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I flinched at her butchering my tongue. “Seni seviyorum.”
“That’s it.” Her lips twitched into a shy smile. “Seni seviyorum, Aslan.” Her hand came up in surrender. “And before you kick me out and wrap your door in chains and locks, I love you as my friend. I love you for saving me. I love you for helping my mum and dad. I love you because you exist, and not a day goes by that I’m not super thankful to have you living with us.” That blue fire returned to her gaze. “Even if you keep denying we’ve had a first kiss, I promise our second one will be so much better.”
I groaned and threw my pillow at her. “Defol, you little monster. Hayatinda bir kez olsun uslu dur.”
Her eyes widened as her tongue licked her bottom lip. She caught my pillow and hugged it close, damning me to inhale whatever soap and shampoo she’d used tonight for the rest of my non-existent sleep.
“What does that mean?” she breathed.
“It means go away and behave for once in your life.”
Tossing back my pillow, she blew me a kiss. “Oh, I’ll behave. The day I’m no longer too young for you is the day I stop driving you crazy.”
“The day you aren’t a young girl anymore, I’ll be certifiably insane.”
“Part of my evil plan. To make you so nuts about me, you won’t be able to survive without me.”
“I’ll be so tangled by your games that I’ll probably kill you by accident.”
“Kill me with love you mean.”
“Get the hell out.”
“Okay, okay...” Her sweet laughter trailed after her as she slipped through my door and returned back to her room, leaving me with the shell, the sound of the ocean, and ghosts swirling thickly around me.
Chapter Seventeen
*
Nerida
*
(Sea in Maori: Moana)
“HOW EXTREMELY LUCKY THAT HE OVERCAME HIS aversion to the ocean to save your life,” Margot murmured, pulling up her legs and getting comfortable. “Did he go in the sea regularly after that? Seeing as he’d put aside his trauma and jumped in?”
I blinked back the past, struggling to return to the present.
Margot’s question jerked me from my story, and I scowled, desperate to go back to Aslan. My heart fluttered like it always did back then, full of desperate knowledge of how many moments were about to unfurl. How many times that boy would break my heart. How many instances I almost gave up forcing him to see me. How many fights I’d have to go through to snap him out of the role he’d assigned me.
I was his friend.
His replacement sister.
His responsibility.
Not that my father had helped in that regard whatsoever.
Ever since the day Aslan performed CPR on me from the stupid net incident, my father had lost any aversion he might have had to Aslan and I becoming close. If fact, he actively encouraged it. He basically assigned Aslan as my bodyguard, tutor, and guardian angel.
And Aslan accepted his duties with steadfast determination and commitment, just like he did everything else.
It got to the point where the butterflies in my stomach whenever I was around Aslan became furious moths instead.
His possessiveness started to grate on me.
His constant watching made me want to rebel.
