Cami was shivering, even though the sun was casting the field in warm rays causing sweat to bead up on my forehead.

It didn't matter, though. Where we were going, it was cool and dark and one of the most amazing sights I'd ever witnessed.

I only hoped that she'd feel that way, too.

I was worried that she might've been shivering for an entirely different reason than the temperature, so I didn't think twice before placing my hand in hers and linking our fingers together.

I could sign with just one hand if I had to.

She could always ask me to mouth the words, too.

I could still whisper, considering that didn't use my vocal cords, but for some reason any kind of communication with my words out of my mouth just didn't feel right.

Not now, at least.

I tucked away the dwindling time left for me to make a decision on my voice forever to the back of my mind. This was about getting Cami's mind off of Colton and what had happened with my brother.

This was about helping her heal; showing her everything she'd be missing if she acted on those impulses I knew were firing back and forth in her head.

I'd felt the exact way, too, once upon a time. And maybe even a few more times since then.

An addict doesn't magically stop being tempted by their vice once they remove themselves from the situation.

A cancer patient isn't magically cured when they undergo treatment.

They go into remission.

I guess I could say I was in remission with my mental illness.

I would be fine one day, destroyed the next.

It was what always happened, but with Cami by me, I could only hope the next flare up took longer to rear its ugly head.

I didn't want her seeing that side of me, ever, but I knew it wasn't a reality to keep it under wraps forever.

The verdant grass crunched beneath our feet and the mud tried to stick to the underside of my black shoes but still we trudged on.

Her soft, warm hand squeezed mine a few times when her breathing sped up, almost like she could feel her panic attack coming on and was tightening her grip on me to make sure she was still okay; that she was still here.

Or that I was still with her.

"You know, I somewhat trust you since the view was so pretty the last time you took me somewhere, but I still haven't ruled out that you're a murdering psychopath."

"Psychopaths don't have a conscience. I would be classified as a sociopath, but I wouldn't commit crimes against people I like or admire, like my family and friends. You need to brush up on your criminal terminology."

Having to spell out a few words on my right hand instead of signing out the entire word might've been a burden if I weren't holding Cami's hand.

If it were anything else...

"Oh, right. So you're a good murderer? What, like Dexter? You only kill the ones who deserve it?"

"Exactly. People like Colton."

She shuddered after I finished using letters to sign out the asshole's name.

"I don't want to talk about him."

We were almost to the entrance of the cave, anyway.

"Fine. We're almost here, anyway."

I didn't want to push her, but I still couldn't get it out of my head.

The way she'd acted around him, the reaction she'd had when he touched her back...

It was why I'd been so gentle in touching her back, because she'd almost flinched out of her skin when I'd done it.

Yes, something traumatic had happened to her, and recently.

I wanted to throw up when I calculated what, exactly, could happen to a girl at the hands of a guy. The visualizations in my head were gruesome and bloody and violent and I wanted to rip Colton limb from limb and string him up in front of the entire town to make others understand what I'd do to garbage humans that thought it was acceptable to hurt a woman, or anyone smaller than them to begin with.

If I'd found out he'd done anything to another girl at the school, I'd still be equally vengeful and full of wrath, but it was the thought of him touching Cami in that way absolutely blinded me to acceptable behavior in front of others.

So long as he was around me, I would not be able to control myself or my actions.

Cami stumbled a bit as we reached the rocky outcrop of the entrance to the mountain caves I'd discovered during my adventuring phase, the one where I was trying to connect with nature since humans had failed me so terribly.

I thought that if I could find the joy in the natural things that I didn't have to work for that my head would just straighten itself out.

It had worked for a bit, until my father had taken away my privileges—something he loved doing constantly to keep me on my toes.

He didn't like my clothes, didn't like my music, my refusal to 'try my hardest' at school like he did.

There were lots of things my father didn't like about me. Those were just the tip of the iceberg.

"I didn't know there were caves in this mountain. They're safe, right? Like, you're not gonna make me crawl through tiny places and get me stuck in here with a cave-in, right?"

"Don't worry. I've got you. I've been coming here since I was fourteen and never had a problem. You're safe with me."

And it was true. I'd never let anything hurt her. I'd sooner hurt myself than let something happen to her.

I wasn't sure when it happened or why, but Cami was someone I had vowed to protect, and I always kept my promises.

Except for one—but I'd keep that one in due time. It was a promise to myself, one I'd never planned to break. It was going to be upheld, one of these days.

"Wow. You've been coming here this long?"

Cami tripped over another stray rock and almost went flying down to the ground but my hands caught her around the waist. She didn't flinch.

There was a light pinch of red dusting her cheeks, but I didn't know if it was in embarrassment or something else entirely.

I righted her before moving to pull away from her waist, but something stopped me—like some kind of intrinsic need to keep my hands on her. She didn't protest.

