I pulled my hand away from the nape of her neck and got to my feet. I could feel her pain at the surprise rejection. I’d never successfully resisted her like that before, but, from now on, I was going to be stronger than what tempted me.
Selene looked up at me, disoriented, and then got to her feet, looking alarmed.
In that moment, I had only one thought: escape. Immediately. I wasn’t about to stay there and let her knock me for a loop.
I walked past her to the porch, where a small light illuminated the path.
Fuck her and fuck this feeling in my chest.
I wanted to devour her lips. I wanted her to chase after me, but I kept telling myself that all of this was wrong. I couldn’t continue to confuse her physical attraction to me for real interest. Every time I got near her, I felt removed.
Even now.
With her, I was always standing outside myself.
“Neil, wait…” Selene called out behind me, but I didn’t wait. I continued to stride briskly in the direction of the house until I heard her breathing raggedly behind me. She had to run to catch up with me; she couldn’t have kept pace otherwise. I didn’t slow down but instead sped up on purpose.
“Wait!” She grabbed my arm, and I swung around abruptly. I was enormous, and she was so little that I couldn’t help but soften. She was afraid, but she wasn’t letting go.
Tenacity and determination were her strong suits.
“What the fuck do you want?” I’d run out of patience by then, and it was impossible to talk rationally to me in that state.
“I want to know what’s going on with you,” she answered in an anguished voice.
I jerked roughly away from her, making her stumble a bit. I pinned her with a furious glare. I could feel my pulse throbbing, my blood pressure rising. I felt the sweat, the trembling in my hands, the rapid breathing, and the hatred. So much hatred that I tried to tamp down. Not for Selene but for myself. For what I was.
“You want to know what’s going on with me?” I echoed. “For real?” I took a step toward her, and she backed up. “I-I’m…not myself. I’m not myself when you’re around. Because you…expand. You are mymore—my beyond, Selene.” The words were dragged out of me, my erratic breathing preventing me from talking to her the way I wanted.
I wasn’t good at expressing myself when it came to certain things, and maybe Selene couldn’t understand what I really meant: She was not just a boundary I couldn’t cross; she was everything beyond.
She wasfurther.
I stared intensely at her and realized that she was about to cry. I could tell from the way her eyes had gotten glassy and how her chin trembled.
“I let you have parts of me that I’ve never given anyone else. I’ve tried so many times to follow my rules with you, but I just couldn’t,” I gasped out, and it felt as though my skin were burning under the irritating layers of my clothing. Selene held out a little bit, but, after a few moments, she burst into tears.
She let out all the emotions she’d been keeping inside, and perhaps if I had been a feeling man, I would have held her close and comforted her. But I didn’t even know how to convey affection to someone in that way. When I had cried as a child after Kimberly’s abuse, I tucked myself into a corner of my room, and no one came to hold me. When I tried to get away from her and begged her not to hurt me again, she never listened. She just ignored me as she continued to satisfy her own wants.
So how could I be human toward a world that had treated me so inhumanely?
“We feel the same things. You don’t have to be afraid. It’s not anyone’s fault. Some emotions are just beyond our control.” Selene wiped her face with the back of her hand even as more tears continued to stream freely down her cheeks.
The problem was this: I was a control freak. I always had been, but especially with women.
In my mind there existed a very precise sequence of steps that I followed with all of my lovers. Through that, I had found some equilibrium amid the chaos, and now some random girl wanted to come into my life—into my head—and blow everything to hell.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, trying to calm down.
She had a point.
This wasn’t her fault, but it was mine.
It was down to my inability to stay away from her like I’d promised myself I would so many times. If I was being honest with myself, even I didn’t know what I wanted from her.
What was I imagining?
That things would go back to how they’d been before the crash? But how exactly were things before?
