CHAPTER TWELVE
Edie pushed the thought of staying wiht Tarmek away, filing it somewhere deep where it couldn't hurt her. Then she carefully began slowly extracting herself from Tarmek's grip. Or trying to.
His arm immediately tightened.
"Where are you going?"
So much for not waking him.
"Bathroom," she lied. "Go back to sleep."
"You're lying."
"Am not."
"Your eyebrows are doing the thing again."
She reached up to touch her forehead, annoyed. "I do not have a tell, and you need to stop pretending you can read my mind."
"I don't need to read your mind. Just your face." He propped himself up on one elbow, blinking sleep from his eyes. In thegrey morning light, the gold flecks in his dark irises caught the illumination. "You were going to leave."
"I need to check on my camper."
"It's been fine for days."
"It might not be fine now."
"Edie."
"Tarmek."
They stared at each other. Neither moved.
"I don't—" she started, then stopped. "This isn't something I do. The morning after. I usually?—"
"Leave."
"Yes."
He was quiet for a moment, considering. "Why?"
Such a simple question, and such a complicated answer.
"Because leaving is easier than being left," she said finally. "If I go first, it doesn't hurt. If I never get attached, I can't be disappointed when things end."
"Things don't always end."
"They have for me. Every single time." She sat up, suddenly needing distance, needing to not be lying in his bed looking at his sleep-soft face while having this conversation. "My mom gave me up when I was four. Too chaotic, she said. She couldn't handle my energy. Every foster family after that. Some were good, some were terrible, but they all ended. Schools, jobs,relationships—everything ends eventually. So I learned to leave before the ending, and take the pain on my own terms."
She hadn't meant to say all of that. She hadn't meant to crack herself open in his bedroom at whatever-o'clock in the morning. But the words had spilled out anyway, a flood she couldn't stop once it started.
He didn't respond immediately. He just watched her, the same focused attention he'd given her body last night now directed at her words. Reading her, and filing the information away for future reference.
"That sounds lonely," he said finally.
"It's safe."
"Those don't have to be the same thing."
