I bit my bottom lip. He knew what I was and still he came to save me. He must care for me in some manner? I was hesitant to hope for more, though I did.
The dark had been brought on early by the rain, and in the dim light, in the enclosed space, our trapped energies seemed to be magnified. I twisted my hands in my lap and stared at the dashboard like it held the answers to my plight.
He said, “I did not mean to upset you last night, I forget sometimes human bodies are so . . . weak. I would never deliberately hurt you.”
I looked at him baffled. “Weak?”
He misinterpreted my response as an affirmation. “Yes, you are such delicate creatures,” he seemed mildly repelled. There was a long pause then he said, “I have never met anyone like you, with the ability to get under my skin like you do, with such a lack of fear of me, and—” he stopped on the cusp of saying something, stared back out the window. After a long moment he turned back. “I didn’t know how to handle it, I tried to scare you. I didn’t do it to hurt you. I would never . . . at least, I would never mean to.”
He paused. I waited for him to continue, but when he didn’t, I spoke. “Is this your way of apologizing? Because if it is, you kind of suck at it.”
He frowned. “I never apologize, Amelia. I’m merely trying to explain myself.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You never apologize?”
“What’s done is done. It’s always done for a reason, I cannot second guess my decisions, it does not change the fact. Apologizing is a human thing, it’s absurd.”
I shook my head slowly, trying to make sense of his thought process, it seemed so ridiculous to me, I almost laughed. “Well, if you’re not apologizing why the need to bring it up then?”
He scowled. “I told you why.”
“Just so I would understand why you did it?”
He nodded.
“In my world, when you do the wrong thing you apologize, it doesn’t change the fact, but if it’s sincere, it helps the person you have wronged feel less hurt over the incident. Everyone makes mistakes, our actions afterward determine the depth of our character.”
We stared at each other, trying to understand each other’s world, read each other’s minds.
“It was improper,” he said at last.
“It was completely inappropriate and unacceptable,” I agreed.
There was a flicker of what looked like regret and guilt flash across his face. He wiped at a speck of non-existent dust on the dashboard.
“You shifted my position to a wall with speed and you yelled at me, Karson. You didn’t hurt me . . . physically anyway,” I added. His brow flicked once, a small movement like a butterfly testing its wing before its first launch. It was the only indication my words may have hurt him a little. I waited for him to speak, yet nothing came. Annoyed I said, “What do you expect me to say, it’s okay? Because it’s not.”
“Do you think you can find it in yourself to forgive me?” he asked.
That comment took me by surprise. I never thought he would care about someone’s thoughts of him, he lived in a world ofviolence. It was normal for him to use strength as force. I could see a torment in his eyes, it was an apology of sorts.
“You saved me today, so we’ll call it even,” I conceded.
“Actually, I have saved you three times now, so you owe me two.” His lips tweaked up.
I felt my eyebrows lift. “Actually. I stopped that man from digging a knife into your back, so I saved you.”
“I can assure you the knife would not have make it through the fabric of my shirt, but I will allow you that one, so you owe me one.”
“I’m sure I’ll find a way to pay you back.”
He smiled, his mind surely swiftly turning to places I didn’t intend.
Flabbergasted and blushing with embarrassment, I laughed nervously. “That’s not, I didn’t . . . I’m hungry,” I said, annoyed with myself. “Could we please find somewhere to eat?”
He laughed, a soft and breezy sound. He started the car, turned on the beams. Darkness had descended and fallen upon us, as if a velvet cloak had dropped from the sky, and rain thundered against the roof. I hadn’t even noticed the rain increase to become a deafening roar, or the daylight’s complete demise. When I was with him time moved past unnoticed, as if we were absorbed, intertwined, in a separate sphere of our own making.
“I have already ordered takeout Italian I hope that’s okay?” he said as he pulled out onto the road.
