I force an inhale through my nose. Then another. “You don’t understand.” I straighten abruptly and take a step back. “The mask is the distance necessary to keep me from wanting too much, too fast. Without it, I’d ruin you. I’d ruin the goddess I worship. I’d tear your pretty wings beyond repair, crawl inside you and never come out.”
Her pupils dilate. Fear, yes, but also recognition. She’s written men like me, so many of them they can’t all be fiction. She must have always known we do exist outside of her mind, too.
“You mistake honesty for exposure. Honesty is structure. Exposure is just mess,” I finish.
“Like the butterfly that shouldn’t risk exposure to seek freedom?”
“Surrender is the ultimate form of freedom.”
“Cut the crap, Jacob. I can’t believe how fucking stupid I’ve been.”
“I’M NOT JACOB!” Why can’t she fucking see me for who I really am, not who she wants me to be? Is it the mask? Bullshit. She’s seen me countless times without it and still can’t recognize me. Yes, I’ve been hiding in her shadows, behind camouflage,but part of me always wanted, hoped, she’d see me, recognize me on her own.
“You’re right about one thing, though.” I circle her. Anticipation sharpens her fear. Fear sharpens her truth. “You are being so fucking stupid. I mean, how could you think Blake would be your dark protector and kill for you to earn your love? Why would you think a piece of shit like Torrance would expose himself and then bring you here, when you were so irritatingly, willingly, going to spread your legs for him aftertaking you out dancing?” I mock at the end, but the distorter doesn’t convey it.
“I don’t know, because you’re a sick fuck with a piquerism paraphilia? You and Blake were buddies, partners. You played the Butterfly Man game together, and then you left me that photo to rub it in my face because you get off on that shit.”
“That’s just a story you like, Birdie, not the truth.”
“Everything is a story, including the truth, and the truth is no one knew about the dancing part except Jacob and me. How did you know that if you weren’t him?” she says again. Persistent. Brave. Stupid.
Except Birdie has never been stupid. She’s the most brilliant mind I’ve ever met. Is she playing dumb on purpose to provoke me into revealing myself too soon? Or is there a hidden play in motion even I can’t see? “Really, Birdie?”
“Yes, really, Jacob.”
I stop behind her head. The bulb casts my shadow over her face and breaks it into fragments. A hundred versions of me layered over her skin. “You already know the answer to that question.”
“I don’t. My phone wasn’t bugged. Neither was the house. Tristan made sure of it.”
“But he didn’t check the detective’s.”
Quiet takes over her for a few moments. “You want to convince me that you were tracking Jacob’s phone, saw his messages?”
“I don’t need to convince you. You know I would. When you hired that so-called bodyguard and took away my windows of heaven, I had to find another way to watch over you.”
“You mean to stalk me.”
“To protect you. Remember the lawyer? How else would I’ve gotten the incriminating book from her or found out your husband’s plan to blackmail you? Your assistant? The fucking detective? Through them, I saw you, darling.”
“But not Tristan. The only one who was truly protecting me.”
“Don’t speak that name or any other man’s here.”
“You hate him. Because I chose him. Because I fucked him.”
My hand tightens on the edge of the table. The wood complains softly.Don’t fall for it. She wants anger because anger is movement, progress. She wants you unbalanced.
“I should have never left him. You’re not half the man he is. You’re—”
My fingers claw around her throat and squeeze. Her eyes protrude in terror. I lean down until my voice is inside her ear, distorted and intimate all at once. “He touched what he didn’t understand, what wasn’t his to touch, and you let him.”
She doesn’t thrash or dissolve. Her pulse jumps hard against my palm, but her eyes—
Her eyes flare with challenge as she looks at me. Not up at me. Through me.
“You…let…me.” The words slur out of her, broken around my fingers, but they land clean. Precise. A blade slid between ribs I didn’t know were exposed.
It rattles something old and ugly in my chest. My grip tightens instinctively to punish the audacity. The accusation wrapped in truth.
