Chapter 3
“That’s a nice ring.”
I jump at the voice coming from beside me.
“Mom,” I murmur, going alert.
I’ve been standing at the bar for the past hour as people come to congratulate Shepard and me. For the most part, I’ve been able to respond to their enthusiasm appropriately. I’ve been able to match them smile for smile and laugh for laugh. But the more people come and visit, the more afraid I become. The more it starts to set in.
I’m engaged.
I’m engaged.
Holy fuck, I’m engaged.
To my best friend. To the man who loves me, but I don’t love him back.
What if this is the wrong decision?
I mean, it has the makings of a wrong decision. People should be in love when they get engaged. They should be enthusiastic and happy and filled with joy.
They shouldn’t be like me.
They should not be looking at their ring and wondering if—when—their fiancé is going to regret it. What if he tries to fix everything but things can’t be fixed? What if I can’t be fixed?
What if I’m doomed to love him—the wrong twin—for the rest of my life?
So in the midst of all this, I forgot that my mother was here as well. My dad too. But my dad’s way of dealing with me is to let my mom deal with me, so I don’t think he’ll personally be approaching me. He’s already engaged in a heavy discussion with Shepard and Coach Thorne.
My mother reaches out for my hand and strokes the ring. “That’s a big diamond. Wonder how much he spent on it.”
I try to take my hand back, but she doesn’t let me go. “Thanks. I’ll let him know you like it.”
Still stroking the ring, she looks up. “Please also give him my condolences.”
I stiffen. “I’m… I’m sorry?”
Keeping her face neutral and pleasant, she squeezes the ring into my finger. “He’s marrying a girl who’s going to ruin his life.”
I grimace from the pain. “M-mom, you’re… I’m not going to r-ruin him.”
She increases the pressure, making me almost hiss with the pain. “I think you are.”
I try to pull away from her. “Mom, please. I?—”
“Because you’re fucking his twin brother behind his back”—she mashes the ring into my finger—“aren’t you?”
I’m so shocked, so fucking jolted at what she just said to me that the pain doesn’t even register for a second or two.
I go numb.
“What?” I ask in a small voice.
“Does he know?”
“I…”
“I bet he doesn’t.”
“There’s nothing?—”
“Because if he did”—she keeps twisting the ring into my finger, her sharp nails digging into my skin—“he probably wouldn’t have spent this much on a ring.”
Pain slams back into my body and tears well up in my eyes. “I-I’m not… I haven’t done anything with h-him.”
Her eyes flash with hatred. “But you want to.”
I shake my head, trying to break free from her grip. “N-no, I don’t… I’m?—”
She leans closer to me and hisses. “This is why. This is exactly why I wanted you to stay away from the team. I wanted you to stay away from the players. I knew you’d pull something like this. I knew it.”
“I promise I’m not doing anything. I won’t do anything. I?—”
She tugs at my hand, pulling me closer, her eyes heated. “If you haven’t, then you will. Because that’s who you are. Because you’re an attention whore. You crave attention. You steal attention. You stole it the day you were born. From me. I was lying there, barely alive and bloody, and my husband—the man I loved, the man I finally thought would love me back—was more concerned with you. He was more concerned with your cries and your freaking coos. And it only got worse from there. Every time you’d cry, he’d come running. Every time you threw a tantrum, he’d give you everything your heart desired. It took me years to pull him away from you, years to show him your true colors. To show him that we made a mistake. That we never should have had you. That I’m supposed to be the love of his life, not you. Because you’re exactly like my mother. Everyone was so enamored by her too. My father lived for her. He loved her more than he ever loved me. My husband was supposed to be my person. He was supposed to love me the most but then you came and ruined all that. You come between people. You came between your father and me. And now you’re going to come between brothers. You’re going to ruin both their lives.”
“Is that… Is that why”—I lick my lips, my voice sounding so childish—“you don’t love me? Is that why Daddy won’t speak to me?”
“Your daddy won’t speak to you because he knows what kind of a daughter he has. And now you’re going to show the entire world what kind of a slut you are.”
