I don’t want to be his.
Somehow I already know what he’s going to say next.
“You remember what I told you?” he asks. “That night.”
I dig my nails into his hips. “Hold on to my dress.”
“Yeah.” He licks his lips again as if he’s already tasting me on them. “Can you do that for me again? Can you hold on to your dress for me? Don’t let me see her.”
Can I?
Can I hide from him again? Can I hide what’s between my legs from him again?
I did that once.
I listened to him. I obeyed him. And look where we are now.
I let him protect me, my body, but he didn’t protect my heart.
He broke it instead and I’ve been in pain ever since. He’s been in pain too.
We’ve both been haunted and caged in so many ways because of what happened, what we did to each other. It’s time we end this.
It’s time we break away from each other for good and move on. And somehow I already know what we have to do in order to do that.
I know whatIhave to do also.
In all my madness and desperation and my veins filled with that toxic potion that I drank because it was labeled love, I shake my head. “No.”
“What?”
“I won’t hold on to my dress for you. Because you don’t have to protect me anymore,” I say, looking into his eyes. “B-because I was… I was with someone else.”
Chapter Ten
Love made me do it.
That’s what I’m going to say to myself years later when I think of this night.
When I think of what I just said to him.
Love and a broken heart. That’s what made me say it.
I can’t believe I did though. I can’t believe I said that and I can’t believe he heard it.
Not only that, heunderstoodit too.
Because as soon as I told him, his breathing got wild.
His chest expanded and swelled under his t-shirt and his shoulders became massive and even broader. And now he’s crowding me even more, eating up all the air, all the space around me with his enhanced, heavily breathing body.
“What’d you just say?”
Even though I’m trembling now and the night has gone darker because of how changed, how angry Reed has become after my confession, I forge ahead, my voice calm.
Because that’s the only way.
That’s theonlyway this will end.
