Only You

as long as i am here, no one can hurt you

TW: slight mentions of self harm

Christmas break is drawing to a close; you could feel it in the air, even though the lights still blink from their perches on the roofs, and the trees still stand proudly by the windows, there's a tiredness to them. Everyone is silently preparing their last farewells to the week of freedom, a slow dread of the return to school and work crawls into the atmosphere. 

Cate and I feel it as well, because even in our little world of euphoria we can't escape from the outside world, because we're chained to it. So I hold her a little tighter, breathe her in for strength. We haven't talked about what we'd do when we go back, haven't even talked about going back at all. Idly Cate speaks of going west sometime. She misses the mountains. I can picture her standing on the tip of a peak, ethereal and in her element, with the sprawling blue sky behind her, the wind and clouds, trees and earth, bending to her command. 

Yes...we will go to the mountains. If Cate wants it, we'll go. I'd have taken her to the moon if she'd only asked. 

We're lying in bed in our hotel room, and the light that bleeds through the closed shades is thin and grey from the early hour. Cate is snuggled up to my chest, and I feel her body shift with the even breaths of sleep. I kiss her on the forehead, the swoop of her golden hair resting on her alabaster skin. 

"I don't ever want to go home again," I whisper. "What is home? It's where you are. I'm already home with you, Cate."

She stirs next to me. "Did you say something, love?"

I kiss her again. "It was nothing."

Oh Cate, Cate...even lying so close, with your head nestled on my arm and our legs tangled beneath the sheets, with our hearts beating as one and our skin blossoming warmth together--it still isn't close enough. Why do you feel so far away, Cate? Why do I feel as if you will leave me soon?

As if she reads my mind she opens her eyes and kisses me on the jaw. 

No, I can't possess her. I am entirely hers, but she herself is a beautiful wanderess, a precious stone to admire but never own. And her letting me hold her is more than enough.

"You're so divine," I tell her softly. 

"Oh, darling," her voice trails off drowsily, but she smiles at me. "You and your words."

"Shall I write them down instead?"

Her hand slips under my shirt, her fingers pressing into the warm skin of my back. "Write them down and keep them for the stars."

But the stars withhold themselves, and leave the stark, sharp sunlight to judge us ender its fiery glare. I sit on the bed, absently folding a sweater Cate had bought for me back at one of the small towns. I watch her willowy form stand in front of the mirror, putting her lipstick on before even drying her hair from the shower. Her hair is subdued from its golden color to a wet brown, touching her bare shoulders. She sees me watching her through the mirror and throws a kiss at the reflection to tease me. 

"Aren't you gonna shower? We've gotta be out of here by ten."

"I'm going to. Cate, should we head back?"

She pauses in her movements, then slips the lipstick back into its case and drops it into her makeup bag. "I guess--well, I guess we should, shouldn't we?"

"Unless you don't want to. I don't want to."

"Of course I don't want to."

"But we'd have to. Your job..." my voice fades away. A slow, dark fear strikes me. I picture driving back to Bedford, leaving behind all that we had, all the beautiful things we've built, our paradise bleeding out on the road in a weak trail. I picture Cate disappearing once again into Ms. Blanchett. The sleek golden hair would go back up into a bun, the baggy sweater replaced by a sharp suit and blouse. It's so stupid, but I picture it all the same, shrinking from it like a chastised child; the sudden coldness. 

"Yes." Cate zips the makeup bag closed. 

"Yes," I echo helplessly. "And we'd be strangers again."

"Oh no." Cate is by me in an instant. She looks into my face, and her beauty blinds me. "Oh no, Jude, we won't be strangers."

"We'd have to act like it," I say, and break down. She sits down next to me, pulls me close. "We'd have to act like it and that's just as bad."

"But we would know," Cate insists, and her voice rumbles comfortingly in my ear. She pulls away to look me in the eye again. "Jude, will you promise me one thing?"

"Yes?"

"When we get back...you won't hurt yourself, would you?"

I look at her, confused, but then her gaze goes down to the scars on my skin, faint but pale like streaks that comets leave in the velvet sky, and I understand. She raises my hands to her lips and kisses the scars until I smile. 

"I promise, Cate."

"Because I won't be around to protect you..."

"From myself?" I let out a laugh.

"From everything." She sighs, and presses a hand to my cheek. I lean into her touch, ever starved. 

"You save me," I murmur. "You save me every day."