He put my fingertips to his mouth and kissed them. Licked the trace of blood away. Made them clean. Then I knew the truth I had been denying. He made me clean. Dan made me clean and shining and bright. He made me beautiful, and I did not want to lose him.

He put my fingertips to his mouth and kissed them. Licked the trace of blood away. Made them clean. Then I knew the truth I had been denying. He made me clean. Dan made me clean and shining and bright. He made me beautiful, and I did not want to lose him.

He hadn’t been her first lover or the first boy to give her an orgasm. He hadn’t even been the first she’d loved. He’d been the first to turn her inside out with something as simple as a smile. The first to make her doubt herself. He’d taken her deeper than anyone ever had, and yet she hadn’t drowned.

I waited for a long time and there was nothing but the pain of wanting something I couldn't seem to find.

My head's filled up with all the reasons it won't work. And I keep running the figures, over and over, but I can't seem to come up with an answer.

Bess had become the ocean, always breaking against the rocks but never staying broken. Her love was the ocean, too, endless and always changing, yet forever the same.

I know everything and nothing about him all at the same time.