Fuck, I’m sobbing.
Full-on ugly sobbing.
I heave in heavy breaths. I don’t think I’ve taken in any oxygen that entire time.
“Stan,” Nil whispers, frowning and crying with me.
But he makes tears look so damn beautiful.
I close my eyes again, the flaming heat of being a failure rising up my stiff spine.
His hands grip mine. I grip them back.
“It was never your fault, Stan. Do you hear me?”
Nodding desperately, I latch onto his words like a lifeline. It feels as freeing as it is damning. Like Nil pried my chest open. I didn’t even know it was welded shut, and now everything’s spilling out, and I can’t stop any of it.
I’m trying to breathe. My breaths keep tripping over themselves.
“Stan, I need you to open your eyes,” he says. “Please look at me.”
I do, or I try to, even though it’s blurry, and my throat feels like it’s trying to close for business. His face comes into focus slowly. Red eyes. Wet lashes. Determined as hell. Breathtaking in a way that’s starting to make my heart misbehave again.
And then I realize how close we are.
His lips are practically right there. If I leaned in even a little, I’d hit skin. If he angled himself up a bit, we’d be…
“You didn’t deserve any of that, Stan. The drugs. The brainwashing. The blame.”
I shake my head. “I should’ve been smarter.”
“No.” His thumbs swipe at my tears, and my whole body gets hot from the touch. “You should’ve been protected by your parents.”
A laugh slips outta me, broken and wet. “You’re really messing me up here, y’know.”
Nil’s mouth twitches. “You’re messing me up too.”
“Oh, yeah?” My voice cracks embarrassingly, but whatever, I’m already hideous sobbing. “How messed up are we talking here? Likerun away from memessed up, orstay anywaymessed up?”
Nil’s eyes dip to my mouth. “What do you think, Stan?”
His hand moves to hold the side of my neck, sending sparks down my spine. I know he can feel my pulse. I know it’s going insane. “Ocean Eyes,” I whisper. “If you keep touching me like that, I’m gonna do something stupid.”
“Like what?” he asks, his hooded eyes pointed at me.
I have no idea how I’m still alive. “Like kiss you,” I breathe out.
He leans closer. His mouth almost touches mine. “Stan,” he whispers, “that doesn’t sound stupid.”
My hands slide up to his wrists, holding onto him like the lifeline he really is to me. When I needed someone, he was there. When we first met in September after I broke my own heart. When we spent days away from the world for a while. When I invited him back to the bunker in October. Even when he was in a hospital bed for all those months after.
I clench my eyes closed. Pretty sure my shirt’s damp from tears.
But when I hear Nil whisper for me to look at him again, I blink my eyes open.
The gym disappears. The mirrors disappear. Everything disappears except him and his mouth hovering so close to mine I can feelthe shape of his lips.
His hand slides a little higher on my neck. I swear he can feel every bit of panic hammering under my skin, because his thumb caresses me so slow, it’s almost torture.
