina's liking as she reached out another hand to hold firm to his abdomen.
Khalil tried again, "I really tried to control it but I-I know that when I-"
"It's fine." Mina said nonchalantly, cutting him off before he could embarrass himself any further, which Khalil was greatly appreciative of. However, he was healthily skeptical of her willingness to accept his apology for pummeling Sahil, again, so easily.
"Is it?" Khalil bent his head, forcing her to meet her eyes again, but she tore her gaze from his once more surprising Khalil by admitting, "He deserved it for what he said to you."
She cocked her head definitively before adding, "He really really deserved it."
"What?" Khalil exclaimed in surprise, smiling then forcing the smile off his face before allowing it to return seconds later. Aggravated by all his moving, Mina dropped her hands and sat back on her legs on the bathroom floor.
"Yeah." Mina admitted, resting her hands idly in her lap. "I had to bite back a laugh the whole time actually."
Khalil stared at her in awe, unable to recognize the girl in front of her. "I think I'm starting to be a bad influence on you." He said with a sadistic smile that Mina, after a moment, mimicked.
"Maybe." She shrugged shyly.
"Maybe?" He echoed.
Mina rose to her knees once more, resting her hands on top of either of his thighs. Khalil's eyes roamed up and down the length of her figure.
"I'm sorry for stabbing you by the way." She apologized, leaning in to close the distance between the pair of them. Gently, their lips brushed against one anothers.
"Barely felt it." Khalil teased, leaning in to close the distance between them completely now, folding his lips perfectly over hers with a faux smile. And now, he was even more glad that Mina couldn't read his thoughts considering, as of current, they revolved around just how badly he had ruined her.
He wouldn't admit it to her face but, when he had had to rush across the street to pull Mina off that woman he had been genuinely scared. Fear like he had never felt before curdled his blood and chilled his bones as he watched Mina turn into something she wasn't, as he watched her turn into him.
He couldn't help but wonder if this is what it had been like for her as she watched him slowly unravel right before her eyes in the span of a month.
"Hey-" Mina's hands cradled the sides of his face, ripping him not so gently from his thoughts.
"Mhm?" He hummed in response.
"Are you ok?" She asked, searching his eyes as if the answer lay trapped deep inside them and had to be coerced out.
A hum was his only response as he leaned in to connect their lips once more, but Mina turned her head away.
"Are you sure?" She asked, her breathing heavy. She was waiting for verbal confirmation this time.
"Yes." He nodded. "I'm sure." He said, picking her up from the ground and pulling her onto his lap with an audible grunt.
That was all the confirmation Mina needed, before she was hungrily slamming her lips over his once more, burying her hands in his hair and beneath his shirt and drawing on his back, chest, and stomach. Khalil's skin tingled wherever her fingertips traveled, eliciting shivers muffled guttural sounds from the back of his throat.
Holding firmly to the backs of her thighs, Khalil pulled her closer yet, before lifting her, their bodies still connected, and waddled over to Mina's room. With the toe of his trainer, he kicked the door shut behind them with his foot before gently laying her on the comforter of her bed and crawling on top.
Barely had her back touched the surface of the bed before she was reaching for the hem of his shirt, practically begging for him to get rid of the fabric between them.
Mina followed suit after him, both their shirts falling carelessly to the ground.
Their pants were next.
"Hey-" Khalil said between kisses, earning an annoyed groan from Mina.
Khalil hid a smile at her reaction.
"I know. I know." He said breathlessly, holding himself above Mina's figure on his forearms. "I just-" He swallowed. "I need you to know-" He could barely think with the way Mina's hands were still dancing over his body, somehow managing to touch each and every one of his nerves at the exact same time.
He swallowed for a second time, forcing himself to focus now. "I need you to know that I won't ever betray your trust again." He told her, watching in awe as Mina's gaze softened.
"I promise." He said for added measure and he meant it because, after what he had seen her become today, he had to be 'good' so she could be 'good.' He wouldn't know what to do with himself if he was the downfall of her.
More forcefully now, Mina pulled him to her once more, her mouth demanding and her legs wrapping around his waist tightly as if she were afraid he would change his mind and let go, as if she were afraid this would be her last chance to show him just how much he meant to her.
"I love you." She uttered softly against his lips, so softly that he was almost convinced he had merely imagined them and, despite himself, he froze.
His heartbeat was pounding in his ears and his palms and chest were suddenly slick with sweat. Those three words were the eight letters he had been dying to hear her utter months ago, but now that they were floating in the air he managed to cycle through each and every emotion apart from excitement because a part of his subconscious was steadily trying to convince him that she hadn't meant them.
They had merely bubbled up inside her and forced themselves out in the heat of the moment.
As if she could read his mind, Mina said firmly, "I mean it." He watched her swallow. "I love you, Khalil."
Then, "Please say something." She whispered out at Khalil's debilitating silence, but he didn't know what to say other than, "I love you."
The pounding in his ears grew louder as Mina smiled up at him, rolling over on top so that she was straddling Khalil's figure now and this time, no more confessions of love or apologies interrupted them.
YOU ARE READING
The Memory Of Us
Romance|Sequel to "The Illusion Of Us"| It's only been a month since Khalil ruined Mina Joyce's life and disappeared without a trace and, in his absence, Mina has become a shell of the person she once was. Her dreams and daydreams are both characterized by...
