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“Yes. I don’t want special treatment.”
“You don’t want special treatment.”
Something about the way he says it makes me blush and shift in my seat. “No, I don’t.”
His gaze is unwavering as he goes, “And that’s why you want to stay here for another four weeks.”
“Yes.”
No.
Well, kinda.
Okay, so I said that I wouldn’t lie to him and I’m not. Not totally.
I’m just not divulging the entire reason.
And the entire reason is that I’m not done.
With him.
Not yet.
And it’s crazy. I get that.
It’s absolutely fucking crazy when all I’ve wanted for the past four years is to be done with him. All I’ve wanted ever since he appeared in my life out of nowhere is for him to disappear. To let me go, let me free.
But then, I didn’t know him four years ago.
In fact, I didn’t know anything about him up until a month or even a day ago.
Yes, things had started to change between us ever since summer school started but up until last night, I didn’t know him.
Not really.
I didn’t know what he’d lived through, all the things that he’d endured and survived. I didn’t know that his story was similar to mine. No, I didn’t go through the sheer pain and the torture that he had. But there is this one pain that I know very well.
And it’s the pain of being unloved.
Of being hated at the hands of the very people who were supposed to love us.
In that sense, we’re the same, him and me.
So I’m not going anywhere.
I can’t.
How can I when I’ve just found someone exactly like me? When I’ve found someone whose heart, whose very soul matches mine. When there’s so much still to discover. When there’s so much that I want to know about him.
I’m not going to tell him that though.
I don’t want to freak him out.
I mean, it’s freaking me out.
That the man I’ve hated for so long, my devil guardian, my tyrant principal, is actually my soulmate.
Soulmate.
Alaric Rule Marshall is my fucking soulmate.
It’s insane.
Not to mention, we’ve just, and only barely, gotten on civil terms. We’ve just cleared out the air between us, shed all our lies and all the things we’ve done in the past. So this partial reason will have to do.
And on that note — the one where we just cleared the air between us — I have something for him.
“So,” I begin, squirming in my seat. “I brought you something.”
He was already watching me with suspicion but at my unexpected words, his suspicion climbs. His eyes narrow even further and he goes, “You brought me something.”
I nod. “I know we’ve had our difficulties in the past and —”
“That’s one way to put it.”
But I forge on. “And what you told me last night, what you did and why you did it, I…” I shift on my seat again, my heart racing, “I don’t condone it. I want you to know that. I don’t think it was right. You never should’ve done it. Lying to me and making me pay for something that I never did. But I do understand why you did it. I do understand why you felt like you had to trap me and keep me under your control. And even though it wasn’t right or fair to me, I still forgive you for it.”
A flinch goes through his body.
A shudder that leaves tightness and granite in its wake.
His fists clench around the file he’s still holding and his features go sharp.
“I know you think that you pushed me into doing what I did yesterday and that may be so, but I still did it. I made that choice myself and… And I know that you’ve forgiven me for it, haven’t you?”
His only response is to clench his jaw but I do get the message.
I know he has.
That’s why he’s letting me go after everything. That’s why he sat down with the faculty and came up with all these plans. That’s why he’s meeting with the lawyers this week to give me back my freedom.
And that’s why I can’t leave.
Because I know that as soon as I do, he’ll disappear from my life. He’ll never contact me or see me or talk to me again. While I believe that he will help me through the transition like he said he would, he’ll make himself scarce after that. Something he’s an expert at. And while that would’ve been okay with me before — that’s exactly what I wanted even — I’m not okay with it now.
Hence I go on, “So I forgive you for all the things that you did as well.”
Then, the hardest part.
The part where I give him the thing I brought for him.
Looking away from him and bending down, I retrieve it from my bookbag. Clutching it in my trembling fingers, I look up to find him still studying me, still tight and rigid. “So as I said, I brought you something.”
