Dating After the End of the World - 29

“Casey! Casey!” A loud whisper finds its way into my ear canal, crawling up into my brain and behind my eyes. The pale-yellow light of the basement creeps its way in, waking me. I find myself lying on a thin mattress that provided little to no support during the night, and my back is making that evident as I sit up, using my elbows to shift my hips backward. I stretch my arms into the air, working the stiffness out of my body before placing my hands on the floor. The cold concrete bites at my soft palms, zapping me into a state of alertness.

“Did you sleep down here?” Blake’s voice pulls me up even further as I acclimate to my environment, remembering that I fell asleep on the basement floor, instead of in my room. I stand and stretch even more, hoping the pain I’m feeling will go away, but it holds fast, throbbing in dull waves.

“Yeah.” My voice cracks as I reach my arms up toward the ceiling yet again, spreading my fingers as wide as they’ll go.

“Why?” Blake’s tone is a mixture of confusion and anticipation, as if he’s hoping for a certain response but expecting another.

I take a second to respond, not sure of the answer myself. “I just figured . . . you wouldn’t wanna be alone.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” he says out loud, but I can hear through his words the true sentiment, which is that he’s glad I did.

“I know.”

“You could’ve had our room all to yourself. Hell, you could’ve even pushed our beds together and made one big mega bed. Slept like a queen.” Blake is staring off as though he is daydreaming about the idea of getting a good night’s rest in a massive bed himself.

“Came up with that idea pretty quickly. Is that what you used to do before I showed up?” I cross my arms, waiting for his response.

He shakes his head, laughing a bit before answering. “No, I got used to a tiny single bed in the military. Anything bigger is just wasted on me.”

“Well, it wouldn’t have been the same without you in it, and by that, I mean miserable and . . .” I force a laugh as my voice trails off and silence replaces my tired banter. We both know we’re putting off talking about the elephant in the room, the inevitable deadline fast approaching.

“How’re you feeling?” The doctor side of me kicks in, wanting to assess his health changes from yesterday to gauge the direction he’s heading in. I’m not sure if there are any actual indicators as to whether a person is going to change into a biter, but it’s worth trying to find out. I mean, we really don’t know anything, minus my theory on Nomes auto changing into biters when bitten. Even that, I want to keep to us because I don’t know for sure, and there’s no sense in scaring everyone else. It could be something we deal with a long way down the road, but right now, I’m only focused on today and Blake.

“Fine. I mean, I feel off. I’m sweating bullets, as if I were sitting in a sauna rather than in a cold basement.” He tugs on his T-shirt to air it out. “And I’ve got a splitting headache, but other than that, I feel great. Plus, I’m not a biter, so I can’t really complain now, can I?”

I pull my lips into a tight smile and nod, trying to remain positive and encouraging of the current situation. But I can see how red his face is, the sweat beads forming on his forehead and throughout his buzzed hair, like drops of dew on the morning grass. The veins near his temples are even more prominent than before. They’re pulsating, his body trying to feed blood to his brain, quelling the headache that won’t subside. He gets to his feet and stretches his arms over his head before bringing them back down to his sides.

“It’s not long now, is it?” he asks, looking to me with a solemn face.

Blake surrendered his watch to me last night, unable to deal with the torture of constantly checking the time ticking away, creeping in on his binary fate.

I glance down at his watch hanging loosely around my wrist, a couple of sizes too big. The numbers tell me there’re less than ten minutes before the story of Blake’s life either adds a new, harrowing chapter or comes to an abrupt halt.

“No . . . not long,” I say, keeping my voice calm.

He nods in response, biting down on his lip as he closes his eyes and lets out a heavy sigh.

“By the way . . .” I add.

He snaps his eyes open in response.

“If you pretend to turn into a biter, I’m just gonna shoot you in the face. No hesitation whatsoever.” I lift my shirt, showing off the pistol tucked in the waistband of my pants. “So no jokes this time.”

“Oh, really?” Blake walks to his cell door, slipping his arms through the metal bars and letting them rest there. He never takes his eyes off me. “You think you could do that? You think you have the stones to just shoot me.” He snaps his fingers, loud and quick. “Just like that.”

“How do you think I got so good with my throwing stars?”

Blake cocks his head to the side, waiting for my answer.

“I pictured your face on the target. That’s why I never miss.”

He can’t help but smile. “Wow. All those years of practice, and you were thinking of me the whole time.” He cups his hands together, tucking them under his chin, batting his eyelashes.

“Thinking of killing you, yes.” My voice is stern, not letting his charm get the upper hand.

“Still counts.” He shrugs slightly. “I was in your thoughts.”

