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“I wanted you to be free.” All those methods of distance fail. One by one. They tear like cheap paper. I was lying to both of us. “I don’t want you to be a prisoner here. I’ve always wanted you to be free. You’re like a hummingbird, little painter. I want you to go where your wings take you.”
“Emerson.”
The words won’t stop. They won’t leave it be. “I’m a weak, selfish bastard. I couldn’t give you what I wanted you to have.”
“You’re not weak.” Her laugh is kind, almost touching. “You pulled me out of the ocean. You swam us to a cave and kept us alive. You didn’t die and that cold was—that cold could have killed us. You’re stronger than I knew.”
My heart is going to burst. Any second now. “My father could never keep his hands off what wasn’t his. That’s why he ended up in prison. I’m exactly like him, little painter. That’s all there is to know. I’m my father’s son. I can’t let you go.”
She looks down, her hands on my chest. This is when she’ll walk away. She’ll go back to her bedroom, lock the door behind her, and never look at me again. My entire torso is filled with my heartbeat. It’s a crushing, bloody thing. As intense as any panic attack I’ve had, but I don’t get the sweet mercy of blacking out. Of forgetting.
“I don’t think you’re weak,” Daphne says, her voice the softest thing I’ve ever heard. “You came for me, even when it hurt you. All those other times hurt you, too.” Her eyes come back to mine and I am shocked, stunned, to find them devoid of pity. “Sin said it took you a long time to walk that far. It must have been awful in the beginning, but you did it anyway.”
For what?
For nothing.
“It didn’t go away though, did it?” Daphne poses the question like the answer is a foregone conclusion. “It just…compounded on itself. Like layers of paint.” Her mouth quirks upward, the smile disappearing again just as quickly. “It stayed painful. But you still came after me.”
I don’t know how she came by this wisdom.
Daphne digs her fingernails into the front of my shirt. “You don’t want to be like him. You want to be better than that.”
“No,” I admit. “I don’t want anything to do with him.”
“You can’t help who your father is. Just like I couldn’t help…” My little painter looks away, remembering something. A flicker of helplessness crosses her face. A flicker of fear. And then it’s gone. She puts those things away like she painted them out on some canvas in her mind.
It thrills me to recognize it in her. It shouldn’t, but it does. It’s like hearing a song I thought I’d forgotten.
“What is it, little painter?”
“I’m the weak one,” she breathes. “I couldn’t even swim to safety.”
“You went out during a snowstorm. It might have been foolish, but it wasn’t weak. You hated me, and you wanted to be free.”
“I wanted you.” Her admission sharpens so much it cuts her. Tears gather in the corners of her eyes. “Out there, in the water. That’s the thing, Emerson. I wanted you to be there. I asked Sin to get me out when you came upstairs, and I was glad when he refused. That’s—that’s—”
It’s my turn to take her face in my hands. Under the blanket, the air is superheated, humming between us like nothing I’ve ever felt. “Daphne.”
“I wanted to hate you.” Her voice trembles. “I wanted to be so angry at you for what you did. You’re still doing it. But I can’t hate you. I’ve tried and tried and I can’t make it happen. What does that say about me if I can’t hate you? That’s what scares me. I don’t know who I am if I want you this much. I don’t even think you’re going to hurt me.” A high, bitter laugh. “I just don’t think you can let go. And I think maybe I don’t want you to.”
“You’ll hate me someday.” It tastes as bitter as her laugh to say it.
“Maybe I won’t. Maybe I can’t let go of you, either.”
“I think you can, little painter. The world has always been at your feet.”
“No. The world has been just out of my reach. But it wasn’t because anyone hated me. It was because they loved me too much to let me touch it.”
“Ah. I’m nothing new, then.”
“No.” A tear slips onto her cheek. “I think you’re trying to give it to me, actually. Maybe you’re doing it wrong, but I think that’s what this is. It’s just that your world looks different than the one I thought I wanted.”
“You don’t like the beach?” I’m trying to keep it light because I don’t know how to live through it otherwise. I don’t know how to keep seeing her like this. Unfiltered by anything my mind can create. Exactly as she is. In my hands. Her body against mine. Daphne isn’t hiding anything.
“I don’t give a damn about the beach.”
“What is it you want, little painter?”
If the answer isn’t me, I’ll survive. I will fucking survive. But I want it so much that all my muscles tense. My heart races. Hope bursts across my mind in a slash of vivid color.
“I just.” Her voice shakes with truth. “Want to be near you right now.”
There’s so much more she’s not saying. So much more she doesn’t need to say. I allow her the space to breathe. Match myself to her. I have never wanted to be anyone’s canvas more. The rest of me doesn’t matter. Only this.
I push a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Clothes on or off?”
“Off,” she says in a rush of air and anguish. “I want you to take me to bed. What does that mean?” I’m already standing up. The blanket falls to the floor. It’s a serious question from Daphne, and her chest hitches. “What does that make me?”
“My little painter,” I tell her, and give her what she wants.
