Her eyes are still narrowed, burning greener with intensity. My voice is still full of malice, with forced disgust, when I say, “Is that what you want? For me to kiss you again?”
Say it. Please.
Beg for it, like I asked you to.
My tone has her baring her teeth at me. “No.”
Her emotions tell a very different story, but I’m done antagonizing her. Why can’t I just be honest? Why couldn’t I just have kissed her when she asked?
Now, it’s too late.
I try to make up for my mistake. “I don’t like people touching me,” I tell her, offering something else. “I don’t kiss.”
“You kissedme,” she says again, as if she didn’t mean to. Red sears her cheeks immediately, shame and embarrassment flaring.
I hate it. I don’t ever want her to feel shame around me. Nothing she could ever say or think or do would change the way I feel about her.
But she doesn’t know that. She can’t sense emotions, like I can. All she has are my harsh words and repulsive actions.
I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t want to fill her with doubt. I don’t want her to glare at me, not anymore. I don’t want her to hate me.
“I did.” I take a step toward her again. “And if it hadn’t ended with a blade through my chest, it would have been perfect.”
My words are still rough, but they make her gasp.
I can’t believe I said that.
I can’t believe it took me this long.
Her lips are parted. Her heart is racing. We’re so close, again. I could kiss her,I want to kiss her, but she told me no. So instead, I ask something else.
“Was it that bad, Hearteater?” I say, my voice rough and quiet. “Bad enough to want me dead?”
I’m so close, I can hear her quiet drawing of breath. “I wouldn’t know,” she finally says. “I’d never done it before.”
A rush of twisted contentment fills me. I was the first. It shouldn’t mean anything ... but it does. I think about the man in the hall. I should never have let him touch her. I should have been the only person who ever did.
My head lowers. My lips brush against her cheek. “You didn’t kiss me like that was your first time,” I say, remembering the frenzy, the way she pulled my hair, the way she groaned into my throat and sucked my tongue.
I wish she would do it again. I wouldn’t even mind if she stabbed me afterward.
Her eyes are on mine when she says, very clearly, “Neither did you.”
Her emotions are flaring, meeting, caressing mine, little pants escaping her lips as I get closer. She closes her eyes.
But she doesn’t amend her previous statement. She doesn’t tell me whatshewants. So, all I do is reach up to drag my knuckles softly against her cheek. She shivers. I can feel her anticipation. Her desire.
Her wants don’t reach her lips, so I leave her again, room filled with our joint regret.
That night, I watch her sleep. I decide to tell her and the quiet darkness the truth.
“If I had any right to happiness at all ... it would be you. I would choose you.”
I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, fingers lingering. She softly groans, as if she can sense me. Before I can move my hand, she’s leaning against it.
“Grim,” she breathes, in just a whisper.
My entire body jolts, as if she’s stabbed me again.
