Gathering courage, I meet the volatile current of his eyes. “You removed your gloves,” I say. “You were close to giving yourself permission to touch me. You wanted to make a connection.”
Something prohibited claims his gaze. “That’s where your analysis is wrong, doctor.” His voice drops into a deep timbre. “I removed them to stop myself from tearing into you. It can never go that far again.”
He cups my face, fingers braced to the nape of my neck as he tips my head back, positioning his mouth near my ear. “I hope you got what you needed, because this won’t happen again, starling.”
“Orion—”
“I hurt you,” he says, voice like gravel as he releases me. “I came damn close to doing worse.”
I draw in a steadying breath. “I trust you.”
“You shouldn’t.” He moves so close I can taste the heady scent of blood on his skin. His thumb traces over my inner wrist, his soft touch in direct contrast to his coarse warning. “Don’t ever let me touch you, Collins.”
The golden ratio refers to a unique relationship between two numbers, symbolized using ? (phi). The same golden ratio that appears as a rectangle in human constructs often is expressed in nature forms as an elegant spiral. The chambered nautilus expresses this principle as it outgrows its old “living quarters” and sequentially builds roomier ones in a spiral pattern whose dimensions are determined by the golden ratio.
—GEOPHYSICAL INSTITUTE, UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA FAIRBANKS
15
Waning
That’s us... a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.
—CARL SAGAN,PALE BLUE DOT
COLLINS
Ihave a bad heart.
The organ in my chest is broken. It’s black and bruised and callused, suffering a wound that has never repaired. And while time seems to heal some wounds, apparently its passage fails to mend mitral valve damage.
The very blood that keeps the muscle pumping flows in reverse, traveling the wrong way. Making it bad.
Some things just are.
A frigid wind breaks across the soaring spires, sending the briny scent of ocean through the West Quad. Dead leaves crunch beneath my boots as I push past the exertion in my body and the students, fighting the fatigue settling deep in my bones. It’s the kind of weary that makes me almost regret how far I let things go with Orion.
My heart hasn’t felt the same since.
As one day slips into another, Orion says, “I want you alone, angel.” The muscle flutters as I tell him, “Yes.” Another day passes, and I ask him, “So what’s your star sign?” He chuckles, then murmurs in an amused tone, “You’re adorable, starling,” and my heart skips a beat.
One week bleeds into the next, and tender moments are stolen as Orion plays piano, a melody so achingly beautiful, I swear the organ in my chest stops beating altogether as the notes shape and unspool beneath his fingers, and captivated, I rise onto the tips of my toes for the first time since before.
Then one night, when he leads me to the university theater, the lights go out, plunging us into absolute darkness. Before panic drags me under, his arms circle me from behind, and the ceiling illuminates with an explosion of stars, transforming the theater into a shimmering planetarium.
And my heart bursts.
We lie side by side on the stone floor, gazing at the cosmos in the starlit dark, and Orion says, “Finally, a use for that fucking VR simulator.” I look over at him. “You’re seducing me with the stars, Dr. Night.” His smile is too striking as he whispers, “It’s not cliché when every time I gaze at you, I want to immortalize you in the heavens with them, angel,” and I hear the crack, a deep, internal fault line through my heart.
One. Two. Three.
The stern tone of Laurel’s voice echoes through my thoughts, always forcing me to look in the mirror,see what’s truly there.
I convinced myself I could undo Orion while maintaining control. Yet manipulation requires a degree of belief in your lies. The deeper you sink into that deception, the more you risk falling victim to your own tactics. Losing yourself to the curated feelings.
In that observatory dome, I didn’t just lower my defenses; I dropped them into the deepest chasm of the ocean. I tore my trauma wide and let it bleed, trusting a killer in my most vulnerable state.
For one fractured heartbeat, as he tightened that ligature around my throat, it wasn’t my life I feared he’d take. With his strong arms holding me immobile as I fell apart, like the music beneath his fingers, I felt the desire to let it all go—the pain, the anger. The burden.
