‘You,’ I breathe, and for some reason it feels like I’m confessing my deepest of sins. Because for me to want someone who purposely hurt me – what does that make me? Stupid? Spineless? Both?
‘You have me,’ he swears. ‘Stars, Arianell, you have no idea how much you have me. How tight a grasp you have on my sanity. From the moment I saw you standing in your kitchen with that haunted look in your eyes, and that piece of shit for a father you have looming at your back – you had me.’
He holds my face so tenderly, I could cry.
‘You might hate me for the way I acted, but trust me, I hate myself more. For putting that same look in your eyes. I just – fuck, I thought I had to.’
I nod, because I get it. I understand it more than I’d like to admit. I want to stay angry with him, because my pride demands it. But my heart, Stars, it aches to open and pull him into its warmth, to tuck him somewhere safe and call him mine. Things aren’t right here at Valmora Academy; I can see that with my own eyes and feel the crookedness of it in my bones. If it were me standing at the archway on ceremony day and I saw somebody I care about waiting in the stands? I don’t know that I wouldn’t do the same thing. Just to rid them of this place.
‘I don’t hate you,’ I whisper. ‘But I don’t know how to trust you either.’
‘I understand that,’ he replies, caressing his thumbs up and down my cheeks in a soothing rhythm. ‘I know trust doesn’t happen overnight. But when I watched you climb back over that cliff, and I realised how close you were to falling over it … I’ve never felt fear like that. Not ever. So all I’m asking is that you give me a chance to earn your trust.’
Sebastian brings his forehead down to gently rest against mine.
‘Please.’
Our breaths become one, our chests rise and fall with each other, and I can’t take it any longer. My hands reach up to run through his thick strands of hair. His nose nudges mine; the subtle groan he lets out indicates that he enjoys his hair being touched.
‘Stay here with me,’ I say against his lips. ‘Sleep beside me,’ I ask, hoping he’ll agree. Hoping I’m not opening myself up to be rejected once more. Because I don’t think I can handle that again.
He’s already nodding, his head moving against mine. ‘Of course,’ he agrees, then seals his promise by pressing a kiss to my lips. One that’s soft and tender. It’s not rushed and feverish like the other times. Those were fuelled by heightened emotions, a burst of desire, fear and adrenaline. This is what I imagine affection feels like. It breaks me and puts me back together all at once. Our lips move in time with one another and my fingers dive into his hair once more, while his hands stroke down my body and slide beneath my back. He holds me against him until he falls on his side, pulling me with him. He gives me one final kiss, before pulling away a few inches to gaze at me from the other side of my pillow.
We stare at each other for a long time, until I finally break the silence. ‘Did you know my brother wanted to be headmaster?’
‘No?’ he says, sounding surprised. ‘I had no idea. Are you sure?’
‘Mmhmm.’ I nod. ‘Jed told me earlier. He never said anything to you about that?’
‘Nothing. Though it explains all the books under his bed when they removed his stuff from this room.’ His words are contemplative, like a passing comment in a conversation, but to me, they’re more. Another piece of information that I didn’t possess before.
‘Why won’t you talk about him?’ I almost expect him to shut this conversation down. But he said he wants to earn my trust, to prove he’s on my side. If he meant that, then I need him to tell me the truth.
He’s silent for a long while, so long that my heart starts to thud in my ears so loud that I fear if he were to talk, I might not hear him.
But after a moment, he loses a deep sigh and rolls to his back. His eyes stare up at the ceiling, as if he’s contemplating his next words heavily.
‘When I lost my parents,’ he starts, and my chest gives a tight squeeze. ‘It broke a piece of me that still, to this day, has never recovered. It changed the way I saw the world; I realised that life could snatch away something you hold dear, so fast that you barely have time to blink before it’s gone.
‘It took me a long time to care that much about someone, about anything. And then your brother barrelled into my life and refused to leave. He forced me to care for him, even when I was a grumpy asshole who kept pushing him away. He forced me to come with him on leave and visit his family home, pulling me further into his life. He didn’t take no for an answer, and suddenly Jed and Lillian were there too.’ He swallows through the emotion in his voice. There are tears in my eyes. I blink, and they fall to my pillow.
‘Lukas – he gave me a family again. After I’d been alone for so long, and then just like my parents, he was ripped away one night. And I feel his missing presence like a hole in my chest.’ Sebastian’s voice finally cracks.
Down by our sides I feel for his hand and slide mine into it. He grips it tightly, as if I’m an anchor keeping him from washing away on the tide.
‘That’s why I never talk about him. Why I hate saying his name and, probably, another reason I pushed you away.’
His head turns in my direction. ‘I never wanted to hurt you, Ria. I just couldn’t let you close. I couldn’t watch you die here as well.’
‘You won’t have to,’ I say through a sniffle. Understanding now more than ever why he acted so cruel. He was not only trying to protect me,but he was also trying to protect himself. And as someone who has been hurt before, I know what it’s like to construct high walls in the hopes that no one can scale them.
‘Thank you.’ I squeeze his hand, loving the weight of his fingers threaded through mine. Rough and calloused, solid and warm. ‘And I’m sorry you had to feel such pain as a child.’
Sebastian releases my hand, but only so he can roll onto his side and pull me close against his front. His thick arms swallow me, one hand combing into the back of my hair at the base of my neck, the other splaying at the small of my back.
‘Go to sleep, Ria,’ he murmurs against my hair. ‘It’s been a long bloody day.’
FORTY-SIX
