He’s making love to me.
I reach up, running my fingers up and down his sweat slicked back. He rocks his hips, gently, beautifully, bringing me to the edge. I bury my face in his neck, and I breathe him in, not wanting this moment to end.
Not a sound passes between us, and that’s perfectly ok. We don’t need to say anything. There are no words that could ever describe what we’re both feeling right now.
Instead, he’s showing me. He’s showing me with his lips. He’s showing me with his body. He’s showing me with his heart. He rocks in and out of my body until I’m silently shuddering around him, my orgasm warming me from the inside out. He follows a moment later, burying his head into my shoulder and pulsing deep inside me.
Then we just lay there, both of us breathing heavily. I run my fingers up and down his back, tickling his skin softly. For a long while, he doesn’t move, but finally he rolls off me. He hooks one arm around my body, and takes me with him, making sure I land in the crook of his arm. I rest my head there, and we just lie in pure silence, neither of us wanting to speak—or perhaps we just don’t know what to say. How do you speak in a situation like this? He knows how I feel, I know how he feels, now we’re just leaning on each other, hoping that maybe, just maybe, the other person might take a touch of the pain away.
“She wanted to get in the car,” he rasps.
I blink, and then I realize what’s happening. He’s telling me what happened...he’s opening up. I stroke his abs, letting him know I’m listening.
“She didn’t ask questions, she just got in the car. She kept it cool, takin’ charge.
“She was fine, until she saw the bikes. She was okay, and then they showed up and she started to panic. Fuck, she was so scared. I’ll never forget how scared she was in that last moment.”
I heave, because I have never stopped to think about the moments before Cheyenne’s death, and how scared she must have been. I break. I start to cry so much that I can’t breathe.
I struggle out of Spike’s arms, and roll off the bed. He sits up, his eyes wide and confused as I stumble toward the bathroom. I reach the toilet, drop to my knees, and I throw up. I heave and heave, my body shaking with pain, and loss. I finally break down. I hated my sister for what she did. I hated that she was the golden child. I hated the life we had, but fuck, I loved her so much. I didn’t realize how much until right now, when Spike gave me an image of her terrified before she died.
I scream.
I scream and hit the sides of the bowl with my fists, and then I reach up and tangle my fingers in my hair. We never had a chance. Not a chance. We never had great parents, we were always treated differently and therefore we always treated each other badly. We were never encouraged to love each other. I was a bad sister, and she was amazing. If we had a chance, if our parents were normal, and our lives were different, we would have had the chance to just be sisters. To love each other. To fight for each other. To breathe for each other. To always have each other’s backs. To never hurt each other.
“Cheyenne,” I scream, pulling out strands of my hair. “Oh god, Cheyenne.”
Spike wraps his arms around me from behind, and he pulls me backwards. We crash onto the floor, and I scream again. He grips my fingers, pulling them from my hair, forcing them down by my sides. Pinning them there, he holds me so tightly I can’t move.
“Cheyenne,” I bellow loudly. “I want her back. I want another chance. I want to be the sister I should have been. I want to defy my parents, and fight to show her we could have been so different. I want to fight and tell her not to touch you, and then she would have moved on and found someone else. God, I want her back.”The words are broken, desperate and pathetic. Spike rocks me, backwards and forwards, as I wail for the sister I lost.
“I love her, I wanted her to know that. She never knew that because all we did was fight. I was so angry at her. Even after she died, I was so fucking angry at her. I never just told her I loved her.”
“She knew,” Spike rasps.
“No,” I sob.
“Yeah,” he says, pressing his face against mine and rocking us both harder.
“I’m so sorry, Spike. I’m so sorry about Cheyenne. I’m so sorry about your baby. I’m so sorry I was never there. I’m so sorry I hurt you.”
“Baby,” he soothes, his voice broken. “I know.”
“I want the pain to go away. It hurts,” I whimper.
“I know.”
He slows his rocking, and my tears gently begin to subside. When they finally stop, my eyes burn and my body hurts. It feels like I’ve run a marathon. Spike gently lets me go and he turns me around, running his finger over my puffy, red eyes.
“Fuck, Ciara, you’re hurtin’ me.”
“I’m sorry,” I croak.
“No, baby, don’t you be sorry.”
“I shouldn’t have done that, it wasn’t about me and—”
He puts a finger to my lips. “She was your sister longer than she was ever my wife. You had every right to do that.”
I reach over and cup his face. “I love you, Spike. I don’t expect you to love me back, and I’m not asking you to even try. I just want you to know, that after everything, I still love you. I always have, and I always will.”
His jaw tightens, and he leans in close, bringing his lips over mine softly, slowly, deeply. When he pulls back our eyes meet, and so much passes between us.