{"id":2845,"date":"2016-04-29T00:00:41","date_gmt":"2016-04-29T04:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=2845"},"modified":"2016-04-28T20:47:57","modified_gmt":"2016-04-29T00:47:57","slug":"thirty-one-02-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=2845","title":{"rendered":"Thirty-one – 02"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Matt’s point of view.]<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all right,\u201d Matt murmured, fingers tightening in her hair. Hecate wrapped her arms around his leg and clung to him, pressing her face against his thigh. Her tears started to soak through the fabric of his pants, but he didn\u2019t care about that.<\/p>\n

He desperately wanted her to stop hurting the way she was. He still wasn\u2019t sure how much of that desire was C\u00edar and how much of it was him, but he wasn\u2019t sure he cared. Whatever he was feeling, it was real\u2014more real than anything he\u2019d felt in a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s okay,\u201d he said again, feeling helpless. What else could he say? What the hell could he do<\/em>? \u201cI\u2019m here and I know you won\u2019t hurt me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t be sure of that,\u201d she said into his thigh. \u201cI\u2019m not even sure of that. If I\u2019m\u2014maybe\u2014if\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHecate.\u201d<\/p>\n

She looked up, seemingly startled by the gentleness of his voice. She sucked in a rasping breath, slowly sitting up to meet his gaze and mopping at her eyes with the heel of her hand. \u201cMatt,\u201d she whispered. \u201cDammit, I am crazy<\/em>. There is something broken inside of me and I\u2019m not always the one\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

His lips met hers and she went quiet, leaning into his chest as his arms closed around her. Her tears were hot against his cheeks. Matt held her there, almost losing himself in the kiss he\u2019d initiated, his heart beating as hard and as rapidly as hers was.<\/p>\n

For once, he didn\u2019t question what he was doing, why this felt right, how he\u2019d known this was the thing to do.<\/p>\n

He just kept on kissing her and she kissed him back, tucked against his chest as if his arms were the only safe place in the world for her to be.<\/p>\n

Maybe it was.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be okay,\u201d he whispered against her lips. \u201cYou\u2019ll figure it out. We\u2019ll<\/em> figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d she breathed. \u201cMatt, I\u2019m sorry. All the things I\u2019ve done, taking you away from them like I did, hurting your friends, I shouldn\u2019t\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll get over it,\u201d he said, drawing back so he could look at her. \u201cI\u2019ve already gotten over it. You did what you had to do. It might not have been the best way to get what you needed, but it worked and neither of us got hurt.\u201d Matt brushed a few of her tears away with his thumb. \u201cNow I want you to do something for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything,\u201d she whispered, biting her lip.<\/p>\n

\u201cStop dwelling on it,\u201d he said, gazing at her as if he could see through her eyes into her soul. Sometimes he thought maybe he could, if only in faint glimmers.<\/p>\n

What he could see, though, beneath the tarnish and the wear, was something beautiful, something worth protecting, worth saving.<\/p>\n

Hecate swallowed hard, looking down, her hair falling forward to veil her face.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll try,\u201d she said softly, then leaned into his arms again.<\/p>\n

Matt closed his eyes and held her for a long time, until they both succumbed to sleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Matt’s point of view.] \u201cIt\u2019s all right,\u201d Matt murmured, fingers tightening in her hair. Hecate wrapped her arms around his leg and clung to him, pressing her face against his thigh. Her tears started to soak … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,206,14],"tags":[150,171,170,194,181,149,148,168,147,165,146],"class_list":["post-2845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-5","category-chapter-31-book-5","category-story","tag-awakenings","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-hecate","tag-matthew-astoris","tag-original-fiction","tag-post-apocalyptic","tag-serial","tag-serial-fiction","tag-story","tag-web-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-JT","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2845"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2846,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2845\/revisions\/2846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}