I shake my head. “Mom, listen, I?—”
“No,” she snaps, her nails feeling like needles now, that ring almost fused to my skin. “You listen to me: it’s done. You’re engaged. To the captain of the team, no less. Do you know what that means? It means more press, more media. You’re in the public eye, more than you ever were. And if you screw up, if you create a scandal and make a joke of our family, you’re not the only one who’ll regret it. I’ll make sure that your lover boys regret it too.”
I stare down at my ring.
It is nice.
It’s platinum with delicate filigree work that circles my finger and a sparkly princess cut diamond that sits between a circle of little diamonds. I love it and as I stare down at it, I wish my mom had given me a chance to talk. If she had, I would’ve told her that she shouldn’t worry about me coming in between anyone anymore.
It’s over.
It’s done.
It’s dead.
I’m dead.
Sighing, I look up into the mirror above the bathroom sink and decide to freshen up my lipstick. After my run-in with my mother, I came to the bathroom to clean up the blood—apparently, she did pierce skin—and find my equilibrium. I didn’t go to the one by the ballroom but found a solitary bathroom up a flight of stairs because I knew it would be empty.
Just as I’m about to leave, though, the door opens and the bathroom is not empty anymore.
It has an intruder.
I see him in the mirror.
He fills the doorway.
His shoulders spanning from one end to the next.
He has a suit jacket on, and his shirt is crisp. His hair’s polished and pushed back and his boots are shiny. And in the midst of all that, there sits a bruise on his jaw and a black eye.
He looks dangerous.
Probably because he is dangerous.
A man with bad intentions.
I keep holding his eyes in the mirror, keep watching that sharply sculpted face. It’s blank right now, dead like it was in the ballroom. Lifeless and colder than winter. I watch him trace the line of my backless dress. His gaze getting hooked on the strings and then hitting those two dimples. Followed by the tiny crack of my ass. Which is when he comes back to life and his bruised jaw clenches.
I hope it hurts him.
I hope the hurt never leaves him.
His eyes come up. “What’d she say to you? Your mother.”
At his gravel-filled voice, I clutch the edge of the sink to keep myself upright. “Who are you?”
A light frown emerges between his brows. “What?”
“Yeah.” I lift my chin even though I feel beginnings of a shiver rolling down my naked spine. “Who the hell are you?”
That frown thickens. “Dora, I don’t?—”
I clutch the sink tighter and suck my belly in. I want to shout, stop calling me that. But instead, I say, “What’s your name? What should I call you?”
Because this is a game to him, isn’t it?
It was a game to him the first night we met and then again when he pretended to be his twin.
Comprehension dawns on his face and he steps in. He closes the door behind him and stands there, straight, with a wide stance and closed fists, like a sentinel.
“People call me cold.”
Even though I’m the one who brought it up, the reminder of that night has me curling my toes in my heels. It has me shuddering, but I stay strong.
I don’t have any other option but to stay strong.
“People are right.”
His eyes stay trained on mine in the mirror. “She once called me wildfire, though.”
Strong, strong.
Stay strong.
“Who is she?”
“People call her Isadora,” he replies.
“Well—”
“But I call her Dora.”
“You—”
“She has other names too,” he keeps going. “Lolita, Cherry Lips, but my favorite is Dora. And she is”—he licks his lip—“the loudest song, the brightest star, the hottest fire, and the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”
That shiver I was afraid of, the one that was going to roll through my spine, has now taken over my body. Still, I hold the fuck on. “She sounds like a fool.”
Anger ripples through his bruised features. “You’re not a fool. You were fooled, but you’re not a fool.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The difference is that I played with your trust. I deliberately lied to you. I made a fool out of you. So you’re not the fool, I am.”
I circle my eyes over his face. I touch each bruise, his black eye, with my eyes. “And looks like you got beaten up for it.”
Another clench and I hope this one hurts him as well. “Yeah.”
“Did it hurt?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you break something?”
“No.”
“Bummer.”
“Maybe next time.”
“Well, a girl can hope, can’t she.”
His lips twitch at my response. A very slight twitch, but it’s there.
I keep staring at him for a few more seconds, his dark eyes shining, intense.
Penetrating.
