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When he’s satisfied with how he’s trapped me and how my lips have parted at his dominating hold, he says, “Are you trying to hurt me?”
“No,” I whisper.
“Is this your fucked-up way of giving me pain? Of teaching me a lesson for breaking your heart. For throwing away your love.”
“No, Reed. Listen —”
“Then what the fuck are you doing?” he snaps so loudly that I flinch.
He grips my neck so tightly that I go up on my tiptoes to give him more access. To give him more of me to squeeze and grope and grab.
“I’m trying to tell you that you don’t have to protect me anymore. That I’m not some innocent flower that you met in the woods two years ago. I’m not. I haven’t been that girl in a long time, Reed, okay? You don’t have to tell me to hold on to my dress or to keep my legs shut when you’re around.”
His thumb presses down on my pulse. “I don’t, huh? I don’t have to protect you. I can do whatever I want with you then?”
“Yes. That’s what I’m saying. And where do you get off trying to protect me anyway? You’re the guy who hurt me. You’re the reason I’m like this. All broken.” My hands creep up to his hair then and I grip his longish strands. I grip them and a breath puffs out of me because they feel the same as they did two years ago. Rich and soft and cozy, and tugging on them, I continue, “And I’m the reason you’re haunted. And I want this to end.”
“To end,” he says roughly.
“Yes. I want this to end, Reed. I don’t want to be broken anymore. I don’t want you to be haunted. We need to move on. We need to forget about each other. We need to forget that we ever met.” I look into his eyes that have turned even harsher now. “I need to forget that I ever met you. That I ever fell in love with you. I need to forget you, Reed. I want to. And I want this to be the last time.”
“Last time what?”
“That we see each other. I don’t want… I don’t want you to come here anymore. To pick me up or to drive me around. I’m safe, Reed. So I don’t want you to be my chauffeur anymore. Besides, the audition video is done. So I don’t need you anymore.”
It got done last week. So this is it.
This has to be.
“You don’t need me anymore,” he repeats.
“No.” I shake my head, feeling all achy and sad. “So promise me.”
“Promise you.”
I nod, my neck in his grip, my head feeling heavy. “Promise me this is the last time. And maybe one day…”
“One day what?”
“One day I can meet someone and I can fall in love with him. I want to fall for someone. A different guy. A good guy. A guy who doesn’t hurt me like you do.”
The muscle on his cheek tics and tics. “You want to fall for someone?”
My heart sinks.
It goes all the way, down and down, to the bottom of my stomach. I don’t even think that I can hear it anymore. I don’t even think I feel it.
As if my heart is hiding.
It’s running away from me at the thought of falling for someone else.
But my heart is stupid. It has always been.
“Yes,” I whisper.
He goes still then. At my response.
As still as my own chest. Like his heart ran away too at the thought of me falling for someone else.
But that’s not true, is it?
He doesn’t have a heart to begin with. His chest is a wasteland where no heart, no flower will ever grow and I was foolish to ever think otherwise.
I still am.
Because his stillness makes me want to cry.
Makes me want to take back my words and fall at his feet. It makes me want to tell him that I will never ever fall for anyone else.
I can’t.
Because two years ago, I loved him too much and sometimes I still feel that love.
I hate it.
I hate that I can feel it in my chest but I feel it nonetheless.
But then, that’s why I’ve done this, right?
To not feel it anymore. To end it once and for all.
“So say it,” Reed commands after a few seconds. “Say the words then.”
I’m not surprised that he already knows what I’m going to say. It’s the strangest thing that we can sense each other’s thoughts like that but I’m not going to dwell on it.
I’m going to say it.
“I-I think we should…”
His grip flexes around my throat, in my hair. “We should what?”
“You should f-fuck me.”
It took me what felt like forever to say it but it doesn’t take him more than a fraction of a second to repeat it. “I should fuck you.”
