Belonging to Lust

Chapter 151: You Have Me Now

Those words. Zaiyia had been waiting her whole life for those very words to be uttered by Heath. But it wasn’t enough. Not after all they’ve been through. If he expected her to fall for his appealing admittance, and god knows she wanted to...he’d have to try harder than that. Zaiyia was standing over the rail on a bridge that overlooked an icy cold river below. She was just about to take her life when Heath somehow tracked her down and was now expelling the very declarations she’d always dreamed of him saying to her. No, there wasn’t any mention of love, but he had conceded he wanted to be with her in a proper relationship. He’d be her boyfriend and she’d be his girlfriend. It was almost everything she had ever wanted...if only she hadn’t been about to kill herself. Now he wanted to be with her all of sudden? Why? Because she was about to kill herself, that’s why! Zaiyia’s eyes snapped to Heath and stared blankly at him, whispering the obvious. “You’re lying. You don’t want to be with me. You just don’t want me to commit suicide in front of you. Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not stepping over this rail.”

Heath’s shoulders slumped. She didn’t believe him. Of course it made sense why she didn’t, and he knew it was all wrong timing but this time he was telling the truth! Running his hands through his short hair, he sighed shakily. “No, Zaiyia, please! Just...I know that’s how this looks! I know it looks like I’m just trying to get you back onto the bridge safely, and yes, that’s PARTLY the reason why but it’s not the WHOLE truth!” He had no idea if she’d been listening to everything he said before. Did it really fall on deaf ears? If so, he was going to say it all again! And if she didn’t hear him this time, he’d say it again and again until it finally sunk into her thick skull that he cared about her and wasn’t about to walk away and lose her to suicide. “The other reason is because you left me! You abandoned me back at the house all by myself! My life had gone back to the way it had been before we met, and in those short seconds I realized I didn’t want that life anymore. I didn’t want to live another hour without you in it! Sitting around in the kitchen wasn’t going to get you back, so I came out here to look for you!”

This was preposterous! Absolutely preposterous! Heath began to pace, frustrated with himself and how he handled this situation. How he handled her, the most prized possession this world had awarded him. “Jesus, I had this stupid fucking speech all planned out! I had everything I wanted to say to you mentally written down in my head! That I wanted to be with you and FUCK the rest of this whole fucking world if they got something to say about it!” Heath grumbled to himself in defeat. “The timing is all wrong here! It’s playing against me, I can fucking see that now. But I swear to god, I’m telling you the truth, Zai!”

“Oh, go fuck yourself, Sullivan!” Zaiyia snapped at him, wishing she didn’t feel the desire to climb back over the rail to hold him and drive out his worries away. What would it take for that part of her that loved him still to die out already!? Brushing his words off, she refocused her attention to the inky black water rushing below her that would haul her corpse away as soon as she decided it was time to let go of the rail. “There’s nothing you can say that’ll change my mind so get your ass out of here and let me be! It’s time for me to go now and I don’t care to have an audience, if you don’t mind.”

Heath detested how offhandedly Zaiyia talked about taking her life like it was as inconsequential as taking out the trash, but the fear of losing her overshadowed his angst and generated hot tears to blur his vision. Not wishing to see her fall and die before his eyes knowing it was all his fault for motivating her to do this, Heath implored her to reconsider. “BABY, DON’T! PLEASE! PLEASE! DON’T LEAVE ME ALONE LIKE I DID YOU!” He watched her form stiffen, and took advantage of her hesitation. “I’m sorry, baby, for tossing you aside like a sack of shit. You get that enough from everyone else in your life, right? Well, I should have been better than that! I should have known better than to do that to you! You, who has given me everything a man can ask for, and more!”

Expecting that to move her, Heath was devastated to see that it only compelled her to lean further out over the river below. It was enough to terrorize the grown man into action even without a stalwart plan. Neither one of them knew what was going to happen when he suddenly bounded over the stone rail so that now he was standing on the edge of the bridge overlooking the river like her. The heights weren’t equal though, she’d die and he’d survive the fall. Now that Heath knew what to do, he began to inch his way towards her so that both of their descent would end with ruination. “It’s okay, baby. I’m here. It’s gonna be okay now.”

Zaiyia was in awe at what the man was doing as he inched his way along the edge of the bridge to her. She didn’t want to believe he was about to do what she thought he would. Not him. Not her Heath. “Yo, what the fuck do you think you’re doing, Sullivan!? Get back on the fucking bridge before you slip and fall!”

