“Why?” he asked, slow and low, that gaze snapping to my face.
I puzzled through his chopped off sentences and knew why he’d stopped talking so quickly.
He could see everything in me if he wanted, but my dad had taught him why that was an invasion, why that would never be allowed. And so he didn’t. He hadn’t. He wouldn’t.
My secrets would remain mine, had remained mine the entire time he had been in Ordinary.
Because he wanted to do what was right. Wanted to do what my father had taught him. Wanted to get that yes.
“I didn’t trust you,” I said. “At the beginning, that made sense. But you were changing, and I kept holding up your past and seeing you as that. Only that.”
He wasn’t breathing. His expression was so intense, I felt my overheated skin heat even more. Could I scorch from his attention? Be burned down to cinder and ash by the sun in his eyes?
“I’m sorry I didn’t see you changing. Not even when you were standing right in front of me.”
He exhaled, his whole chest moving, his shoulders shifting. “And now?” He took a step toward me, just one. But it felt like he spanned a mile, a hundred miles, and was there now, right there in front of me. In my space. In my world.
Now.
I’d run out of air. I’d run out of words.
Now.
For a moment, I was lost to him. It would be easy to begin here, to start new promises.
He leaned over me. Just as I tipped my head back, my neck exposed, my pulse blowing apart at even the idea of being kissed, I said, “Why didn’t you just give Delaney back her soul in the first place?”
He paused. It felt like the entire world paused. The wind, the stars, even the vampire behind me, who I thought might have snorted a short laugh, paused.
“What?” Bathin was so close his breath was hot on my mouth. The scent of him—fire and cinnamon and hot stones burning—made my knees weak.
“Delaney’s soul. You could have just given it back. Then you wouldn’t have had to use the scissors to stab yourself.”
“We’re…here. And you’re still…” He grunted and rocked back on his heels. “You couldn’t just let it be? We were having a moment!”
“Why are you yelling at me?”
“I’m not yelling!” he yelled.
I planted my fists on my hips and gave him an incredulous look.
The strangled sound that came out of his mouth turned into a growl, and he ran his fingers back through his hair over and over again. Then he wiped one hand down his face, and the scowl was a little less severe.
“I knew.” He paused, shook his head. “Look. I was…afraid. Afraid if I released her soul, you would make me leave. You would force me out of Ordinary. You had every right to do so. Her soul was—is—strong. And she did give it to me willingly. In the world in which I was raised, that acceptance is everything. Means everything.
“I knew if I gave it back to her before you…before we had a chance to…” He sighed. “I was afraid. Afraid I’d lose you.”
That last bit came out thick and chopped off. As if they were the hardest words he’d ever had to say.
“Was I wrong about that?” he asked.
No. He was not wrong. Forgiveness was not my strength.
“But if you’d just let her soul go…”
“Would you have seen me? Would you have spoken to me? Would you have let me get this close to you, to your life? Would you have forgiven me?”
I wanted to say yes. But he deserved more. He deserved honesty.
