He won’t tell me what he’s after. He’s crazy.
It’s dangerous to be near him.
Iknowthat.
But I also know that he’s the only person I have ever met who has looked me in the eye and saidyour brain is hurting you, and I’d like that to stopinstead ofyour brain is bothering me, stop it.
I grip his shirt. “I don’t…trust you.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“Right. You’re only asking for permission to torture me.”
Innocent as a maiden, he murmurs, “Would you let me if I sayplease?”
If I’m actually being given the choice, I should say a resoundingno. All things considered, I’ve spent the past few years already feeling like I’m being tortured. With him handing me the choice now, maybe sayingnowill end it all.
Maybe sayingnowill bring me closer to the peace I swear I want.
Unfortunately, he just might be right about us and how alike we are, because I don’t seem to be that sane.
I say, “Will you let me torture you, too?”
The crazed glint in his eyereallyshould stop me while I’m ahead, but it doesn’t. I know I’m playing with fire. It’s obvious. But even though I can feel the burn closing in at my fingers, I don’t drop the match.
He whispers, “Could I even hope to be that lucky?”
“Is that ayes?”
“That, my love, is aplease.”
Chapter Nineteen
?
If only I could actually keep her forever…
Malcolm
To be so clear, this isn’t torture—no matter how Azalea’s reacting to it. It’s closer to cognitive behavioral therapy, but I’m no therapist, so what do I know?
“If you die, we can die together, and won’t that be fun?”
Snuggled up in the white sheet I laid carefully over her chair in my private movie theater, Azalea folds her arms and protests. “It fell on the floor.Yourfloor. I don’t care what you say. I’m not going to eat anything in it now.”
Still painted in crimson, she is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. Even if she’s refusing to eat one of the individually-wrapped-and-secured-in-a-tupperware cookies she made simply because the bag holding them fell on my floor during our—ahem—altercationearlier.
“It’s not safe anymore,” she says.
I haven’t opened the tupperware yet, by the way. I’ve taken it out of the bag with my gloved hands, but that’s as close to compromising the food as I’ve gotten. It’s safe to say that these are the cleanest cookies in the world. “Dove…” I croon.
She focuses on the dormant projector screen before us, gleaming white and awaiting a directive. I figured getting her situated with the food she brought before we dimmed the lights would be the best idea. Given the struggle she’s putting up now, maybe I was wrong. Maybe I needed to distract her first thenweasel a cookie into her hand before her brain could decide something else was going to kill her. “It’s fine,” she says. “I don’t need snacks to enjoy a movie. You can eat them by yourself and die alone.”
The half-constricted way she says as much suggests that she no longer wishes me dead, which is the most progress we’ve had yet, so I smile.
“Ah, I see.” I pop the lid and remove one wrapped snickerdoodle. “You poisoned them special for me.”
“I should have,” she mutters. “What are we watching?”
