“You have all the charm of a caveman. Has anyone ever told you that, Miller?” She bit her lip to keep from bursting out into laughter. At me. I advanced on her, and Megan didn’t stop laughing, not even when she could clearly see that my control was slipping. So I pushed my way between her legs and took her by the throat.
“You’re fucking with the wrong person, Head Case.” I dragged her close until she was just a breath away from my lips. I stared hard into her eyesand realized that there were little brown spots among the emerald green. I paused to evaluate them, and while I was, I noted that Megan did not blush, bite her lip, tremble, or appear to fear me at all. She wasn’t like Selene.
“Is this any way to treat the woman who gave you your first real kiss?” She batted her long eyelashes and pretended to pout.
“That was a game,” I answered calmly, using the tone of voice I always adopted when I was trying to talk some woman into bed. In this particular case, however, I had no intention of sleeping with her.
And yet…
“But you liked it,” she whispered, plush lips moving slow. Suddenly, I was launched into the past.
Megan and I were fourteen years old, sitting on the floor at a birthday party. We were playing a game called “Seven Minutes in Heaven.” We all wrote our names down on slips of paper and put them in a hat. As fate would have it, Megan and I were picked together, and moments later we found ourselves shut in the birthday boy’s room, alone. After some initial awkwardness and nerves, we’d kissed and kept kissing for ten minutes, overshooting the limits of the game because neither of us wanted to stop. It had been the first kiss for both of us since the violence we’d experienced at Ryan’s and Kimberly’s hands. In fact, up until that moment, neither of us had ever kissed someone without being forced. It had left both of us nauseous at the idea of putting our lips on someone else’s. We felt so in sync—and so completely not nauseous—that it surprised both of us. We’d chalked it up to our similar histories. Megan never needed to be told anything.
She already knew all about me.
“You liked it too,” I answered seductively. I tried not to grip or maneuver her throat too roughly—I didn’t want to actually hurt her, just intimidate her. But Megan seemed perfectly comfortable in spite of my tight hold on her.
“I’ve never forgotten it, actually,” she admitted before giving me a gentle shove backward. She hopped off the wall, dusting off her pants. “Call Selene, Miller. Tell her you’re sorry, give her one of your head-spinning kisses, and stop being such a dick. She doesn’t deserve it.” She smiled at me one lasttime and walked toward the entrance of the building, swaying her hips confidently. I shook my head and licked my lips, reflecting on what she’d said.
I wasn’t going to look for Babygirl.
I was just going to keep protecting her…
From myself.
14
He of all people wanted to talk?
Selene
“It takes some precision, so be careful,” my mother whispered as I attempted to sketch out a tulip on a glass plate with paint. Since coming back to Detroit, I passed the time by preparing for restarting school, spending afternoons with Janel and Bailey, and having long chats with my mother over a glass plate or cup to be painted. Though we could usually talk about everything, my mother and I still hadn’t addressed what had gone down in New York, and I was grateful for that. Still, she knew me very well and could see that I wasn’t okay. It wasn’t just the post-accident headaches; it was my actual state of mind.
All I did was fantasize about Neil and me in some alternate world where we could be together, ready to fight off his demons and bring our chaotic souls together. I’d heard it said that dreams were deceiving while also being manifestations of our deepest desires. For me, that was true. I dreamed of him, imagining us finally together, happy and ready to kick the past aside.
How could I not hate him after everything that happened?
I didn’t understand him, but unfortunately, I still wanted him. I wanted every part of him. I wanted to kiss the good parts of his soul and caress the flawed ones. I wanted to embrace not just his perfection but also hisimperfections, to share memories of the past and make plans for the future. I yearned for him to belong to me and for me to belong to him, today and every day after. Like we were the shell and the pearl who had found each other after searching for so long through the worst of the storms.
I was afraid, though, of hurting again. I was fighting alone for a love that was never going to bloom. I was also afraid of being crushed again, of finding out that Neil was still screwing his blonds. Of Neil once again using his razor-sharp words to shred my heart.
He had been perfectly clear with my father: “As soon as I saw her,I knew I was going to use her.”
“Selene…” My mother roused me from my thoughts, and I turned to look at her. She stood, lovely and elegant as always, in front of the door, preparing to open it. “I think you have some visitors.” She smiled, and I frowned.
I got abruptly to my feet, leaving the paintbrush and glass plate I was working on at the table. I patted my loose hair, afraid I wasn’t sufficiently presentable. I wiped my hands nervously on my jeans. All the while, my mother was smiling like she’d already known we were having guests that afternoon. She pushed the door open wide, and moments later Logan and Alyssa walked in beaming.
“What?” I shouted, immediately shrugging off my initial concern. I hadn’t seen them in weeks, so discovering them here in Detroit was a totally unexpected surprise. I ran to them and tackled Alyssa.
“We wanted to come see you,” she explained as I wrapped her tightly in a warm hug. Logan, standing next to her, patted my hair and pressed a tender kiss to my cheek.
“How are you doing?” he asked as I motioned for them to follow me into the living room. My mother immediately fled to the kitchen to get some juice from the fridge. In the meantime, I sat down on the sofa with Alyssa. Logan took a seat in the armchair opposite us.
“I’m good. I wasn’t expecting to see you. What are you doing here?” I asked, looking at both of them. After Matt found out about everything, I’d left right away without even saying goodbye to Logan and Chloe. I apologized to them both later over text messages, but I didn’t tell them what happened. I knew they were informed shortly after I left, though.
“You left without even saying goodbye. We know about everything; Matt’s still wrecked,” Logan said with a soft sigh. I knew that finding out about my pseudo-relationship with Mia’s son had put my father in a state of shock, but that wasn’t why I was hurting. Instead, it was Neil’s words—they were so cold and heartless.
“My brother didn’t really mean those things he said to you,” Logan continued as though he was reading my mind. How did he know that? Had he actually talked to Neil about it? A faint, ironic smile spread across my face, and I immediately shook my head.
