Haunting-Adeline

here.
But I know we’re both incredibly sore by now, and I would crash right
back into the dark headspace the second I slip out of her.
Addie doesn’t deserve that. She doesn’t deserve to have her body used
so I can escape my demons.
“And your scars?”
“The first me I infiltrated a ring. One of the ring leaders was a brute and
knew his way around a knife fight. He cut me up good. And it was the
lesson I needed in order for me to learn how to defend myself and fight
properly. No man has ever come close since. I wear these scars proudly
because in the end, I won and every innocent in that building went home
safe.”
“But they s ll haunt you.”
I nod once. “They do.”
It was the first me I was confronted with the possibility of failure. And
that feeling has never quite let me go from its clutches. It’s the feeling that
imprints on me like a bad ta oo each and every me I invade a ring.
Her hand drops to the side, dangling loosely as she stares at me. I stare
back, each of us trying to read the other. Figure out what the other is
thinking. Feeling.
“One last ques on,” she barters.
“Ask me as many as you want.”
“The roses. Why the roses?”
I smile. I was wai ng for her to ask me about those.
“My mother. Her favorite flowers were roses. She always had them all
over the house with the thorns clipped so I wouldn’t hurt myself. One year,
I told her that I would be sad when she died because all the roses would
die with her. So, she gave me a plas c rose and said that as long as I have
that rose, she would never be truly gone.”
I shrug. “I guess I wanted to see roses all over your house, too. Maybe
because you feel like home.”
She inhales sharply, seemingly taken aback by my words. Those beau ful
eyes are fixated on mine, both shock and raw hunger reflec ng in her
caramel pools.
Licking her lips, she admits so ly, “It’s going to take me some me to
fully accept some things, Zade. I can’t tell you how long it’ll take me, but I