Page 134 of These Tears

My hands twitch against the book in my lap before I force them still. My pulse kicks harder. My skin prickles. The same body that wants distance keeps betraying me, and I resent it for giving him anything at all.

I imagine knocking the plate away and watching the jam bleed into the white rug, but instead I make him wait a beat or two before I make a move.

And he waits. Perfectly still. Like an animal. Like a demon.

Abandoning the paperback, my hand reaches for the plate with unsteady fingers, choosing the smallest dumpling.

I bring it to his lips.

His eyes meet mine. His lashes lower. For that split second, the threat disappears beneath the beauty of him.

My tongue presses to the back of my teeth as I hold his stare and make myself look past the illusion. His brushes lightly against my fingertips as the piece disappears.

‘That day in the yard,’ he says between chews.

My shoulders pull back.

His jaw works through the bite, stretching the pause until anticipation does the devil’s work. The thumb returns to the base of my chin but does nothing this time.

‘Why did you kiss me?’

My hand drops to my lap too quickly, fingers closing around nothing.

The shriek of the prison gate suddenly resounds in my ears, then the flash of fluorescent lights that died as soon as I stepped out into the yard. My heart stumbles into the rhythm of that day – when I’d leaned over him and put my mouth on his.

Does he want to know or is he setting a snare?

‘I’m not sure,’ I whisper. The guard’s taunt had pushed me back towards him, but I still can’t explain to myself why the rest of the yard disappeared the instant our lips met. Why I could barely pull away.

His gaze hardens a fraction. ‘Try again.’

I look away from him, then at the plate, the book lying across my lap. Every possible answer feels dangerous. If I say I wanted it, I hand him something he can use against me. If I say I didn’t, I make myself a liar and brace for consequences. If I say it was for the sake of the guards, I can already feel him closing off.

‘I thought…’ I worry at my lip. ‘I thought you needed someone to see you as more than what everyone had already decided you were. At least for a moment.’

The change is slight and confined to his eyes. ‘So you didn’t do it because you wanted to.’

Unease pulls at my skin.

Wrong answer.

But I don’t feel that subtle withdrawal I expected. I don’t feel the shutters closing even though I may have just handed him proof of some ugly, private theory he’d already decided was true.

‘That’s not what I meant,’ I say too quickly, the words quivering on their way out.

His gaze shifts to my mouth, then lifts again.

Exhaling, he reaches for another dumpling and rolls it carefully through the jam.

‘I need to remind you that we are here together because you were careless.’ I don’t like how matter-of-fact his voice turns. ‘You made choices you had no right to make. Then you thought you could simply run from what those choices caused. You lied. You wanted me free so badly you decided your want was reason enough to interfere with things you didn’t understand.’

‘Tell me what happened,’ I cut in. ‘You don’t get to keep me ignorant and punish me for not understanding, Elias—’

He pushes the dumpling between my lips before the protest can finish spilling out.

I choke a little, startled more than hurt, one hand flying to his wrist as the sweetness bursts cold and thick over my tongue.

He waits until I swallow, my eyes watering despite my attempt at composure.