Page 138 of These Tears

I lower my gaze at the black ink against the pale pages. ‘Most people like to pretend a lot. Some of us try to believe in it, too.’

He nuzzles deeper into my hair. His soapy scent seeps into my lungs, tangling my thoughts. I let him. One breath, then another, while my fingers slowly blanch around the edges of the pages.

I hate how long I let him. But his arm is still locked around me, its weight etching itself into my muscle memory.

‘Nietzsche had something to say about people who pretend their darkness isn’t there,’ he purrs, the words spilling over my shoulder as he inches towards it. ‘Do you like him?’

‘Not particularly,’ I respond – a little too breathily – though I know only what everyone else knows: that the man stared too long into the abyss and had bad enough manners to make it everyone else’s problem.

‘He said, “One must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star.”’ He pauses. Holds his breath. ‘It’s not all flowers and butterflies with you, Leah.’ And just like that, the confession is no longer his. I feel his lips spreading against my skin as if he has found the door he was looking for. ‘I’ve seen one of your demons. And where there is one, there are more.’

The opening is narrow, but I take it before he can make it fully about me again.

‘Who was she?’

He releases my hair as his gaze hooks on the paperback. The glacial blue of his eyes then finds mine as he grants me reprieve by leaning back against the foot of the couch, both arms spreading along its length. The strain is gone from his face. What remains is a faint curve at one corner of his mouth as though he has just witnessed something falling exactly where he expected it to.

‘Read on,’ he commands.

That is it. I’m not getting more out of him.

Irritation clears my head beautifully.

‘There’s some jewellery in the drawer,’ I start with a slight tilt of my chin. ‘Was it hers?’

‘It was my mother’s. What were you looking for in the drawer?’

‘A hairpin,’ I lie.

His smile spreads slowly, but without warmth. It’s as beautiful as it is wrong – gentle even – but by now I know it’s designed to keep everything living on the other side of it.

His eyes are fixed on mine, stripping the lie down to its bones before I can even breathe around it.

‘Did you find the hairpin?’

I clench my teeth together, grasping at straws. ‘No. Though I still figured a proficient kidnapper like you might have done this before and kept a trophy or two.’

Laughter erupts from him so abruptly it makes my spine snap straight.

His head falls back against the couch, throat exposed, the sound rolling out of him too deep to be just amusement.

But when his chin lowers again, his eyes do not follow the smile.

‘I’ve only ever had one woman,’ he says, voice still roughened. The smile thins, then breaks at the edges. ‘Or… for lack of a better word… she had me.’

The hush takes over at once. It is not unlike the one at funerals.

His gaze flicks down to the book in my lap. Whatever was left of the false delight fades.

‘Continue reading.’

Hurriedly, I switch my attention back to the page, as though it were a shield against his scrutiny.

My brows crease at the next line, too explicit to make it to my mouth.

I don’t know if he truly expects me to keep reading or if this is another test he’s conducting.

My mouth opens, closes, searching for a way to—