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“Itmeansbullshit, Hart,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle for how angry he clearly was.
Oh.
I should have taken that as an opportunity to let it fucking go, but I couldn’t. “It’s not bullshit. And I don’t want to be a pity-fuck.”
He growled, and the sound raised the hair on the back of my neck. “If that’s what you think—”
“You don’t know what the fuck I think,” I argued, fully aware that I wasn’t really making sense and not particularly caring. “You don’t know the least thing about me.”
“Idoknow you, Hart.”
“Youdon’t,” I hissed. “You know what you want to be true.”
I was a callous bastard, and I knew it. I didn’t mind the fact that most people didn’t like me, but I wasn’t a big fan of putting in the effort of getting involved with someone only to be a continual disappointment. I might not normally get all mushy about other people, but if I was going to commit to a relationship—friendship or romantic or whatever—I didn’t want to be the cause of all of its problems because I wasn’t what the other half thought I was.
Pity-sex or payment-sex or any kind of sex that wasn’t I-care-about-you-sex wasn’t something I was interested in. Not because I wasn’t interested in sex, but because… I really didn’t want to spend too much time on why that was, exactly, because down that road lay a lot of sleepless nights and feeling like complete shit, and I get enough of that in my life without it being tied to feelings of inadequacy and heartbreak.
If this was going to go any further… I didn’t really do halfway. It was all the way or not at all. And I couldn’t do a relationship that wasn’t everything—all the shit that came along with the pretty package.
I didn’t think my heart could take it when Taavi inevitably dumped me. Because it was inevitable. And if his anger was any indication of his opinion of me, that would have been sooner rather than later.
“What I know, Hart, is that despite the stone cold exterior you show to the world, you sometimes sit in your car and just stare into space because all the pain and violence you see every day is slowly crushing you. That you whimper in your sleep because of something horrific you saw or experienced. That you’ll open your home to a complete stranger and feed and house them even though you don’t know the last thing about them. That when it comes down to it, you will never, ever let someone suffer alone, but you seem bound and determined to make sure thatyoudo for some reason I donotunderstand. Because I’m right fucking here.”
I gaped at him, my mind completely blank.
“Yeah,” he continued, “you’re a bastard. This conversation is evidence enough of that. And you’re a callous jerk who’s so wrapped up in his own pretty little head that he can’t see what’s in front of him.” That stung, although it was probably true. “And, on top of that, you’re also caring and generous and terrified out of your mind that someone will find out you aren’t half thependejoyou pretend to be.”
I had no idea what to say to that.
“It isn’t that I don’t know you, Valentine Hart,” he growled, and I could hear the canid part of him edging the sound, low, angry, and threatening. “It’s that you don’t knowme, and you’re too scared to try.”
And then he was gone, and the sound of the door slamming echoed through the empty hallway like a punch to the solar plexus.
Fuck.
5
I got home around ten,then immediately collapsed on my bed and called Elliot.
He answered on the second ring. “If you’re calling me the night of your date, something went horribly wrong,” he observed, right as usual. “Did you do it, or did he?”
“He said my eyes were beautiful in the moonlight,” I told him, knowing, even as I said it, how fucking stupid that sounded. But Elliot knows me and he knows my shit. I knew he’d get it.
Or, apparently, he’d rip me a new one.
“God-for-fucking-bid the man say something romantic. What a horrible piece of trash.” He paused a beat. “The fuck is wrong with you, Val?”
Not exactly what I’d been hoping for. It was a lot more harsh and a lot less sympathetic and commiserating. “What’s wrong with me?” I mean. There’s a lot wrong with me, but Elliot was supposed to be on my side, here.
“You seriously cut a date short because of a compliment? You’re an elf, Val. You expect people to just ignore that? The fuck kind of message does that send, you think?”
I really hadn’t expected Elliot to get angry at me. Some good-natured ribbing, sure. But I could tell Elliot was actually mad. I guess I was just pissing off shifters left and right tonight.
“What do you mean?” I asked him, a little sullen.
“You don’t want people to see you as an elf, so does that mean you don’t want to see us as shifters? Well, we fucking are. And you fucking are. This self-hating thing is getting old, Val. It’s been a decade. Get used to the fact that your poor, woe-is-me-I’m-so-pretty ass is drop-dead gorgeous and stop crying about it.”
Ouch.