I walk to the cell, ready to swat at one of his arms or give it a slight tug, just to mess with him, but the closer I get, the more I can see how badly he’s holding up.

“Blake, are you sure you’re all right?” Sweat drips down his skin, collecting on the tip of his nose and his chin before falling to the floor in large droplets.

“Yeah.” He coughs out his answer and uses the sleeve of his shirt to wipe his brow. It’s only dry for a second before sweat seeps from his pores again, making his forehead look like a clear night sky speckled with countless glistening lights dazzling their brilliance against one another. He focuses on me, ignoring the effects of whatever’s going on inside him. It’s clear from the look he’s giving me that my face is revealing words I’ve left unspoken.

“You look worried,” Blake says.

He’s not wrong. I am worried, and as much as I want to remain optimistic that he’ll be fine, assure myself that the worst thing that could happen isn’t the thing that’s going to happen, I know there are no guarantees. I don’t know what his odds are, so I have to assume he has just as good of odds to turn as he does to stay who he is. It’s out of my hands, though, and that’s the hardest thing to accept, especially as a doctor. I can recall many times staring at the face of a dying patient, knowing their time was coming to an end and having to answer the question every dying patient asks. Am I going to be okay? Almost always, we both know the true answer, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right one. The right answer is to smile, take their hand, and tell them that they’re going to be fine.

I swallow hard and blink several times to keep myself from tearing up. “I’m not worried, Blake, because you’re going to be fine,” I say, forcing the corners of my mouth up just enough to hopefully convince him that I truly believe it.

He smiles, but I know he’s not buying it. I’m sure, as a Seal , he had to watch people die and deliver the same spiel that I gave my patients. Blake clears his throat before he speaks. “In case I turn—”

“You won’t,” I cut him off.

“In case I do,” he powers through, ignoring my objection, “I really want you to know how sorry I am . . . for everything.” Blake lowers his head, shaking it for a second before meeting my gaze. I know what he’s doing. I’ve seen it before. It’s akin to a deathbed confession. Asking for forgiveness or apologizing for all the wrongs one has accumulated over their lifetime. A final catharsis that’s often more for their own sake than that of those around them. Still, I appreciate him saying it with such conviction.

“I know you are.” I step toward him, taking his hands in mine and squeezing gently to doubly confirm I believe him. “It’s fine, Blake. Really.”

He pulls away again. “No, it’s not. I need you to know that I never wanted to be your monster. I was just so angry at the world, and I took it out on you. After my mom passed . . .” He pauses, glancing up at the ceiling, like he’s trying to see her up there. “After my mom passed, my dad turned to alcohol, and the alcohol made him turn to me. But not in a loving way. There was nothing loving about him when he was drinking. It made him cruel and violent and angry. He was my monster, and then, like these goddamn biters, he turned me into one too.” Tears trickle down his cheeks, and he hangs his head, wiping them away with his T-shirt.

“At one point, the summer after junior year, he turned back into my dad, the man I knew before my mom passed. He got sober and so did I, in a way. I didn’t have that anger and resentment inside of my body poisoning me anymore. When I started senior year, I was happy, so there was nothing to take out on anyone. I put down my swords, and I got to know you. The more I got to know you, the more I realized I didn’t hate you at all.”

“Yes, you did, Blake,” I say matter-of-factly. “I get you want to apologize, but let’s not rewrite history.”

“I’m not rewriting it, Casey. I’m telling you the side you never knew about.”

I give him a crooked look. “What didn’t I know?”

“The night of the party,” he says, tilting his head. “I got a call from the sheriff. My dad had been picked up for a DUI. He relapsed, and I knew right then and there that everything was going to go back to the way it was. He’d be my monster again, and I would inevitably be yours. But I couldn’t have you close to me because I needed to protect you from him and from me, especially since I had fallen for you.”

“You never fell for me, Blake.” Tears start to build, and I take a couple of quick deep breaths, holding them in.

His hands grip the bars of the cell, and he bobs his head up and down, signaling that it’s the truth.

“Yes, I did, and that’s why I had to push you away. I needed you to hate me so much that you’d stay away from me for good, because I didn’t trust myself to stay away from you.”

I believe what he’s saying, but I hate him for making me love him, and I hate him even more for making me hate him. We were basically kids, and I’m sure he had the best of intentions, even though I don’t agree with them. But what he endured, between the loss of his mom and his father’s downward spiral, I can’t imagine. I understand the pain of watching a parent struggle with the loss of the person they loved most in this world. I witnessed my own father swallow his sorrow and put on a brave face for me, knowing that I was grieving too. His grief was masked by a hyperfixation on preparing for the worst-case scenario—the end of the world. Despite hating what my childhood became after my mom passed, I can’t imagine my dad not having been there to protect me, guide me, and love me—the only way he knew how. I want to forgive Blake and absolve him of his guilt. If I were on the outside looking in, I would. It would be easy to rationalize his actions with his circumstances, to see and understand exactly how it all played out. But I’m not on the outside. I’m in here with him.

