“Keep tugging,” she urged.

I didn’t want to. I understood why she wanted it, I did, but I knew that once this was done…

Once it was done, it was done, and I would never see the her that she was right now ever again. I didn’t know if I was ready. Fuck, I knew I wasn’t, but this wasn’t about me. Who was I to deny her this?

I pulled back, and she sighed with pleasure as her hand was reduced to string.

“It will still be me,” she promised. “Even if it doesn’t seem like it.”

“I know.”

“Yarn is yarn, whether it’s in a ball or in a sweater.”

“I know.”

“Just making sure. It will still be me. And I will always, always–”

“I know! I know. Just… just be still, okay? I’ll do this for you, but… but you gotta let me…”

I don’t really think she understood what she was asking of me. How much it hurt. With every moment I tugged that filament of her, it felt like I was tugging my own heart. Like I was dying. I think I’d rather have died, in those moments, than continue.

But I promised, and I’d begun, and what is started can’t be undone. So I tugged and tugged, wrapping the long strand of her around my finger, then my hand, then my wrist as she unwound more and more.

I unraveled her entire body, destroying the planes I knew and loved so much, turning the round curves of her, the angles of her bones, every freckle, every scar, every stretch mark I’d ever kissed and stroked into one long, long string. It took an eternity. I bathed her in my tears and choked on sobs, but I kept going.

For her, who I loved more than life, I kept going.

Finally, there was nothing left but her eyes, gazing soft and adoring, and to destroy those eyes… it was what she wanted. The string of her now draped over my arm and shoulders, twined around my neck. She’d always been so much, so much more than I or anyone else I knew.

To leave this form behind and metamorphosize into something new entirely… it was her dearest desire. And mine was to give her the world, if she wanted it, to give into her every whim and fancy. How could I have known she would want this?

“I love you,” I wept, and though she could no longer speak to respond, I knew she returned the sentiment.

With one final yank, I unraveled her entirely. The second her form was gone, reduced to one long string, I dissolved. I unraveled, too. All the tension, all the agony of watching her disappear into a form I didn’t know, it finally burst out.

We fell into one heap together, two strings of life, and we were still each other, and we loved one another just as dearly as before. Yarn is yarn, whether in a ball or a sweater.

via Daily Prompt: Unravel