Page 68 of Yearning Difficulties

It was like swallowing glass but I said it.

He ran one hand through my hair, his eyes dancing over my face as if he were memorizing it. ‘Zella. Please.’

‘I’m sorry for how things have been,’ I pushed on. ‘The arguments. I’m sorry. It just scared me, is all. Hearing you sound so cynical at the housewarming party. I don’t want to see you cynical, Kill. I know you’ve convinced yourself that you’re the less lovable twin and that there’s something wrong with you but there isn’t! You’re amazing. You deserve it all. And you’re going to be so happy. I know it.’

He shook his head slightly and spoke with a voice that was barely a whisper. ‘You don’t know anything.’

‘I know you. And I know that you hide behind this mask of sarcasm and snark but you’re actually just like me. You want a twin flame. And I want to be there for you, now you’ve found her. I don’t care if that’s dramatic or cringe or whatever. I’m here for whatever you need.’

He laughed gravely and pressed his forehead to mine. ‘I don’t need anything right now.’

He brushed my lower lip with his thumb and I had the sudden urge to press my cheek to the barely there stubble on his jaw. I knew this wasn’t what friends did with each other. But I’d never felt this way for anyone. Maybe it was the storm or the gratitude I felt after almost being trampled by Cyrano.

But whatever it was, I was swept up in it.

‘Zella,’ he whispered.

‘Yes?’

‘If that horse had hurt you, I don’t know what I would have done. I might’ve burned the whole arena down.’

‘He’s a sweet animal,’ I chided softly. ‘Cyrano. He didn’t mean any of it; he just got so scared.’

‘Cyrano?’ Killian laughed. ‘Of course. I’m writing about that play for Hamilton’s class.’

‘Rostand?’

‘Yeah. I like the yearning in it.’

‘Yearning?’

‘Yeah. You know. Intense longing. Desperate hope. I like knowing other people do it too.’

I thought of the Post-it note and I felt acid in my throat. ‘Do what?’

‘Tie themselves up in knots over someone. You know I once told Dr Casey about Mystery Girl? She said it was probably limerence. That I was just inventing a person who didn’t exist and fixating on her. Because of my . . . well.’ He sighed wearily. ‘Yearning difficulties, I guess you could say.’

I could see how much that hurt him. How the dismissal had created enough doubt in his head to shatter any dreamy illusions he might have had. ‘Dr Casey is the worst.’

‘But time’s gone on and I know she’s wrong. It’s real. It always will be. She’s my soulmate. I didn’t even believe in those before I met her. But that’s what she is. And I’ll love her until I’m dead. Maybe even after.’

‘People told my parents what they had wasn’t real,’ I said. ‘And that it wouldn’t last. They were wrong about them. Ma won over my dad by baking him key cookies.’

Killian brushed another strand of hair from my eyes. Fondness had entered his gaze as he listened to me. ‘Key cookies?’

‘She tried to bake cookies in the shape of a key so he’d know she was—’

‘Giving him the key to her heart?’

‘Yes,’ I laughed. ‘And she still makes them for him. For their anniversary. They still don’t look like keys but they taste great and he adores them. And her. Everyone was wrong about them. They proved them all wrong, but it was never this . . . this act of spite or revenge. They just knew. And so I will as well. When I find someone, someone who isn’t Dave or anything like Dave, I’ll make him key cookies.’

Killian listened to my words with a wry smile and I wished I could read the reason behind his slightly tortured eyes. ‘You see things so beautifully, Red. Even if there are some things that you can’t see at all.’

Suddenly his mouth crashed down against mine.

And I burned.

The sensation was instant, like a lit match. In that moment I felt the fire that I had always heard and read about. He made a sound of broken desire as I kissed him back and his hands slipped down my body, cupping the tops of my thighs and lifting me so my legs could slip around his waist and my arms could slide about his neck. Our bodies were wrapped around one another like two reeds in a river. The world and the water rushed about us but we were bound and nothing could change it.