My lip trembles. “You shouldn’t have done that, Blake.”

“Done what?”

“Made me hate you.”

“Why?” he asks.

Blake stares at me with so much intensity, it feels like he could burst right through the steel bars separating us.

“Because you succeeded.”

He lowers his head and turns away from me. “It’s the one thing I wish I would have failed at,” Blake says, his shoulders slumping forward. He rubs at his face like he’s trying to wake himself up from a bad dream.

I fall silent, letting the words hang heavy in the air. Although I’m standing still, my heart starts to pound, beating faster and faster, like it could shoot right out of my chest, splat onto the concrete floor for Blake to see. It’s as though it’s trying to speak louder than my brain, trying to be the voice inside me that cuts through it all.

“Well, you’re failing now,” I say softly.

His breath hitches and the air in the room all but evaporates. The moment feels frozen, like an entity in the sky hit pause on a remote, stretching out time to allow it to process what’s happening. The air slowly returns, passing through Blake’s nose via a sniffle. He turns and stands taller, as though a burden has been lifted from his shoulders, making him lighten.

“Blake,” I whisper, not wanting to ruin whatever this is. Maybe it’s a preamble or maybe it’s closure. It may even be both. If my words are small and meek enough, perhaps I can avoid having this moment come crashing down on us. “I don’t hate you anymore.”

He’s unable to hide the growing smile spreading across his face. “So, does that mean you like me?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I say with a laugh.

He grins, unable to take his eyes off me, until reality dawns on him, the ticking countdown. Blake clears his throat, his face turning serious. “How much time is left?” he asks before twisting his mouth to one side.

“Oh, you’re in the clear,” I say nonchalantly, as if sharing the weather forecast with him.

“What?” The word comes out breathy and quick, having left his mouth faster than his lips and tongue had time to form a thought. He rushes to the cell door, seizing the bars like a caged animal ready to burst out. “Are you serious?”

“Yup.” I nod.

“Since when?”

I glance down at the watch, pretending like I’m calculating the delta of time. “Uhhh, about twenty minutes, give or take.” I smirk.

“So I didn’t need to confess any of that?”

“Nope, you could have kept all that to yourself,” I say, stretching my arms up over my head. I clasp my hands together as I arch my back. Cracking my sternum, I let out a sigh of relief at the sound of my vertebrae crunching.

The confused look on his face tells me he’s rapidly contemplating his decision, balancing the raw vulnerability with the catharsis of the lessened guilt. I reach into my pocket and retrieve the metal key to Blake’s cell. Inserting it into the keyhole, I pause and lock eyes with him.

“So, Blake, I guess there’s just one last thing I want to know.”

“What’s that?”

“Are you still my monster?”

A small grin starts to grow at the edges of his mouth, barely curling his lips, not even lifting his cheeks high enough to squeeze against his eyes. “Always,” he says.

I give the key a heavy twist and pull open the cell door, gazing up at him through my lashes. He’s not the same man who went into that cell, at least not to me. Blake’s eyes bounce rapidly from side to side, scanning my face, searching for a shared feeling that he knows was there once before. I know it’s there too, and I don’t think it ever left. It was just camouflaged with hate and resentment. The rush of joy and anticipation, mixed with a new level of understanding, lures his lips to mine like a magnet that’s finally found its counterpart.

We breathe in one another as we kiss, like we could suck the life out of each other, but even then, it feels like we’d have another one to live.

I unlock our lips, gliding my cheek along his and then biting the bottom of his earlobe. He moans, and his hands firmly cup my ass.

“I want you,” I whisper, hot, heavy breath in his ear.

It’s true. I want nothing more in this moment than for Blake to take me. Even if the whole world were burning around me, I would stand in that fire and welcome the scalding heat if this was the last pleasure I felt. I bring my lips back to his, parting my mouth as our tongues pick up right where they left off, swirling in a vortex of anticipated escalation.

“I thought you . . . told me . . . never to . . . touch you . . . again.” A couple of words at a time sneak out between the less-than-one-second intervals we’re able to stay apart.

“Forget what I said.” I grab his shirt, twisting the fabric in my hands, and pull him even tighter into my body. “Touch me everywhere, Blake,” I say when my mouth is free to speak the things my heart has been screaming.

