“No?” His laugh was sharp. “Then what do you call this? Because from where I’m standing it looks a lot like you’ve just… given up on yourself.”
“I havenotgiven up!”
“You literally renamed yourself,” he cut in. “What was it? Not Vedika?” His voice dripped mockery. “That’s not even very original.”
For a moment she just stared at him like he’d slapped her.
Then the hurt turned feral.
“Youasshole,” she breathed, her voice shaking with fury as she marched up to him. “How dare you. Howdareyou take something I told you when I was hurting and throw it back at me like a joke?”
“How dare you decide you don’t deserve to exist?” he shot back, just as quietly. “How dare you decide thatVedikadoesn’t deserve to exist? How dare you dim your light?”
That stopped her.
“Mywhat?”
“Your light,” he said, the anger gone from his voice now, replaced by something rougher. More dangerous. “How dare you pretend it doesn’t exist just because someone, someidiot, failed to see it? If you do that, you’re an even bigger idiot.”
“My light?” she repeated, disbelief dripping from every syllable. “You don’t get to say things like that.”
“I get to say whatever I want.”
He stepped closer before she could move away, his hands coming up to hold her face before she could decide whether to fight him or flee.
“Stop apologising for who you are, Mouse.”
Her eyes flashed, anger, hurt and disbelief flashing in them.
“Who I am?” she whispered. “Do you even remember who you thought I was when you met me in Goa?”
His jaw tightened.
“I remember.”
“What?” she challenged. “Say it. Go on. I was too loud, too neurotic, too repressed, right? Too much? Embarrassing? Exhausting?”
“I thought you were chaos in a tightly wound package,” he said.
She froze.
“I thought you were rigid. Controlled. Annoying. Completely incapable of unwinding, even for a second.” His thumb brushed the corner of her jaw. “I thought you were the kind of girl who walks into people’s lives like a contained storm and doesn’t even realise the damage she’s doing. And I thought that when the storm is unleashed, there would be nothing but collateral damage.”
Her throat moved as she swallowed.
“And now?” she asked.
“And now,” he said quietly, “I know the damage isn’t collateral.”
Silence stretched between them.
“And what does that mean?” she asked.
“Nothing I can talk about right now,” he said, his voice dropping. His fingers tightened slightly against her skin.
Her hands came up to wrap around his wrists, holding on for support.
“Talk to me, Mouse. Tell me what’s going on inside that complicated head of yours.”
