“You’re only selfish if you think what’s wrong with me makes me less than you.”
Less than? Me?
“No.No.”
“Okay. I didn’t think so.” There’s pressure on my shoulders and I flinch. “Then say what you were gonna say.”
“I …” I curl up tighter. “I just don’t understand you.”
His bark of laughter makes me jump and I lean away from the hand he’s got on the top of my back.
“I don’t understand me either.”
I can feel him move away. Back towards the bike. The clang of tools confirming where he went and that he stepped away from me.
I force a breath.
It’s filled with earth and fuel.
I take another.
Sage and leather.
“You smile a lot.”
“You don’t,” he quips right back.
Huffing, I tighten the band around my shins and press my forehead into my knees. The bluntness of bone hurts to roll against.
I want to slam down on them. Bash my head until I’m unconscious and bleeding out.
Would that make me … normal? To smile more?
I test it in the cavern creating by my body, allowing my thighs to see my lips curl at the corners.
I think.
It feels so weird that clamp my teeth down on them.
“Okay, bubbles. C’mon.”
When I glance up, the light makes me squint. It surrounds Tristen like an outline, shining from somewhere behind him.
It’s so distracting that I don’t realize his hand is out again, hovering between us, until he wiggles his fingers.
“Would it make me normal to?”
Tristen’s responding smile looks sad. Disappointed maybe. I’m not really sure what it means, and it makes my stomach twist up.
“No. Beingyouis what makes you normal. Everyone else is just a fake.”
I chew on the cuff of my sleeve.
“So, what’s that make you?”
“Horny, hungry, and tired.”
My face heats and my wide gaze drops to his boots.
