I don't move.
Everything that's been building for weeks is pressing in on me from all sides, and underneath all of it the specific grief of a boy who ran home in the rain and never came back.
"Michael?" When she says it this time, it’s louder. It’s an accusation.
I set the bucket down.
I stand.
I turn around.
I cross to the sofa and sit because my legs have made a decision that standing is no longer viable, and I look at her — really look at her, for the first time without the armor, without Bennet Sullivan between us — and I let her see whatever is on my face because I don't have anything left to cover it with.
"Yeah, Blaire." My voice comes out very quiet. "Michael."
She sucks in a breath and looks at me like she's trying to find him underneath the rubble, locate his tombstone and grieve him in real time. The tears start falling and she doesn't move to wipe them.
"I don't know what to say." Her voice breaks on it. "I need to leave. I — god. I really am naïve. I fell for it. I actually fell for it." She lets out a sound that is almost a laugh. "Bravo, Bennet. Michael. Whoever you are. What was the plan? Fuck me and laugh? Make me fall for you and then rip the rug out? Collect the debt?"
My heart is in my throat. I stand and close the distance between us.
She takes a step back.
"Blaire. No. Please." The words come out before I can organize them. "That's not what this is. That's not what any of this has been." I stop where I am because she's asked me to, and she deserves that much. "I love you. I don't think I've ever stopped loving you, even when I hated you. Even when hate was the only thing keeping me upright."
Her mouth falls open slightly.
"You don't have to say anything. Just don't leave." My voice drops. "I don't think I could take it. Not tonight. Not after all of this. Not knowing you walked out believing that's what I am." I push my hand through my hair. "All I've wanted is to kiss you.To make you mine. I've wanted that since I first laid eyes on you, since our first kiss, since every single day I sat across a library table from you and pretended I wasn't already gone." I look at her across the distance she put between us. "I know I didn't go about this right. I wanted to tell you so many times, Blaire. I just — I didn't know how. Please. Please stay. Talk to me. Give me a chance to explain."
She starts shaking her head, moving toward the door, and something primal moves through my chest.
"Blaire, please!" My voice cracks completely. "Please don't rip my fucking heart out again!"
She's silent. Just stares at me. Her indecision weighs heavily on my shoulders, and for a moment — one suspended, breathless moment — I think she might stay.
Then she takes a step. Then another. Then another, trailing away from me one step at a time until my apartment door clicks shut behind her.
Fu-uck.
I suck in a sharp breath through lungs that feel webbed, heavy, impossible to fill. My throat is so tight I can barely breathe. I can feel everything I've been holding back for ten years — for weeks — bubbling up through the cracks, and I pull on my hair because I don't know what else to do with my hands.
Do I chase her down the hall? Get on my knees in the corridor and beg?
I just want to leave. Yet another home ruined by Blaire's existence in it. I'll never see this floor, this couch, this apartment the same way again. I don't want to feel like this again — I survived it once at eighteen and I am not sure I have another round of it in me.
My apartment door creaks open. I quickly sit up as my eyes flit to the door. It opens a little more. Then Blaire walks back through it slowly, lets it shut behind her, and crosses the room to where I'm sitting.
I don’t move. I don’t even fuckingbreathe. Like she’s a wild animal that I don’t want to spook.
She stops in front of me. "Blaire, I—"
Not saying a word, she straddles my lap on the couch, lifts my chin with one finger, and puts her mouth on mine.
Fuck.
All it takes is one touch and I break completely. I don't know what her intentions are, and I don't care because she's kissing me. Blaire is kissing me, soft and in control and yearning, and it feels like dying and coming back at the same time. She parts her lips and dips her tongue into my mouth and sifts her fingers through my hair and I snap.
My hands slide around her — one at her waist, one at the nape of her neck — and I kiss her back with everything I have. Ten years of it. Every version of wanting her that I buried and denied and dressed up as hatred. I let her melt into my touch, let her take control, and when she tugs on my hair, I make a sound against her mouth that I've never made before in my life.