When I feel his gaze getting through my muscles and bones and into the heart of me, I look away. I break it and put my lipstick in my clutch. I pat my finger over the corner of my mouth, rubbing away the excess. I purse my lips, take one final look at myself, and turn around.
Keeping our eyes connected, I walk up to him, my high heels clacking on the tile. The only sound in the room. When I reach him, I say, “Can you step aside, please?”
His eyes roam over my face. “What’d she say to you?”
“I need to leave,” I tell him instead.
“She said something to you. What’d she say?” he insists.
“People are waiting for me.”
“What the fuck did she say, Dora?”
That’s when I snap.
That is when I fucking snap and yell, “Stop calling me that!”
In response, his jaw clenches again, and for the third fucking time I wish to God, I wish to all that’s holy, that it hurts him. That it hurts the fuck out of him because it hurts me.
It hurts me to see him this way.
It hurts me—the fool here—to think about how much it must’ve hurt him to get beaten up like that. Even after every fucking thing he’s done, it hurts me because he’s hurt.
“I will if you tell me,” he replies with all the calm in the world.
Which pisses me off even more. “You want to know what she said to me? Fine. She said that I’m a slut. That I’m an attention whore and that I’ve always been this way. Since the day I was born. Because the day I was born, my father was more occupied and attentive to me than to her. Instead of showing all his devotion and love to her, the mother of his child, he chose to shower me, the child, with it. She also told me that she was the one who convinced him to stop wasting his love on me and instead love her and only her. Which is great to hear really because I’ve always wondered why my father ignores me. I’ve always wondered why my mother ignores me too. Now the mystery’s solved. Now I know. Now I can live my life in peace. Oh, and she also said if I pull the same shit and come between two brothers, like I tried to come between her and my dad—two brothers being you and your twin—then she’s going to make you regret it. Which I can only assume means that she’ll have both of you fired and ruin your careers. So I better watch out.”
And since I’m on a roll, I keep going even though I think, I think, I see his features hardening. I see his eyes narrowing and shining with a harsh light. But I don’t give a fuck if he’s angry. He can go to hell and burn there for eternity for all I care.
“Do you want to know what else she did, though? She cut me.” I show him my ring finger and since it’s my fuck you finger, it all works out. “She scratched me with her long talon-like nails and squeezed the ring into my finger so hard that she broke skin. But that’s not the best part. The best part is that this isn’t the first time she’s done something like this, no. She’s been doing it for years now. It started with a little pinching here and there, little instances where she’d grab me so hard that she’d leave marks. Then they escalated. She’d smack me, mostly on the back of my head so whatever mark she left was hidden by my hair. She’d shove me and I’d hit wall and then days after that, she’d make me wear long sleeves and long skirts to hide any bruises.
“Even though these incidents got severe, they were still rare. They’d happen usually when I’d been a little rebellious. Like the time I snuck out to a party when I was thirteen and my mother found out. She shoved me into a bush of roses. Then this one time she caught me running lines up in my bedroom, so she tore up the script and smacked me so hard that for a few seconds I saw stars. Then this other time she caught me slipping my bra to the driver because I wanted to go to the movies but I was grounded. She shoved me into my closet and locked me in for over sixteen hours without food or water or bathroom breaks. My dad had thought I’d run away.”
I throw him a tight smile but keep going, “In any case, they happened maybe once a month. But then that changed too. Last year. Because I started hanging around the team more and given my track record of seducing men and getting them to do bad things, she never wanted that. She wanted me to stay away from you guys. And now I’m guessing from my father too because I’m thinking about it and I’ve seen him more this last year than I have any year while I was living under his roof. So instead of once a month, my mother started physically abusing me once a week. So this”—I flip him the bird again—“is what she did this week.”
He’s breathing harshly now, his chest moving up and down, punching the crisp white shirt. And punching so badly that I think he’s going to tear it right in the middle. He’s going to tear his shirt from the force of his breathing, from the force of his bulging muscles, his little white buttons popping out and flying.
And I honestly, honestly wouldn’t care about it.
But then I get a look at his face.
I get a look at his bruised jaw and that black eye. They seem to be pulsating, throbbing almost, on his skin that seems flushed now. So tight. So, so tight and straining, almost like his shirt. And his eyes look bloodshot.
