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Dragging her into me, I shook her. “You want the truth? Fine, the truth is, I wish I didn’t have this need for you. I wish you didn’t have this need for me. I wish we could’ve stayed safe and apart because now that we’re together, nothing is safe, and I hate that I’m the one who caused it. I want to keep you protected, Neri. I want to love you until my dying fucking day but how am I supposed to do that when I’m the one putting you at risk of so much hurt, so much pain, so much grief?”
“You’re not going to die, Aslan. Stop thinking you’re being hunted by death just because it came for your family!”
My head rushed with images of my mother being struck by men. Of my sister screaming. Of my father on his knees begging for our lives. Of my uncle’s mutilated body—
It would be so much easier to tell her. To make her understand that yes, I was afraid of death, but for a very good fucking reason. Instead, I grazed my nose against hers. “Seni seviyorum—”
“Let go of me.” Shoving her arms down, she broke my hold on her and spun to the door.
“Where are you going?” I tried to snatch her wrist. “Don’t go—”
“Don’t worry, I’m not running to tell my parents. Our dirty, dangerous little secret is still hidden.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t make it sound as if I wish we weren’t together.”
“Oh, so now you agree we’re in a relationship? You tell me you love me and expect all of this to be forgotten?” She snorted and ran her hands down her face. When she glanced back up, her anger was pinched with pain. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I need...I just need some space. Before I say or do something else I’ll regret.” Ripping open the door, she looked back, and I fell into her agony.
I winced at the way she looked at me. At the hurt I’d given her with the truth. The hope I’d crushed by refusing to tell Jack and Anna.
“I’m sorry, Aslan.”
With that final whisper, she bolted down the three steps to the garden, flew over the steppingstones ringing the pool, and vanished into the house.
Every part of me screamed to go after her.
My heart flopped pathetically in my chest to fix this.
But...she’d asked for space.
I couldn’t give her much of anything...but I could give her that.
For an hour or so at least.
With a trembling hand and a snarling heart, I closed the door and fell face first onto my bed.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
*
Nerida
*
AGE: 17 YRS OLD
*
(Sea in Greek: Thálassa)
“MUM? DAD?” I FORCED MY LIPS into a smile, begging all my heartache to stay hidden. “You okay if I go see Zara?”
That question was a damn sight better than the statement I really wanted to say:
By the way, I gave Aslan a blowjob today. But don’t worry. He didn’t take advantage of me. We’re in love...or at least, I think we are. He loves me, but he’s not happy about it. Fun fact...he called me a mistake. Oh, don’t kill him, Dad. I’m more than capable of doing that.
Biting back those confessions, I stayed stiff and aching on the threshold.
Dad twisted on the couch and looked at me standing in the doorway to the lounge. The potted ponytail palms, dotted around the white-tiled space, granted the perfect splash of green against the dark grey walls and weathered tan couches. “I thought you guys had a falling out when you broke up with Joel?”
