And then I made it worse.
My head drops again, and for one awful second all I can hear is her voice in the car. The way she said Lacey’s name. The way she asked why I let her touch me. The way her anger cracked just enough around the edges for me to hear the hurt under it.
Why let me touch you?
Because you’re the first person who ever did it without trying to take.
Because some part of me has been answering to you ever since you held a moth between us like it was proof something gentle could survive being near me.
I didn’t say any of that.
Instead, I threw Kadin at her. Used him like a knife. Told her the truth in the filthiest way possible because if I was going to bleed, I wanted her to do it too.
I straighten slowly, staring at myself again.
This is what I keep doing. Every time something in me gets too close to being human, I reach for cruelty because cruelty feels more survivable than honesty.
The worst part is that she still looked at Medusa and understood enough to ask the right questions.
Lacey.
Christ.
Pressing my palms flat to the counter, I shut my eyes.
No, I didn’t want Lacey. Didn’t want her hands. Didn’t want anybody’s hands. I only wanted the room to think I did. Wanted Octavia to watch me disappear into some cheap, meaningless version of the boy she should expect me to be.
And then I saw her in the pool with Kadin.
Saw her wrapped around him, mouth on his, body open in a way that made something white-hot and irrational rip through me so fast I stepped into the water fully dressed without thinking. The memory of that is still enough to make my blood spike. Her wet shirt clinging to her. Her hair in her face. The way she looked at me when I put my hands on her and told her she didn’t belong to him.
Christ.
I did say that.
Out loud.
Like I had any claim to make.
My body and mind have been at war since the second I saw her again, and neither side is winning. My head keeps listing reasons to keep my distance. Her scar. Her house. Her history. Mine. The fact that anything between us was doomed before it ever had a chance to become real. The fact that I helped write one of the worst things on her face and then had the nerve to kiss the lower scars like I was healing something.
My body doesn’t care.
My body only remembers the taste of her skin, the way she trembled, the bruises I left at her hips and how close I came to forgetting every decent instinct I’ve ever tried to build.
I open my eyes again.
The mirror doesn’t look kinder.
Just more accurate.
I’m not afraid of the class. I’m not even afraid of campus.
I’m afraid of another enclosed space. Another charged silence. Another moment where she turns to me angry and flushed and I find myself reaching before thought can catch up. I’m afraid of what happens if she keeps answering me. I’m afraid of what happens if she doesn’t.
Picking up the schedule because I need something to hold, the paper crackles under my fingers.
An hour ago, I was still close enough to feel her breathing.