Refusing to listen to her pleas, Heath halted only when he determined that the height of his fall would also end in his demise as well. Looking down at the waters below, he shook his head in response. “No, Zai. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Heath! This fall can KILL you!” Zaiyia snapped at him, trying to spell out how serious this was.

“So?” Heath answered her, zipping his shimmering green eyes to her cold brown orbs. “It didn't seem to bother you before, did it? No matter how much I begged you to come back, you wouldn’t listen!”

God, Zaiyai knew what he was going to do. He was going to kill himself too. Shaking her head in denial, the tears she’d managed to suck back in were now gushing down her cheeks as she cried for him. Call her a hypocrite, but she couldn’t lose him. “N-No! Don’t do this, Heath!” Zaiyia cried, her voice breaking at the thought that he could let go of the rail at any given second and fall to his death. “P-Please, get b-back on the bridge, Heath! Please, you c-can’t!”

The sight of her crying made a tear fall from his eyes and down his cheek that reflected the moonlight beaming down on them like a theatre spotlight. He refuted her what she wanted most with a shake of his head and an unsteady smile. “No, baby. I’m not going anywhere without you. Come with me, and we can both get off this goddamn bridge together and go home.”

Zaiyia watched as one of his hands loosened its grip to stretch towards her, offering it’s assistance. Turning her head in sorrow, she wept for him. Not for her, but him. This wasn’t fair! Why if she died did he have to come with her? That just wasn’t fair! He was a good person, a fantastic provider, a reliable older brother, protective uncle, and a spectacular lover. Why must he want to give that all up? “T-This isn’t fair! I have nothing to live for anymore!” Zaiyia screamed into the night, her chest heaving. Turning her eyes to him, she stared at him between her long braids. “If you ever truly cared about me, Heath, you’ll let me go. You’ll let me end it all and be at peace for once in this goddamn life of mine!”

“YOU HAVE ME NOW!” Heath yelled at her, enraged that it still wasn’t ringing true to her yet. “Your life is worth living, goddamnit! Can’t you see that!?”

“I don’t believe a fucking word you say!” Zaiyia proclaimed at him, stomping her foot childishly. The action nearly made him lurch forward, she noticed.

“What else do I have to say to make you believe me then!? Huh!?” Heath contended, finally fed up. He gestured with a hand to the rail he was still holding onto behind him. “Do I have to fucking let go to get it through your head that I fucking giving a fuck about you?! Will that prove it to you that I’m sincere!?”

“NO! NO NO NO! DON’T!” Zaiyia screamed at him, her brown eyes magnifying in horror as his hand shook the rail that vibrated a little. “DON’T LET GO, HEATH! PLEASE, DON’T!”

“Well then believe me!” Heath hollered, glaring at her not with animosity, but suffering.

“C-Can you blame me!?” Zaiyia fended off, tilting her head up to the night sky. “You’ve broken my heart so many times, Heath. Too many times to survive another one. I-I can hardly feel it beating anymore.”

“So what?! You expect me to live life just fabulously without you in it!?” Heath snapped. “News flash, I can’t live without you, Zaiyia! If me standing on the edge of the bridge over death doesn’t prove that then I don’t know what will!”

Zaiyia couldn’t let him do this. Tonight she would die, but he...he had to live. She had to make him see this. Grappling for ammunition, she went for the most accessible. “You have a family, Heath! You have a family that loves you!” She stared at him, watching his features soften at the mention of them. “If they ever lost you, they’d be devastated, and you know it!”

Heath saw what she was doing. She was using his loved ones against him to get him back on the bridge. Unfortunately for him he had nothing in his arsenal. Yovela had literally dumped her to him without a single attempt to check in on either of them. What did he have to use against Zaiyia other than himself? His grip on the rail was faltering over the powerful emotions wracking through him, but Heath still countered back. “And how devastated do you think I’ll be if I have to bury you in a cemetery among family and friends!? How hard it’ll be for me to fucking keep myself together in front of them when all I want to do is throw myself down in that hole along side with you!? That’s exactly the kind of view you’d get from up in heaven, baby! A grown man’s mission to be together with you even in death!”

Zaiyia thought she saw his grip slacking on the rail and she didn’t think twice when she let go of the rail herself to reach out to him and somehow rescue him. “HEATH!”