Which is when I realize that this is not anger. This can’t be anger.
It’s much bigger than that, much hotter.
Hotter than fire.
Wildfire.
It scares me, the way he looks right now.
Not for myself, no.
But for him. It looks like he’s going to come apart. It looks like he’s not only going to tear his shirt but also himself. He’s not only going to tear himself but everything around him, and I can’t help but whisper, “Stellan?”
And his breaths escalate. His red-rimmed eyes go frantic at my voice. His bruises become even more stark and glaring.
“Your mother beats you.”
His voice is a whisper, but it’s a heavy whisper. A rough whisper. A whisper made of glass and gravel and something else that I don’t really understand.
While I was so extremely cavalier and comfortable telling him about it just now, bragging about it for some reason—maybe that’s the only way to deal with what she just told me—I’m not feeling any of those things right now.
No, I think my fear for him is increasing.
“Stellan,” I say, stepping toward him. “It’s not that… It’s fine. I’m?—”
He grabs hold of my arms then, his fingers digging into my skin. Not in a painful way but in an urgent way. In a way that makes me think that somehow, someway, I’ve stepped on something.
I’ve stepped on a live wire and I’m not sure how that happened.
I’m not even sure what’s happening.
Why is he so heated? So hot to touch as if he has a fever.
“You’re not staying here,” he states.
“What?”
“You’re not staying here,” he declares again, his eyes skittering over my features. “Where she can get to you.”
“She’s… I don’t live with her. I don’t?—”
He pulls me closer, his fingers flexing, pulsating. “Even if you don’t live together, she got to you, didn’t she. She fucking got to you and… It’s because of me, isn’t it. You started hanging around the team because of me. Because you lo…” Trailing off, he shakes his head. His breaths are both coming fast and broken somehow. “So this is my fault. This is… You’re not staying here. You’re coming with me.”
“What?”
He shakes me in his grip. “You are. You’re coming with me. I’m taking you away. Right now. You’re?—”
“No,” I shout, stopping him.
And even though his grip is tight, I still manage to break it and step away from him. Probably because he wasn’t expecting it. He wasn’t expecting such a vehement denial on my part.
But then why wouldn’t he?
After what he did.
After how he played me.
After how he can’t even say the L-word. He couldn’t, back there. He had to actually cut himself off before he said it.
God.
“I’m not going with you,” I state, taking a couple more steps back.
He steps forward. “Dora?—”
“No, stop calling me that!” Another few steps back and I would’ve taken more, but my spine’s stuck to the wall now. “And stop coming close to me.”
He comes to a screeching halt, his body almost rebounding with the force.
“Listen—”
“No,” I say again. “You listen, okay? You fucking listen: first, it’s not your fault. In case you weren’t paying attention, my mother has always hated me. Second, I’m not going anywhere with you. I will never go anywhere with you. We won’t even be in the same room again. We won’t… You lied to me.”
He goes still then.
So absolutely fucking still.
Still as death.
It’s okay, though.
Now I’m the one whose chest is heaving. I’m the one whose breaths are broken. I’m the one vibrating with rage, vibrating with so much fury that I can set this world on fire.
That I can set him on fire.
“You fucking lied,” I lash out. “Not once, not twice. Not even three times. For days. For weeks. For weeks, you lied to me. You deceived me. Every word out of your fucking mouth was a lie. Every time I picked up the phone…”
I trail off.
I have to.
My breaths are running away from me again. It’s been happening ever since I found out how stupid I’ve been. I’ve gotten randomly dizzy over the course of the day. As if it’s hitting me once again, what he did. What he kept doing for days and weeks.
Everything was right there, wasn’t it? All the clues were right there. His sudden possessiveness. His sudden bossiness. The fact that he was doing my fucking homework when I knew—I knew for a fact—that Shepard would never do such a thing.
How he’d take interest in my practice, ask me questions about it. Ask me questions about Biji, about my favorite movies. How he’d asked me to dance that night.
In my white dress and fake wings.
It was him.
All along, it was him.
He was the one doing these things and oh my God, I’m so fucking stupid that I never realized. I’m so fucking stupid that I didn’t realize even when he told me.
