Page 60 of Yearning Difficulties

I didn’t listen to the rest of his appeasement attempt because blood was thundering in my ears.

I was finished with pretending, and done with being people’s good academic girl.

‘I don’t want to be with someone who likes public displays of verbal swordplay.’

As I said it I realized it was true.

I saw when it hit home for him: his eyes hardened.

‘Would you prefer I be more like my brother?’ he asked aloofly. ‘Everyone else does.’

‘Right now? Yes.’

I saw real pain pass through his eyes before he smothered it. ‘Hm. I’ll tell him.’

‘Oh, shut up. Why do you do this?’

‘Do what?’

‘Always act like you’re this weird unwanted version of your twin.’

He let out a humourless laugh. ‘Because it’s true.’

‘You have the most brilliant mind, Kill,’ I said, my voice wobbling just a touch. ‘But you don’t use it well. You’re mean. Like right now. You’re being mean. You’re mad. You say you’re not, but I know you. I know you, Killian. You’re mad. And I don’t know why. Maybe I fucked up somehow, somewhere along the way. But I don’t like you like this.’

He shook his head slightly, his jaw tight and his eyes a little wild. ‘Sorry I’m not allowed a bad day. I’m sorry I can’t be poetic for you, Red.’

‘Chris knows how to be a friend and he speaks about other people with such care. Reverence. That’s all poetry is, Kill. Care. Noticing things.’

‘I know that little radio segment was special for you.’

‘It was, so stop making light of it. Stop it.’

Stop it.

Neither of us was really like this. The night had somehow become a cataclysmic collision. We weren’t being ourselves. He was always biting, but never truly venomous, and I was always private and never outgoing in public. We should have taken it somewhere more secluded, or just stopped altogether.

But I couldn’t. For once, I couldn’t do the right thing.

‘I’m sorry if being a hopeless romantic embarrasses you, Killian,’ I murmured. ‘But it doesn’t embarrass me. I want that in my life. I insist on it, actually. And so, in the end, yeah, I think we’re maybe too different.’

For a split second, he looked overcome. His eyes were wide and the mask of bitterness he’d been wearing slipped for a moment. ‘You could never embarrass me, Zella.’

I forced myself to swallow a sudden acidic burn of sadness. ‘This was embarrassing, Kill. It’s over. It should never have happened. I hope you find someone nice and cynical. Someone who likes to strip things down until they’re ugly and broken and meaningless.’

Judging by his reaction, his look of shame, my words were a gut-punch. I hoped they were. I meant them to be.

‘Zella,’ he said, his voice coarse and a little desperate. ‘I . . .’

‘It’s fine, Killian. It’s over. You don’t have to pretend to care any more. You don’t have to bite your tongue. You’re free to be as negative as you like. Alone.’

I wasn’t mad at him. Not truly.

I was mad at a world that made everything cheap and futile. Where people like me were labelled as ‘cringe’. And a world that seemed to think it was better to be nasty than to be cringe.

Better to be cruel than weird.

I stepped over the bench and stormed out of the feast. I could hear people calling after me but I was done. I was a wallflower, but not a bed of roses people could trample over. I shoved the makeshift wooden door of the arena open and strode across the town square.