Silence.
I broke it with a question. “Tell me the truth. Do you want me to leave?”
“Ellie—”
“Answer me,” I insisted, eyes boring into his.
He hesitated.
“If you tell me to leave, I’ll leave,” I said, my gaze unwavering.
“I don’t doubt that,” he replied. “And that’s the problem. You’re ready to do what I want. But I want you to do whatyouwant.”
That was the most selfless thing he’d ever said to me, especially because he was always so possessive and obsessive.
“Well, it’s too late for that,” I blurted out, letting all those bottled-up emotions flow. “I’ve gotten used to your possessive nature—I’ve gotten used to being yours. Not because I’m losing myself but because I’ve realized that I can’t….” My voice trailed off.
“You can’t what?” He looked into my glassy eyes.
“Never mind.” I shook my head and turned around to leave.
“Ellie.” He grabbed my hand from behind.
“Let go of me!” I squirmed out of his hold, my heart swelling with a mix of different emotions. “I wanna hate you, Karik. I swear to God, that’s all I wanna do.”
He listened in silence.
“But I can’t. Even after the emotional rollercoaster you put me through. How can you be the one who’s hurt me the mostin this world and still be the one person I can’t hate?” The words flew out of my mouth. Raw. Unrestrained.
“Ellie—”
“I’m not done yet,” I cut him off, my voice rising higher than I intended.
We were alone in the hallway anyway, so there were no strangers listening.
“You’re always in my space, always in my head, and whether I want to or not, I think about you all the time,” I added, fuming. “That’s how attached to you I’ve become, and now you just wanna send me away?”
He drew closer.
“Maybe I’ll just leave. Maybe I’ll force myself back into my old life and pretend you never existed—”
I was still talking when he reached out and pulled me to himself, hands steady on my waist.
He sealed my lips with a kiss so passionate it melted my heart. In an instant, all that anger slowly dissipated into thin air, replaced by something else. Something dark and familiar.
“I don’t want you to go,” he whispered, his breath warm against my skin.
“Then don’t let me,” I answered with the same tone. “Tell me to stay, and I will.”
He looked at me. “Stay.”
That word thawed something inside me, and I curled my lips into a mischievous grin. “Beg me.”
He chuckled. Not the halfhearted kind. The genuine kind. “You can’t be serious.”
“You made me beg for sex the other night,” I said, my smile widening. “Now, it’s my turn. Beg me.”
After a moment of hesitation, he said, “Ellie, please stay with me because you’re the light in my darkness and the other half that makes me whole.”
