She's too good for the likes of you,the beast on my shoulder cruelly mocked me.
"Anyway, how’s your head feeling now?" she suddenly blurted, uncertainty flickering across her soft features, no doubt since neither of us had spoken for the last minute.
"I'll live. I think," I replied with a weak grin, my voice much deeper than normal.
The angel took another step towards me and raised her hand to my brow. Drawing a deep breath, I waited, excited at the thought of her touching me.
And there it was, an immediatesparkas her fingers swept over my head. She had to push onto her tiptoes and into my personal space to get close, being so tiny.
I was about to lose my shit, as the scent of her hair wafted over me, like coconut and something else sweet, strawberries? The feel of her palm as it pushed my hair back so she could inspect the space there was like the sweetest torture. Swallowing, I lifted my hand to catch her gently by the wrist, conscious of how battered my skin was compared to her flawlessness. If I allowed her to continue to caress me, there was a chance I'd end up embarrassing myself. An all-consuming need was rushing through my body towards my crotch.
Get your head out of the gutter, Gage. You’re a man, nearly eighteen years old. Not a twelve-year-old boy who gets a hard-on to the opening of a fucking pencil case.And no, that hadneverhappened to me. I was stereotyping.
The girl's bones were delicate in my large, scarred hand—another example of how different we were. The angel allowed me to move her arm towards her side, one fine eyebrow arched. I didn't let her go straight away, and she glanced at our now-threaded fingers.
“I can’t see or feel any bumps,” she said, lifting her chin.
Yeah? Don’t look down again, sweetheart.
"As I said. Don’t worry, I'm good,” I responded. I couldn’t control the way my voice cracked.
She didn’t appear convinced, “Well, if there’s anything I can do...”
“Maybe you should kiss it better," I teased with a suggestive look, my thumb brushing over the pulse point of her wrist as I held her hand.
I saw she was affected by my touch as her breath hitched. The fact that she wasn’t indifferent made me want to victory punch the air.
"Do youalwaysask strangers to kiss you?"The girl said with a coy look. Delightful.
At those words, my breath snagged in my lungs. My angel's eyes were full of playfulness as she angled her head, and I replied, "Only the ones that look like you."
“And the hand holding?” she said with a sparkle in her eyes. I knew she was joshing, but I still felt like a clingy motherfucker.
I released her wrist and jammed my hands into the pockets of my pants. I needed to do something with my fingers before I traced her lips with my thumb; then my mouth, then my fucking tongue… You get the idea.
“Sorry. What can I say, I’m a sucker for a pretty face.”
Her expression lifted, and she looked at me with such glee it made me think she wasn’t used to compliments. How could that be when she looked the way she did?
Looking beyond her smile, I could sense this girl had a backstory. Maybe not as messed up as mine, but something was lurking behind that faultless exterior. A sadness?
Fuck. I suddenly wanted the entire world to disappear, or at least my past and present. The only thing that was important to me just then was my future and the feeling that this girl belonged as part of it. I hadneverfelt such an intense reaction to another human being, not even my brothers or Ma when I first met them. The connection between me and this female was instantaneous, and the funny thing was, Iknewshe felt it too.
She was the light to my dark, the good to my bad. My silver-fucking-lining.
“Have we met before?” she said with a head tilt, squinting at me.
“No. I would have remembered,” I responded, cracking my neck from side to side, my eyesdrillinginto her. I didn’t want to miss a thing.
The wordsmeant to becrashed inside my head like a tidal wave. But at the back of my mind, inthatplace, the zone I locked in the dark for good reasons, Iknewit was wishful thinking.
No one had the power to fix me, aka theunfixable, though many had tried. This girl would turn out to be no different.
Walk away, Hudson. Get real, you fucking loser.
I told my alter ego to take a hike. If that moment was only supposed to be short-lived, so be it. I would spend a lifetime in the dark, even if that meant only an hour in the light ofthisgirl.
She made me feel alive. Fucked up and ridiculously rash I know, but I couldn’t fight it. And I didn’t even know who she was.
