“Is that how it is for you? You choose your emotions? What you feel for other people?”
He sighs and rolls over, removing his hand from my face.
“I don’t think I’ve felt anything in a very long time.”
His answer chills me to my core. “But you sound so sad.”
“Is that what this hollow sensation is?” he asks. “It’s quite unpleasant. I keep trying to fill it with wine and laughter and bread, but nothing sates it.”
“Maybe,” I answer honestly.
“What does it feel like?” he asks after a moment.
“What does what feel like?”
An autumn breeze ruffles the trees outside my window. A log in the fireplace pops.
“Love,” Bram says.
“You know that feeling, when you come home after a coldwinter’s day. When you’re cold down to your bones, and your teeth are chattering and your shoes are wet, but you walk in, and there’s a fire roaring. The heat begins to seep into your fingers, and right before they’re truly warm again, there’s that tingling sensation?”
He hums in understanding. “Love is the tingle?”
I sigh, frustrated by the lack of words I have in my brain to make him understand. Lydia would know how; she’s always been the artist of the two of us.
“Love is the knowing, no matter hard everything else is, you’ve got a soft, warm place to land.”
“Then why don’t you fall in love with your landlords?” Bram asks.
I sputter. “Not a literal soft place to land. An emotional one.” I bite my lip. “Let me try once more. You’ve said how fleeting human lives are. Well, we feel that, too. We know that our time is limited. When you love someone, you choose to be with them, witness them, even though you know your time together is finite. One person will always be left behind. But you do it anyway, despite the pain you know is coming. By loving, we offer ourselves up to the pain willingly.”
Faeries must feel some version of the same thing we do—joy, love, pain, heartbreak, anger, longing. The feelings are universal except maybe loss. I don’t think Bram knows what it is to lose something. I pity him for it. Can you truly feel something without knowing you’ll one day mourn its loss?
“A sacrifice,” Bram says.
“Yes.” I close my eyes and picture Emmett. We’re in the garden and the sun is shining in golden rays from behind him, illuminating his broad shoulders and all the planes of his face. His eyes soften when they look at me, and when he reaches out to touch my waist, it’s as if my whole body sighs against him.
“Love sometimes feels like a frenzy, like you’ll die if you don’t get to touch them or be with them soon, but with the right person, I think it’s different. It’s so simple you can’t imagine doing anything else.”
The mattress groans as Bram turns on his side to face me. The shadows of tree branches dance over his face in the moonlight.
His eyes narrow in accusation. “And you feel that way about me?”
Love is nice, but your hate tastes so much better.
He must know I don’t, which means this is a test that I’m failing. Alarm bells ring in my head.He shouldn’t be here. Why is he here?
My throat tightens.
“May I ask you something?” If my clock has run out, there’s one question that has gnawed at me since the caves. I need to ask it now, before I no longer have the chance.
“You don’t need to ask permission. I am not a scolding tutor.”
We’re lying on top of the quilt, nearly nose to nose, but not touching. I take the opportunity to stare into the depths of his gray eyes, looking forsomething—but find nothing there. No depth, no emotion. It’s like looking at the surface of a frozen pond.
“Why did you have my baby necklace? The one with the pearlI?”
He doesn’t look surprised, but he presses his lips together like he doesn’t quite know how to answer. It gives me a sick thrill of satisfaction to have thrown Bram off his guard.