I angled her to walk slightly in front of me, and from my vantage point, I had a direct view of her face as she took in the caves around us.

Natural light dripped down into the cavern stretching out before us illuminating her features filled with wonder as we stepped further into the systems.

Cool air caressed the back of my neck and sent chills skating along Cami's skin, so close I could smell the body wash that she'd been using. It had been clogging up my senses since I found her in the shower burning herself.

I should've reminded myself of that—of the fact that she was still in pain, still hurting, still putting herself back together after what happened, whatever it was, but I couldn't help myself.

She leaned herself back against my chest and fuck if it wasn't everything I thought heaven would be and more.

Her warm back pressed against my chest and soft silky hair tickling the bottom of my chin.

My grip instinctively tightened around her waist, arms encircling her in a protective embrace and maybe it was the artwork from years and years past decorating the cave walls or the old age of the caves itself, but this felt like a moment already carved out in time—like the two of us would go down in some kind of infamy together.

Like this spot, defined by tourists and graffiti stains and eroding from the elements would be forever marked because we were here—because I was always here and always alone and always something broken and unrecognizable, but now? In this moment?

I wasn't alone.

I wasn't broken.

Maybe I was half-way healed before Cami, but her wildfire and wonder gave me something more to work to, something bigger to achieve.

Maybe she was the reason I wanted to finally fulfill that old promise to myself.

Maybe she was the reason I would actually do it.

Or maybe it was just the moment talking; that I had finally found someone who could actually see me for who I was and not what I had tried to do and immediately latched onto her because our traumas matched somewhat, like two branches forked from the same tree, our spindly twigs like our shared experiences and the leaves the tears which we'd cried because of them.

Maybe she was just a sad, lonely girl and I was just a broken, damaged boy doomed to repeat the mistakes of his past.

Maybe that was all this was.

And maybe that thought terrified me more than the alternative, that this actually meant something.

And maybe I squeezed Cami just a little bit tighter at that thought, and maybe she leaned back into me with a contented sight that constricted the very heart I'd wanted to carve right out of my chest.

Grey had taken me to a cave underneath a mountain.

An actual cave, that once inside opened up into a cavernous room filled with sharp points and slate grey walls dripping with old rainwater and smelling of a cool dampness mixed with green moss and...paint fumes?

All across the once barren walls were splashes and slices of artwork; some old and faded and some as vibrant as if they'd just been painted mere seconds before our arrival.

The steady drip drip drip of the water onto the stone floors created a cadence of musical nature inside the cavern, and I couldn't hardly understand what I was seeing with my eyes.

The harsh bright sunlight from the outside world had become dimmed and softened as it filtered through cracks in the top of the cave, like we were in the pit of a volcano and could see out of the top.

"What...how did you find this place?"

I craned my neck back to stare up at Grey's face, but he kept his eyes forward on the cave walls ahead and didn't bother to answer my question, but I wasn't sure if it was because he was so comfortable with his hands all over my body that he didn't want to let go to sign to me or if he simply didn't hear me.

It was as if he were soaking up the beauty of the cave just as much as I was, and he couldn't bare to tear himself away from it.

His arms tightened around my waist for what felt like the hundredth time in as many seconds, but I didn't object.

There was something different about arms wrapped around me that didn't want to cause harm.

It was like I was relishing in a reality that wouldn't remain; it was the lack of permanence that made it so special.

What is life without death, love without pain...

what is a beautiful moment without its eventual end?

It was that eventual end that had me feeling no shame in burrowing myself even further into his warm embrace and gazing upon all the artwork spread out around us.

This wasn't your usual everyday overpass graffiti, no.

This was an intricate patchwork of elegant brush strokes and poignant pieces that tugged at the heart strings in your chest.

This was a monument to history and to nature and to all living things around us: a woman with flowers crawling out of her eyeball, a man whose torso was transformed into a blue stormy ocean, a child being birthed from a mountain, a smoking vehicle with the tail end covered in ivy and overgrowth returning to nature.

Each and every piece told of a story of healing, of peace, of nature overcoming the tribulations of humanity and its cruelty.

It was the story told in the painting of the girl with bruised eyes leaking blood as tears and forced the breath in my lungs to stop working.

"Thank you for bringing me here," was all I could whisper as we stood there trapped in each other's embrace and remained captives of the artistry of the walls around us.

After a while, he reluctantly let his hands fall to his sides as I moved closer to the art, wishing upon everything to capture them with my phone camera, but I knew that it wasn't how they were meant to be viewed. It was why the artist had painted them so far out in the wilderness, with not many tourists coming to visit the installation.

Before long, it was time to leave, but as the sun sank on the horizon and Grey pulled his arm around my waist and tucked me into his side, I realized that there wasn't anywhere else I'd rather be than exactly where I was, and that was the first time I'd ever had that thought since before...

And wasn't that the most terrifying thing of all?