Peyton spent the night staring at the Polaroid of them on her bedside table as Callum slept next to her. The need to say the safe word consumed her. She knew she was on the road to self-destruction. Taking a deep breath, Peyton turned in his arms until she was face to face with him. His mouth and brows were relaxed. When he was asleep, he seemed free and looked every inch the seventeen-year-old she’d loved. The thought caused heat to succumb her chest.

The reality was that the person she’d once loved no longer remained. Instead, he was a shell. He seemed lost, without a home. She wanted to touch him, have her fingers trail down the side of his face. See if he reacted the same way that he had when she used to do it under the cherry blossom tree outside her window. But she refrained from doing so.

Say it, Peyton. Say the word that will make him leave. End this now, her conscience screamed

Peyton squeezed her eyelids together. She knew that the right thing to do was wake him up and tell him to go home. She wasn’t sure she could recover this time if he hurt her. She didn’t have her parents.

“Why are you crying, Peyton?”

Peyton slowly lifted her lids, the tears she didn’t realise she had dragged out sliding down the side of her face. The concern in Callum’s eyes was hard to miss. She didn’t wipe them away. Instead, two more tears fell before Peyton stared down at his chest.

“Peyton?” Callum asked softly.

Her eyes locked with his, and Callum’s hand grazed against her stomach before he brought his fingers close to her face and brushed her hair back. She didn’t say anything as he stroked her hair and then placed his palm on her hip, heating the skin underneath her pyjamas.

The corner of his lips deepened slightly, and his moves were a mix of familiar and unknown. He used to stroke back her hair plenty of times, but this time, the control on his face had her walls building. It wasn’t the same. They weren’t the same. She couldn’t have the same.

Peyton shook her head. “I’m not sure,” she replied and sat up.

She kept her eyes on the dresser opposite from where they lay and against the wall, unsure of what to do. Being lost in the past was risking her present and her future. ‘For now’ was too much of a risk. ‘For now’ wasn’t what she deserved, and she shouldn’t have asked for it.

The bed shifted, and Callum’s hand was on her left shoulder. When she turned her head to look at him, remorse had filled his eyes, like he knew exactly what she was thinking. Another hand was placed on her right shoulder, his eyes never leaving hers. Then he sighed and pushed her back on the bed, his hands flat on the mattress by her head. Once he threw his leg over her body, he hovered over Peyton.

“You want to use the safe word, don’t you?” His eyes darkened and her heart throbbed violently in her chest.

“Yes,” she breathed out.

The features of his face hardened and his nose flared. “I told you that I didn’t want anything from you, Peyton. You wanted this. You wanted now.”

A whimpered escaped her lips. “I wanted forever,” she confessed in a small voice. “I stupidly wanted forever from you.”

Callum’s arms tensed, and from the corner of her eye, she could see him fist the sheet under her. “I can’t give you forever. Use it. Use the safe word, Peyton.”

Do it, Peyton.

She blinked once, in time with the beat her heart made. Callum stared at her, waiting for her to say the word from one of her favourite movies. For a moment, she thought he’d cry. His mouth pressed together firmly and his eyes shone.

Peyton closed her eyes, mentally counting to three before staring at him. Then she took a deep breath and breathed out, “Super—”

Callum’s lips crashing into hers stifled the rest of the safe word, almost taking it away from her. Peyton’s hands reached up and held onto his waist as she kissed him back. She closed her eyes as Callum’s mouth put more pressure on hers. Over and over, his lips worked with hers. It wasn’t slow. It was fast and desperate. A kiss that screamed, “Let me keep you!” to Peyton.

His body tensed under her hands and she pulled him onto her. The pure weight of him caused her to moan. A sob was made somewhere between his mouth moulding over hers and his body falling on top of her. It wasn’t a sob she made. Then something warm and wet hit her cheek and she opened her eyes.

The movement of her lips were slowed as she watched tears run from his closed eyes and down Callum’s face, unaware that she was watching. Her heart throbbed and heated within her chest. She stopped returning his kisses as his lips continued to glide over hers.

“Callum, stop,” she said.

And his lips did.

His arms tensed harder to the point where his veins protruded under his skin. Then he took a deep breath and rested his forehead against hers, his eyes still closed. When another tear hit her, she couldn’t understand why a second sob escaped him.

“I don’t want this for you, Peyton. You don’t deserve this. This is why I made you promise to not let me kiss you.”

The break in his voice had Peyton removing her hands from the side of his body, letting them fall onto the mattress. The cracks in her heart deepened at the desperation in Callum’s voice.

“Then say it,” she whispered.

Callum opened his eyes and moved his forehead from hers, staring down at her. “Say it?”

Peyton nodded. “Call it. Say the safe word.”

He winced. “I can’t. I can’t say that word,” he said, shaking his head.

Peyton reached up and wiped the wet tears from his cheeks. “You can say it, Callum. You know how to walk away. You’ve done this before.”

“I’m not calling it, Peyton. Not on this bed. This bed holds everything for me. I’m not ending it here,” Callum said.

She recognised the anger in his voice.

Callum looked her in the eye. “Not on this bed. Never on this bed.” He didn’t let her say a word as he got off the bed and walked to the door. But then he paused and hung his head low. “I’m sorry, Peyton. You don’t understand how much that bed means to me,” he said sadly before he opened the door and left her room and then the house.

Peyton let her head fall back as she stared at the ceiling and listened to the sound of the water rushing out of the tap. She forced her eyes shut and tried to forget the image of him crying. Tried to forget the desperation. Tried to forget the apology and regret. But forgetting wasn’t happening. It continuously burned holes through her chest.

Never on this bed.

She slowly opened her eyes and looked down at the bubbled water of the tub.

“Why my bed?” she thought out loud and turned off the tap. “Why didn’t he use the safe word?”

Why didn’t I use it?

Peyton’s hands covered her face. “Because I didn’t want to use it. I couldn’t.”

She quickly placed her hands on either side of the porcelain tub and submerged herself under the hot water in an attempt to drown herself. Death was an easier solution…if she weren’t so afraid of dying. Instead, she started counting.

One.

You.

Two.

Still.

Three.

Love.

Four.

Him.

Peyton jerked out from under the water, gasping. Once her breathing settled, she wiped her face of the bubbles then shook her head. She was still in love with him. The concept was one she didn’t welcome. She couldn’t.

“Oh, God,” she cried. “No. Anyone. Love anyone but him.”

The sound of a new text message had her looking over the tub to her phone on the tiled floor. Reaching over, she picked it up, water settling on the screen as she unlocked her phone.

Callum: I need to see you. Meet me tonight.