We only dream of things we know and people that we've seen... War and pain is all I know, it is all I can ever see.

And you left your mark on me...
With the destruction of us, finally, we became no one.

There is no sanctity. This is the downfall of innocence.

Our love douses us in flames. It's terrible and deep and wingless, but I'll burn here if you burn here too.

The things that could be controlled, though, was this moment. And Elijah kissed me like it was a natural-born instinct. We had our story and they had theirs. No, ours wasn’t exactly beautiful or magical, or any of those things they made us believe in. More often than not, we cried and were reckless with every decision. Those feelings we held onto in that moment were ever-changing; we did the impossible and never doubted for a second that we’d do it again. Because in our story there were no rules to hold us back or people to judge and misuse us. We were limitless.

“Our love,” Elijah breathed against my lips, “will be infamous. And that’s our secret.”

I nodded with my eyes still closed and allowed his touch to overwhelm me. Every moment with him was like a walk in the dark, a dive into the forbidden deep. And unlike the others—I welcomed the darkness.

“Make love to me,” I whispered. They were words uttered before, but this time they held the weight of the moment and our will to never let it go. Eli needed no further permission and he encased me—consumed my very being—with his soft kisses and soothing caresses. Everywhere he touched flared and burned. And I flew.

Perhaps soul mates don’t exist, I thought. Maybe they were only a way to get over a loss that couldn’t be forgotten, a way to mend a heart that was unredeemable—an aberrant remedy that dissolved long before the healing began. A way to love a numberless amount of times when it was finite all along. Perhaps love was this illusory wonder and we were reaching for the impossible. Maybe it wasn’t likely to know someone so completely and maybe, just maybe… there was no beauty in having a soul.