I narrowed my eyes.
“Pardon. Despair.” He spoke softly, his unwavering regard making me feel vulnerable.
I couldn’t help the despair. It lived and breathed in me. Sometimes, he helped me forget though. Distracted me. Like when I tried to bite him. A blush crept into my cheeks as I remembered my failed attempts.
His gaze changed. A glimpse of coveting sparked in the depth of it as he lifted his hand from the back of the bench. I dropped my own arm out of the way. He reached forward just a bit and lightly ran the back of his forefinger along my cheek.
I barely felt his slow, soft touch, but my heart stuttered anyway.
He closed his eyes for a moment. “I see your despair and it makes me...” He exhaled slowly, before opening his eyes. His intensity pinned me. “I want to hurt whoever put that emotion in your eyes.”
“I don’t get you. If you feel that strongly about me, why can’t I Claim you?”
He abruptly shook his head, “Let’s talk about something—”
“Else,” I finished for him, annoyed. I paused for a moment, seeing the waitress approach again. “You’re a twat, too.”
He threw his head back with a laugh just as she stopped by our table. Her eyes glazed over a bit as her eyes swept his face and throat. I briefly considered clawing her eyes out before reining myself in. Whoa, where did that come from? Biting my lip, I quelled my immediate need to freak out over the strong surge of possessiveness that just rushed me. Nature set him up as a possibility for me so of course I’d feel that way. It didn’t mean anything. I wasn’t actually stupid enough to fall for him. But, until we reached his friends at the Compound, if I couldn’t bite him, no one else would be allowed to nibble. Because...well, just because.
“Can I get you a refill?” she asked him softly.
“He’s fine,” I answered, staring her down.
He kept his eyes on me, and they danced with silent laughter. Yeah, I wanted to smack him again.
She walked away to check on her other tables.
“If we can’t talk aboutthemorus, what should we talk about?”
“You. What do you like doing? What are your interests?”
My mouth popped open. “Are you serious?” We were running toward what I considered our impending deaths, and he wanted to get to know me?
He nodded, and I rolled my eyes. “I like breathing and am interested in staying alive.”
“Bethi,” he practically growled.
Maybe this would help convince him. “Okay, okay. So, interests. Well, before I started losing my mind I—” What had I done? I went to school, hung out with friends, sighed over boys, worried about clothes. “I was self-centered and immature. My interests don’t really matter beyond that do they? Not after everything I’ve seen.
“I think you’re being a little hard on yourself.”
“That’s just it. I don’t think I am. I think the human society lets me be too easy on myself. I have more responsibility to be a better person than what I’ve been in the past. Sure, I wasn’t horrible, but I wasn’t great either. Shouldn’t we all strive for great?” I thought of the dream with the Taupe Lady and my friend’s funeral. “Shouldn’t we all strive to make a difference? To impact the lives around us in a positive way? To make our experiences count?”
He watched me with a growing seriousness. “That is a lot of responsibility for someone so young.”
“See. That’s what I mean. No, it’s not. If we held each other to a higher level of accountability, if we raised our children with those expectations and guided them with our own examples of higher achievement, it wouldn’t be too much. We would be a better people because of it. Instead, we took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up on Excuses-Are-Like-Assholes Boulevard.”
He opened his mouth to comment, but I shifted my attention from him to the waitress carrying our plates. He turned, saw her, and sighed. I read the promise in his eyes to continue our conversation later; and inwardly, I cringed. I went from trying to convince him I cared to stepping up on a soapbox I didn’t know I had. And I still felt like I had more to vent. I blamed it on sleep deprivation, bad dreams, and his completely gorgeous hazel eyes.
The waitress set our food on the table and left after our assurances we didn’t need anything else. I kept busy with dousing my fries in ketchup, letting the silence build for a moment. “Can I ask why we can’t talk aboutus?”
He held out his hand for the ketchup. “It makes me uncomfortable.”
I surrendered the bottle and watched him neatly add it to his burger. “Not getting into details, but what part makes you uncomfortable?”
“All of it.”
That didn’t make any sense. He took a huge bite of his burger while I struggled with my frustration. Stubborn man.
