I don’t deserve to catch a glimpse of her. To hear even a sliver of this gentle tone.
And yet…
I look up. “I told them the truth. I made you cry.” She opens her mouth immediately, but no words escape. “I think they’re angry with me.”
“They—don’t—” She scrunches her nose, struggling to find the words.
I want to keep that expression too. I’m already committing it to memory, storing it somewhere sacred.
But then she moves.
My chest aches. Is she about to leave? To walk away again?
The ache becomes a sudden pounding when she rounds the table—comes to me—pulls out the chair beside mine, sits, and leans in.
Now she’s right here. Directly next to me, staring down at my phone with me.
I really hope my unit isn’t saying anything they wouldn’t want her to see, because I am now a statue. An immovable rock.
I will never move again if it means she’ll stay beside me like this. Her warmth, her power, her sounds, her smell. I close my eyes just to revel in it a little longer, and the continuous ache living inside me thaws.
The next sound she makes scalds me. A soft, brief noise that makes everything burn.
She laughed.
I use my other hand to grip the edge of my seat, digging my fingers into the plastic, anything to stop myself from leaning closer to her heat.
Then she peers up at me, eyes still alight with her laughter.
Remember.
Remember that expression.
Burn it into my retinas.
Scar me.
“Sorry,” she half-laughs, her gaze turning wary as she glances from my face to the phone. “I should’ve asked before looking, I’ll—”
She’s about to move. To move away from me. Leave me—
“Stay,” I blurt, so quickly she’s barely shifted.
I need to say something else.
Do not mention how warm she feels. Don’t say you want her to touch you. Say something normal… anything that’ll make her stay.
“Say something to them.”
Why that? I could have said anything, and I gave her a command?
But she doesn’t recoil, doesn’t scowl, if anything… she smiles.
She’s smiling. At me.
“Like what, huh?” she teases, head tilted slightly, a few curls brushing her cheeks.
I am becoming Sai. Because when she’s looking at me like that, all I can think to say isfuck.