For a brief moment everything stands still, our heavy breathing is the only sound in the room, our shoulders rising and falling in slow motion, and then in a flash, he’s pulling my shirt up over my head, unable to wait any longer. We’ve waited long enough. Our mouths collide again, and our labored breaths are the soundtrack that plays as he unclasps my bra, letting it fall to the floor. As I melt into him, I can’t help but be frustrated with Blake for messing everything up back in high school. If he had just leaned on me rather than pushing me away, we could have had this moment long ago, and then a thousand more of them.

Blake pauses only to look at me, to really take me in. He can’t help but smile as his eyes scan my body. I tug off his shirt. I knew what was under there, but now it’s mine. Blake pulls me into him, his hot skin pressed up against mine as he ravages me, unable to get enough. He squeezes my breast, his grip hard due to his strength and longing. I moan from the pressure and find his lips again, kissing and sucking, while my hand ventures down his rigid abs and beneath the elastic band of his joggers. He’s rock hard, and it makes me grin, because I know it’s for me.

“God, I want you so fucking bad, Casey,” he says, breathless.

“I want you too. I want all of you,” I say in between kisses.

The palm of his hand slides past my pubic bone, curving under, two fingers disappearing inside me. He’s found a new place to touch, and fuck, it feels good. Once the source of my torment, Blake swings violently from the man who once ruined me to the man I now want to ruin me.

He undoes my pants and slides them down my thighs, eager to see and explore more of me. Sinking to his knees, he kisses my most sensitive area through the cotton fabric of my underwear, licking and biting. He’s only teasing me, and I’m already breathless. The anticipation is killing me. It’s more dangerous than anything I’ve ever faced. Because if I don’t get it, I might just die.

Blake looks up at me, an intensity burning in his eyes.

“Do you like me yet?” He smiles, still teasing.

“I’m getting there,” I say, biting my lip while my hands run through his hair.

Blake slides my underwear down my legs, so I’m on full display for him, and I can tell from the look in his eyes he likes what he sees. He licks his lips and meets my gaze again.

“Let’s get you all the way there then,” he says, burying his face into my center. The pleasure is immediate, rocking through my entire body. Every nerve is firing on all cylinders.

I assumed Blake wouldn’t be shy, that he would be happy to take charge and be full of passion, but I never assumed he would be this attentive to my needs, playing and teasing with the care and grace of a longtime lover instead of a one-night fuck. He’s touching parts of me that I thought were untouchable, and none of them are on my body.

The way his tongue moves, I think he wants me to more than like him. It flicks and licks and swirls, nearly making me scream. I start to quiver, my legs becoming weak with the buildup of desire and the coming release. Oh fuck, I don’t think I could ever hate Blake again after this, no matter what he did.

I can’t take it anymore, yet all I want is more. I lean forward, resting my weight on his face as he cranes his neck back, devouring me without hesitation. My breath turns to rhythmic moans, faster and faster, Blake’s tongue answering with more pressure and more speed. My hand grabs the back of his head for support, clawing at his short hair as I rock gently on him.

Blake is unrelenting, and I have to pull his face away. He looks up at me, just as pleased with himself as I am with him. “So, do you like me?”

I grab him, pulling him up to me. “You know I do,” I say. “Now make me love you.”

He spins me around and presses me into the door of his cell. My hands grip the bars as I arch my back, lifting my ass and standing on my tiptoes, creating the easiest path for him. I need to feel him inside me. I need the fullness of him to occupy every inch of me.

Without looking back, I feel a hand gently grip around my throat, elongating it as Blake leaves wet kisses down my neck and shoulders.

“I’ll do anything you want me to, Casey.”

I lean my head back, twisting it to find his lips and kiss him as he guides himself into me, filling me with the pressure I’ve been aching for. He doesn’t have to ask me if I love him. He knows I do. He can feel it in the way my body reacts to his, my heart beating a little faster when he’s around. He can see it in my eyes, the way they linger on him, not really wanting to look away even when I’m mad at him.

I step back, pushing him out of me and guide us to the floor. I want to see his face, to get lost in his eyes, to kiss him while I can barely breathe, because he makes me breathless. I straddle Blake, making him moan as I swallow the length of him. My lips find his again. It’s like finding air underneath water. We breathe each other in as we rock back and forth, melting together, becoming one.

We don’t stop until every muscle in our bodies gives out. I collapse on top of Blake, laying my chest on his as he wraps his arms around me. His heart races, beating through him into me, syncing with the rhythm of my own. Right now, it doesn’t feel like the world ended, because mine is lying in my arms.