young-adult

I'm already under the covers when he comes in. I watch as he takes off his shirt and jeans, and climbs into bed beside me. On any other occasion, the sight and feel of his near naked body would send my blood pressure into orbit, but I'm so exhausted by the events of today that I'm incapable of feeling anything even close to desire. And he doesn't ask anything of me.

Isn__ that what true romance issupposed to be about? Finding the person who__ your soul mate. Someone you dream about at night. Someone whose name is on your lips when you wake up in the morning.

Wishing that I could stay right here in this moment of not doing, but simply being, forever.

We__e seastnan, we live to protect, sometimes we die and I can__ think of a better way to go than fighting for someone I love.

When you__e with a girl, it__ always best to act like you__e an old hand at everything__ot to impress her, but just to make sure she feels safe.

She looked over the colored boxes of smiling women holding plastic sticks. Why isn__ there a box showing a terrified teen?

She's not close enough. She'll never be close enough...

Time is a thief. A killer. Time is killing him.

If this is my final moment,_ she says, __hen I can die happy.___s that why you__e saying all this? Because you think we__e going to die?___ don__ know,_ she admits.__ammit, Summer._ He clings to her waist, grip desperate, eyes heavy with torment. __ou__e saying everything I want to hear, but I don__ know if I can trust it.

You are a bright light, Elli._ His own breath hitches, a sound that I cannot quite grasp. His eyes are darkening, his lips tightening. His hands grasp me tighter and he moves closer, his mouth inches from mine, I can almost taste the sweetness and saltiness of his scent, the rich coffee beans and sugar, the vague spearmint. I say nothing, I__ not even sure I__ breathing.__ou shouldn__ have to see such pain, such blackness. You are too pure._ His lips do not collide with mine, his skin does not brush against me, only his voice sends a shiver down every notch in my spine, trailing goose bumps over my skin. He tilts his head to the side, his lips gently brushing against my ear. And that is all. I__ not good enough for him. I__ not. That__ why_ that__ why__oo pure_

Her gaze travels back to the lie twisted in a tempest of mud and blood. She witnesses the culmination of her recklessness through a curved lens. Absorbed in life uncoiling, unaware of the world beyond this ridge. His light hair, darkened by rain. His stiff shoulders, full of pain. The vision poisoned with truth. With rust-stained hues.

We're both whisper-screaming at each other. All I can think is this is the worst possible way to break up with somebody.

She feels him scoot closer, the heat of him radiating off his chest and absorbing into her skin. His legs straddle her from behind, and he places delicate kisses along her shoulder, her back, the very center of her spine. Each time is like an electric current surging through her, soul stirring and lovely.

Cat's heated gaze meets mine, and she smiles. Another piece of my heart is hers.

A man without a footprint has no soul.

Dignity is overrated. You know what trumps dignity? Kissing.

And, she thought uncomfortably, what would happen if people did not recognize you? Would you know who you were yourself? If tomorrow they started to call her Vanessa or Janet or Elizabeth, would she know how to be, how to feel like, Charlotte? Were you some particular person only because people recognized you as that?

She didn't need friends; she needed to be a bigger bitch.Chubby Chaser, 11/21/14. Available for preorder on Amazon.