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But instead, all he says, hands falling from his face, is, “Come on. Let’s go inside, get you settled until you’re ready for me to take you home.”
“Sebastian—”
I’m cut off as he pushes open his door and shuts it.
Circling the car, then opening my door, he’s quiet, his expression cool, back to the stranger who used to silently brush me off, who barely even acknowledged me.
Well, that’s not happening anymore.
I step out of his car, head held high as I lead the way to his door, which he unlocks with the code, before letting me in. The door slips shut behind me, and I walk into the kitchen, plopping down on a seat at the island. Sebastian strolls past me toward the kitchen, pointedly not looking my way.
I sit there, and I wait. Because I know something about needing time to find the right words. Time to feel safe to say them.
I sit there, hands folded, watching him drag open the door to his balcony, welcoming in the sea breeze. He keeps his back to me in the kitchen and starts to open cabinets, then bang them shut when he doesn’t see what he seems to be looking for.
“Tea?” he asks. Another cabinet opens and shuts. “Warm milk?” The refrigerator door this time, open, then shut. “What wholesome nighttime drinks do people enjoy?”
“Sebastian—”
He rushes past me, out on to the balcony.
“Sebastian!” I don’t yell his name, but I’m not quiet, either. I wait until he slumps against the railing of his balcony, then turns his head my way, eyes down.
“Don’t do this,” I tell him, trying to keep my voice steady. “Don’t do what you used to, what everyone else has, and brush me off, look past me, treat me like someone you can dismiss—”
He pushes off the railing, turning toward me. “Ziggy—”
“I’m speaking!” I walk right up to him until we’re chest to chest. Sebastian’s silent as I wait him out, until he glances up.
When his eyes meet mine, my heart free-falls to my feet. He looks…terrified. He looks like I did in the mirror earlier, before we left tonight, frozen with fear.
So, like he did for me, slowly, gently, I brush my fingertips against his, until our palms brush. I squeeze hard.
“Sebastian, I want you to answer my question. I don’t want to be shielded or coddled. I want you to do what you’ve done for the past week and not hold back with me. I want your honesty.”
His eyes search mine. “No,” he whispers, “you don’t.”
Anger pulses through me, heats my cheeks. I step closer, my chest brushing his. “Don’t do this. You don’t tell me what I do or don’t want. You’ve been…you’re supposed to be…” My voice dies off. “You’re supposed to be different. You were different.”
“Oh, I’m different, all right,” he says hoarsely. “I’m a fucking piece of shit, is what I am, Ziggy. I’m not your wholesome brother Ren or your wholesome other brothers or your wholesome sister married to her wholesome college sweetheart with their perfect kids or your precious parents who are still madly in love. I am a fucking wreck. I have bent my life around revenge and spite to the point that I’m so contorted, I don’t even know what it’s like to live without hurting myself and others to hurt someone else. And then you—” He clasps my face, his thumbs sweeping my cheeks. “You just…had to bust into my life, quite literally. Standing on my balcony while I was at my lowest low, seeing…something in me, a tiny chance I could do something good, something good for you—”
“For you too,” I whisper. “Something good for you, too.”
He shakes his head. “No, Ziggy, I’m un—”
“‘—savable.’ I know what you think of yourself.” I wrap my hands around his wrists, my thumb sweeping over his pounding pulse. “And you know what I told you.”
He stares at me, his jaw clenching. “No one’s unsavable.”
I smile. “And I believe that. I meant what I said. And I meant it when I said I’m not here to save you, either. But I’m asking you, for as much as you seem to believe in me and my possibilities, to believe in yourself, too.” I stroke his pulse with my thumbs, searching his eyes. “Don’t give up on us, not when we’ve barely even gotten started.”
“I want to,” he mutters through clenched teeth. “But for some fucking irritating reason, I can’t. I can’t.” His eyes search mine. I hold his wrists to steady myself as his thumbs sweep along my jaw.
He leans in, his mouth a whisper against my ear. “I’ve spent so long, numb to everything, I forgot what it was like to feel. But now there’s you, banging around, being scared and brave and determined and curious right up in my face, making me feel all this shit I haven’t wanted to. I’ve been pretending to be someone who matters to you for a week, and this is what happens? Thank fuck you didn’t ask for an actual friendship. Who knows how much worse off I’d be.”
I lean into the warmth of his breath at my ear. His scruff brushes my cheek, making me shiver. “Would the effects of being actual friends really be so bad?”
He lets out a rough, tight sound, his nose drifting to my hair. “Ziggy, they would be devastating. So don’t you dare—”
