further notice, I want it known that I have no son. No one in this household can see or hear him, much less speak to or feed him. Perhaps, in time he will learn to show enough respect that he may earn his way back into this family. But until then, Saint Memphis does not exist.'"
"He...I don't understand," Tatum breathed but there were tears in her blue eyes which said she did.
I stopped playing to wipe one away as it fell and she caught my hand, holding it to her cheek as I was captured in her gaze.
"For two months and thirteen days, not one person I saw acknowledged me in any way. I wasn't allowed out. I had no access to the internet or a phone and no one even spoke in my presence. I existed as a ghost in my father's home, scavenging food from the kitchen at night once I managed to stomach it at all. It was...perhaps the worst punishment I have ever suffered at his hands. You cannot fully comprehend the loneliness of a little boy trapped and-"
Tatum leaned forward and pressed her lips to mine, tears streaming down her face so that the salty taste of them bled between our lips as my heart thumped harder from the memories and my breath caught tight in my chest.
Her fingers slid into my hair as I kissed her slowly, devouring the taste of her pain and mine, wanting to pull back and tell her it was alright while not quite finding the strength in me to do it just yet.
Her tears fell against my cheeks and it was so close to feeling something real that my heart began to race and the tightness in my muscles seemed to grow then relax like the push and pull of the tide.
I drew back and kissed her cheeks, one after another, tasting her tears and willing them away.
"Don't hurt for me, siren," I breathed. "I'm not that little boy anymore. I'm-"
"I'll never let you feel like that again," she promised. "Not once. Not ever. You'll never be alone again, and you'll never feel unwanted. That man was no father to you. He's not your family. But we're here now and you'll never be on the outside of anything ever again."
I inhaled those words, soaking them in and letting them wind their way around my heart until they were beating through my veins and permeating every piece of me.
My throat was thick at the weight of what I felt for this girl. This creature born to ruin me and recast me anew.
"I'm sorry for the pain I have caused you," I murmured, sliding my fingers through her long hair and twisting it around them gently. "I'm sorry I didn't accept what you are sooner."
"And what's that?" she whispered, her lips brushing against my cheek like the wings of a butterfly.
"Everything," I replied simply, unable to put it into words more eloquently than that because there was no language on earth that could encompass the depths of what I felt for her. My obsession with her had gone too far, my infatuation unstoppable now and never ending. She would never be rid of me. There was no place in this world or the next where I wouldn't find her, follow her, worship her. She was my light when all I'd ever known was dark and now that I could see, I refused to be blinded ever again. Because it would destroy me if I was.
There were no words that could convey all of that, but perhaps there was music. This melody had been writhing through my body and soul for so long that I knew it was desperate to escape. And I found myself needing to share it with her so that she might have a chance of understanding what she was to me.
I took my hand from her hair and leaned back, looking into her blue eyes which still shimmered with tears as I licked my lips and tasted her sorrow on them.
Who was this creature who saw so much and offered me more than I ever could have presumed to take? How was it she seemed to see so much in me when I wasn't even sure there had been anything here to find? She brought out a side of me I hadn't known existed but had clearly been starving in wait of her. And now it was going to gorge itself on everything she had to offer, and