“E-every time y-you…” I try again but fail.
This time my vision is starting to get blurry too.
And the next thing I know, I’m enveloped in strong, steely arms and his face—his fucking beautiful face—is swimming in my vision. His stupid fucking bottomless voice is filling my ears. “Jesus, fuck, just breathe,” he says, his voice rough. “Just breathe, Dora.”
Which brings me back to life, his name for me.
And I start to push against him as I yell, “Stop fucking calling me that! Stop fucking calling me Dora. I hate it, okay? I hate that name.” I push against him again some more. “I hate how you say it. I hate your voice when you say it. I hate your face when you say it. I hate your fucking eyes when you say it. I hate, hate, hate every single thing about you. I hate”—I keep pushing and thrashing against him—“you. I hate you so much that it hurts. You lied to me. You lied. You played me. You played with my feelings. You played with my trust. You played with my heart.”
Now along with pushing and thrashing, I’ve somehow started to punch him in the chest as well. I have a very loose realization of it. A vague sense of reality as to what I’m doing. Where my hands are and the harsh things on his body that I’m hitting.
Whereas I know exactly where he’s touching me. I know exactly how his arms are still bands made of steel that are wrapped around my waist, keeping me standing, keeping me grounded and glued to his body.
“Do you understand what that means? Do you have any clue what you’ve done to me? Any clue at all. How you’ve fucked me up.” I hit his jaw, I think. I can’t be sure as I keep going, “Every time I thought I was talking to him, I was talking to you. Every time I thought I’d managed to move on from you, that I thought I could do this, that I could be with him, I was getting closer and closer to you. Every time I thought I’d pulled myself away from you, I was drowning even more in you. Every time I felt guilty for talking to you behind his back was one more time the joke was on me.”
I scratch the side of his neck, tug at his collar, pull at his hair. I do everything I can to get away from him while at the same time get my hands on him.
“The fucking joke was on me because I believed you at the theater, in that closet. When you told me you cared about me. When you let me off the hook. I believed you. But that’s not true, is it? I believed the wrong thing. What I should’ve believed in was when you told me. The truth. Over the phone the other night. When you told me how you’d been lying to me, deceiving me. I should’ve believed you then. But I didn’t. I didn’t believe that you could do something like this and for me no less. And so when Shepard actually told me, do you know what my reaction was? I was happy. For a second, I thought all my dreams had come true. That what you’d said in the closet was right. You did feel something for me. You did care about me. That you cared about me to go to such lengths. But just like how I believed the wrong thing, that was the wrong reaction too. Because if you really felt something for me, you wouldn’t have done this. If you really cared about me, you wouldn’t have hurt me like this. You don’t know how to care, do you? You don’t know the right way. You don’t know… You can’t… You’re twisted. You’re a lair. You’re cruel. You’re harsh. You’re cold. God, you’re so fucking cold. You’re c-colder than winter a-and… It’s my f-fault. For always believing the wrong thing. For always feeling the wrong thing. For loving the wrong twin. For… I… Oh God, you’re so cold. You’re…”
And that’s it.
That’s all the words I have for him.
That’s probably all the words I know right now. The rest flow down my cheeks as salty water and leave my body in hitching breaths. All through this, I am acutely aware of one thing, however, one big and broad and heated thing: him.
I’m acutely aware of how his arms are still around my body, holding me upright. Actually no, his arms have moved. Something I’m only realizing now. Before, he had both of his arms wrapped around my waist, holding me against his body. But now one arm of his has moved and my breaths freeze when I realize where his hand is.
It’s cradling my drenched cheek.
His long fingers are splayed wide, spanning the side of my throat all the way up to my forehead, his digits going into my hair. And his thumb is moving, scraping over my cheek, swiping at the tears.
With the realization that he’s trying to wipe my tears as fast as they are coming, comes another realization. That he’s leaning over me, and he’s got his forehead resting on mine and he’s so close, his warm breaths fanning my tear-drenched mouth.
Which, in turn, gives me yet another realization.
I don’t know why these are coming to me in pieces, maybe because I’m too emotionally overwrought, but they are and this one is that along with his breaths fanning over my wet mouth, he’s also breathing out words.
