“I don’t know,” I say, not knowing what kind of relationship people like us can even have. “But I want to be the only person you glare at, Hearteater. I want to be the only person you insult. I want to be the only name you speak in your sleep. I want to be the only person who knows how to make you writhe against a wall. You know what? I want everything. I want to be greedy and selfish with you. I want all your laughs. All your smiles too. I would rather die than watch you smile at anyone that isn’t me.”
I mean it. I mean it so much, it scares me.
I regret the plans I had for her. I regret her death ever even being an option. Suddenly, I want to tell her. I want to let everything out inthe open, so that there aren’t any secrets between us. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
She seems to have the same idea.
“No. There’s somethingIneed to tell you.” I know what it is before she says it. “I—I’m—”
I feel her discomfort, and I want to turn it to ash. I take her hand in mine before she can start playing with her hair.
“Hearteater,” I say, trying to find it within myself to be gentle. “I know.”
Shock. Uncertainty.
I need to make myself very clear. “I know that the curses don’t apply to you,” I say. “I know that you have never wielded power.”
She steps back, toward the painted-over glass wall of her room.
For the first time since I’ve met her, she’s truly afraid. Afraid ofme.
Does she think not having abilities makes her vulnerable?
Does she think I would ever tell anyone?
“I’ve known for a while,” I say, trying to make her feel more comfortable. I explain how I know, how I’ve known for months, and watch tears fall.
I want to make them go away. I don’t ever want her to cry because of me.
I’m not deserving of her tears. Or of any of her feelings at all.
“Grim ... what—what is wrong with me?”
No. I will stand no insults against her, even from herself. She isperfect.
I take her face in both of my hands and say, very clearly, “Nothing, absolutely nothing, is wrong with you, heart.”
Her eyes widen. Then, before I can say anything else, she surprises me again.
She lifts to her toes and kisses me.
It’s soft, and she stumbles away a moment later, doubting herself. I feel a wave of self-consciousness for some reason, as if she thinks there might be such thing as a time and place for kissing me. As if she got something wrong.
If she doubted my feelings for her for a moment, I will make them very clear.
I capture her lips with mine and taste her, my tongue tracing her lips, her teeth, the roof of her mouth. She tenses for a moment, before melting into me, her feelings like flames around us, sizzling against my cold skin.
“I want you,” she says, breaking our kiss. Her chest is heaving. “I want everything.”
I haven’t told her everything. Not yet. Now isn’t the time. Not when I’ve just revealed something else.
Her feelings say she wants me. The way she’s looking at me says she wants me.
“Are you sure?” I say, not daring to hope.
“Yes.”
She doesn’t know what she’s asking for. We’ve had several different encounters, but have never doneeverything, the way she wants to.
