“I wasn’t.” I sit on his bed, upon the turned-down sheets, and his eyes close.
His hand shakes as it returns to his mouth.
“I wasn’t really the best at school. I kept getting distracted. And bored. Teachers didn’t like me. Kids didn’t like me. I didn’t see the point. Every so often, some topic would catch my interest, and I’d ace it. I’d make up my own extra credit projects and bring them in. It’d make the teachers annoyed with me because I didn’t bring that kind of effort toallmy studies, and it’d make the other students annoyed with me because I was showing off. I didn’t really care much about academics on the whole. I didn’t want to go to college. I spent my entire childhood with stuffed animals and babydolls, playing house, making up romantic stories. I wanted to fall in love, be a housewife, have a family, be spoiled and adored. I wanted the emotional connection I saw in movies. I wanted the emotional connection I couldn’t seem to get from anyone, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how hard I stopped beingme, because clearlymewas offensive somehow.” I drop my attention to Macaroon and the dark brown spot around his left eye. “I never could figure it out. And then I did. People only seemed to like me when I was agreeable, quiet, small. When I shut up and smiled and looked pretty and worked hard. When I didn’t berate anyone on what I considered poor choices. When I stopped caring enough to tell them how they were hurting themselves. People like what is predictable and controllable. And the worst part?” I look at Damion again, find him clutching the closet doorjamb and staring at me,hungry. “I’m just like them. I also like the stability of predictable, controllable environments. I’mjust like them, yet I’m forever, and ever,different.”
Damion does not move for a great long while—then, he does. One heavy step at a time, he makes his way to me.
And kneels.
My heartbeat thunders, overpowering every thought that suggests I’m making bad decisions in full view of my working faculties.
Voice tortured, low, and gravel, he says, “I like that you’re different.”
“I’m annoying.”
“No.”
“I’m an idiot. I could have built a fantastic career, but I didn’t. I have the means. I’msosmart if I just apply myself. But I chose to put all my stupid energy into trying to figure out how to get people to accept me, into how to cosplay as a human worthy of love. I’ve sacrificed everything secure for a chance that someone might see a plastic version of me and gift me the security I could have built by myself. If I’d just not been a moron.”
“I don’t think it’s stupid to crave emotional connection.”
“It’s not stable. I can’t just rely on other people to make me feel complete, but that’s what I’ve done my entire life. And I got decent enough at it. But until I met Fawn, I still felt completely empty.”
“Because, until you met Fawn, no one accepted you as you really were.”
I squeeze Macaroon, fight to swallow the rock of emotion rising in the back of my throat.
Damion’s gaze slips from my face, down my body, to my legs, to my feet. His eyes glaze as he takes me in, so I brace myself.
I shaved. I showered. I put on my cutest pj’s—a pink camisole and matching shorts.
I just need to keep talking. Keep being annoying. Keep being overwhelming. Keep beingwrong. Then he can shut this all down for me, and I’ll have less trouble mourning what I can’t have because at least I wasn’t the one who killed the possibility. At least I’ll have been right about the fact hecan’tpossibly loveme. Not in the way I want. Not in the way I need.
I open my mouth; Damion lowers his head, lifts my foot, and kisses the top of my arch.
The heat from his breath zips up my leg, racking my chest with a shiver.
He kisses again, and I flinch, freeing Macaroon as I pull back, leaning on my palms, stretched from his ironclad grip all the way out.
I tug; he doesn’t budge.
His tongue flicks, and I suck in air, hypnotized.
His eyes lift, half-lidded, and hold my gaze as he drags wet moisture up to my ankle, pulls back an inch, and moves in to kiss.
I…
Commanding, he says, “Keep…talking.”
My lips tremble. “I…” My mouth is dry. “I forgot what I was saying.” I’ve forgotten everything. What I’m doing. Why I’m here. He kissed…licked…my foot. He’s on his knees, shooting goosebumps along my flesh. I stare at him, at his face, at his grip, at his chest. “Why did you put a shirt on?” I ask.
“Precaution.”
“Against?”
Deep gray pools of liquid mercury find me. “You.”
Me.