Soft, raspy words as he wipes my tears and rolls his forehead over mine.
“I’m sorry,” he’s saying, “I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
He’s repeating it like a litany.
A chant.
A poem with soft words and repeated rhymes.
“I’ll do anything, okay?” he murmurs. “Anything at all. Just, please. Please stop crying. Just stop crying, baby. Stop crying, stop crying, please stop crying, sweetheart.”
And I could’ve taken it.
I could have.
His reverent touch. His sweet breaths. His sweeter words. But I can’t take him calling me baby and sweetheart—two endearments—in one breath.
It’s too much.
It makes me so achy. It makes me cry harder.
So much harder that in addition to him holding on to me, I need to hold on to him back. My arms move from his chest and fly over to his shoulders. They wind around his neck and, sobbing, I say, “It… h-hurts.”
“Tell me what to do. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
“Y-you hurt m-me.”
“I’m so sorry, baby.”
“I told you about my d-day. I s-shared things with you about my…”
“I wanted to know,” he says. “I just wanted to know.”
“Know what?”
“Everything.” He presses his forehead against mine. “I wanted to know every little thing about you. About your dreams, your passion. Your drive. Things that make you you. Things that make you smile, make you shine. Things that make you so fucking irresistible that I… I forget to breathe around you. I just… couldn’t not know.”
And God, I would’ve told him. I would’ve told every little thing about me. I would’ve laid myself bare, if only he had asked. If only he had been honest and he had come to me and he had said all these things to me before.
But he chose to lie.
He chose to pollute everything.
He chose to make a fool out of me.
“They were not yours to take, those things,” I tell him, pulling at his hair. “They were mine to give. You understand? They were mine and you took them under false pretenses. You…”
He rolls his forehead over mine. “I know. I know, baby, and it’s my fault. It’s all my fault. It’s?—”
I pull at his hair again because I don’t want him to sound apologetic. I don’t want to hear regret in his voice. He doesn’t get to go off the hook just by sounding like I’m killing him with my pain.
“It was you,” I accuse. “You did my homework. You stayed up night after night, finishing up my stupid assignments.”
“I wanted you to focus,” he replies.
“On my play.”
“Yeah.”
“And it was you. You asked them to come, my friends.”
“Didn’t want you to be alone on your big night.”
My heart squeezes and I hate him.
I really, really do.
Because I can’t even enjoy these things. Things I always dreamed of. Things I wanted from him since the moment I saw him. His care. His warmth.
Him.
Because he tainted them with lies.
His selfishness. His assholery.
“I danced f-for you,” I say next.
He swallows thickly. “Fuck, baby, please.”
I pull at his hair. “You made me dance for you.”
“I—”
“W-why did you ask me to put on that dress?”
“Because I wanted to remember that night. Wanted to torture myself with the memory of it.”
I clench my eyes shut for a second at having my suspicions confirmed. “I hope you were. I hope you were fucking traumatized.”
He nods, his thumb dragging up and down my cheek. “It was one of the hardest things I’d ever done, watching you dance through a screen.”
“That’s why you kept yourself hidden, didn’t you? Because you knew.”
His eyes find me through the tiny space between us. “That you’d recognize me. I knew you would and…”
I fist his hair again. “And what?”
“And you’d stop,” he confesses, the bruise on his jaw looking especially nasty. “I knew you’d stop dancing. If you knew who you were dancing for.”
That’s the thing, isn’t it.
I wouldn’t have.
I probably would have danced harder. I probably would’ve danced longer.
Because he was the one I was dancing for anyway.
“I would have,” I lie.
Because he doesn’t deserve to know the truth.
Not after what he did.
His fingers on my face, my hair spasms. “Every time you said you’d do anything to be his, I wanted to break something.”
“I did want to be his.”
“Every time you said his name, I wanted you to say mine.”
“I will never say your name again.”
