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“Brave.”
“What?”
His eyes flash with an emotion that I don’t get right away as he says, “You would’ve been brave. You were brave. To put yourself out there. To want something and go for it. To dream of something and do everything you can to make it come true. You had courage. You had guts. You did what your heart told you to do, without any reservations, without any regrets. You believed. You had faith. You did what others can only dream of. What others write about and read about. So you were brave, Firefly. Not stupid. You’re the girl in your romance novels. The girl made of candies and cream.”
Only when he finishes do I realize the look in his eyes.
Admiration.
Pure and blatant.
He thinks I’m admirable. To have done what I did.
Brave for putting myself out there and for exposing my heart, my nerve endings. To have faith.
It doesn’t make sense.
Right?
I should be embarrassed for all the things that I did. Which is why I was denying the truth back there, wasn’t I? Because I’m embarrassed. Because I’m ashamed of all the things that I’ve done in the name of running after him, in the name of love.
So yeah, it doesn’t make sense.
But then…
Doesn’t it?
Because isn’t that what people do with God as well? They don’t know — not really — if He exists. They don’t know if what they believe in is true or can be proven. But they still worship him. They still follow His word. They still follow scriptures and religion without being ashamed.
So why should what I felt for him be different?
Why should love be any different than worship?
As soon as the truth of it settles into my brain, my heart, into the crevices of my body, I know what I have to do. I know that I have to tell him.
The truth.
The whole truth this time.
Because I can’t do it.
I can’t do this to him. I can’t exact revenge on someone who’s not only made me realize something this important, this life-changing about myself but also who’s already remorseful for what he did.
So we can’t do this.
We need to stop.
I should leave and…
“And I wanted to tie her up in my bed,” he says, bringing me back to the moment.
Urgently, I grab his t-shirt and say, “Ledger, I —”
“But do you wanna hear the worst part?” he asks, his eyes somehow both glazed over and alert.
“No, it doesn’t matter. You —”
“The worst part is that even though I knew, right from the beginning, right from the day that I saw you, that you were the girl they write books about, I still would’ve done it. I still would’ve tied you up. I would’ve looked into your gray-blue eyes, into your trusting eyes, and I still would’ve wrapped your hands with a rope and tied you to my bed.”
“No, Ledger —”
“And then,” he licks his lips, “I would’ve asked you to smile for the camera.”
“C-camera?”
“Yeah,” he rasps. “I would’ve asked you to pose for it. Pose for me. And we both know that you would’ve done it. In a heartbeat.”
“I would have,” I tell him without hesitation, without any shame.
And it’s amazing.
It’s glorious.
It makes me wonder why I didn’t do this before.
“And then I would’ve sent those pictures to your brother,” he continues.
I expect myself to flinch.
I expect to feel anger, which is what I’d normally feel, or rather have felt for the past year.
But I don’t.
It’s not there. The anger. The fury.
Instead, I want to… soothe him.
I want to cup his ticking jaw — clean-shaven and sharp — and tell him that it’s okay. It’s okay if he wanted to do it because the important thing is that he didn’t. Which I realize is stupid, because although he didn’t do what he’s describing, he did do something, right? He did act upon his revenge fantasy.
But then so what?
Honestly.
So he did come to my dorm room with the intention of using me to hurt my brother. He was angry and rightfully so; my brother had knocked up his sister and of course he was angry. I never blamed him for that, just for the record. I never blamed him for being angry. I only blamed him for not being able to control it and taking it out on me.
And while him being not being able to control his anger is an issue in and of itself that I’m not going to touch right now, maybe that night he just made a mistake. A bad judgement call and everyone deserves a second chance, right?
I mean, look at what I was going to do.
What I almost did.
So I let go of his t-shirt and go for his face. I cup his cheeks and open my mouth to tell him that it’s okay. But he speaks first. “And then of course you would’ve realized what I’d done and you’d be heartbroken. You’d probably be crying. You’d ask me to let you go. You’d even beg and struggle, scream, kick. But I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t because…”