“Every time you did something for him, you told him something,” he goes on, his voice guttural and serrated. “Every time you laughed, you smiled, you stayed up late texting him. Every time you danced, I wanted to tell you. I wanted to fucking tell you that it was me. That it’s me you’ve been talking to. It’s me you’ve been sharing your secrets with. It’s me who’s making you smile. It’s me who’s making you laugh. It’s me you’re staying awake for like I’ve stayed awake for you. It’s fucking me you’ve been putting on your show for. It’s me. Not him. It’s finally fucking me who’s taking care of you, who gets to take care of you. Who gets to protect you. Who gets to save you from the world, from yourself. Who gets the privilege of making you smile and laugh and fucking dance. It’s me. Not him.”
Our breaths are harsh.
They’re clashing against each other.
Our fingers are tugging and pulling at things on each other’s bodies. And I bet if we tried, we could listen to our hearts pounding in our chests at the same time. As if going to war against each other.
Or maybe, maybe, just beating in rhythm with each other.
At least that’s what I’d always hoped.
But I’m done now.
I’m done hoping.
I’m done with him.
“It wasn’t you,” I tell him, gathering my breaths and my composure. “I did all those things for him, with him, because of him. So they’re not for you. And you don’t get to come in here and change the narrative that you yourself set, okay? You don’t get to come here and flip my fucking reality upside down just because you feel like it. So I want you to let me go. I need to go. I don’t want anything to do with you.”
He doesn’t.
God, he doesn’t.
And I’m ready to lose my shit because I need him to let me go so I can go sob in a corner. So I can go break down because he chose to finally give me what I always wanted, but he broke my heart in the process.
“You don’t have to,” he says, his eyes brimming with something. “But I need you promise me something.”
“You need me to promise you something?” I ask in disbelief.
He said the same thing in that closet too, didn’t he? And while I gave him my promise freely back then, I’m not going to do the same. I’m never ever going to do the same.
He isn’t deterred, however, as he states, “I want you to go on the road.”
“What?”
“When the team leaves day after tomorrow for the next few weeks, I want you to come along. I’ll make all the arrangements. I’ll?—”
“I… What? Why?”
“Because I want you away.”
It takes me a few seconds to understand where this came from and what he’s talking about. And then it hits me, and I go still.
“From m-my mother?”
Anger, pure and clear, ripples through his features as he replies back, “From your fucking mother.”
My heart starts to pound then.
In a different way than before. In a way that makes my body tingle, my belly swirl.
Even though it happened only a little bit ago, it still feels like a distant memory. His face, his body, him. How he’d reacted to the news; how he’d looked when I told him about my mother. How it felt more than anger.
It felt all-consuming and scary.
Wildfire-y.
I know I was the one to call him that, but I don’t think I knew what it actually meant. Not until today. Not until now.
Not until he got that way on my behalf.
For me.
I was so busy absorbing his extreme reaction that it’s only now hitting me, that it was all for me. His fire. His anger. His whatever that was, it happened because of me. And despite myself, despite everything, his wildfire is thawing the chill. The bad kind. The kind I’d felt ever since Shepard came to me last night.
“I can handle my mother,” I state firmly because I don’t want to melt.
He grits his wounded jaw. “Promise me you’ll go.”
“My mother is none of your concern.”
“Promise. Me.”
“No.”
“Don’t do this, Dora.”
God.
I push at him then. “I’ve asked you multiple times now, please stop calling me that.”
Not that he budges. “Don’t be stubborn about this.”
“I’ll be stubborn about whatever the fuck I want,” I shoot back, pushing at him again.
“This is for your fucking safety,” he growls, his arm tightening.
“If this is about my safety, then you’re the last person I should listen to,” I tell him. “I’m the most unsafe with you.”
Again, our breaths clash and our bodies collide with each other. And again, it could also be that we’re breathing in tandem. We’re living in tandem. We’re existing in the same space.
Then, with a sharp swallow, he says, “I will stay away. After this. I will stay so far away from you that you won’t even notice me around. You won’t even know I’m there, yeah? You don’t have to look at me. You don’t have to look at my face. You don’t have to know that I even exist. I will erase myself from your life, if that’s what it takes, all right? I will do anything you want, any-fucking-thing that you can think of. But I want you to go on the road with us. I need you to go, do you understand?”
He grabs my face then.
With both hands.
And like his grip from before, when he’d almost lost it at the news about my mother, it’s tight and urgent. It’s brimming with things I don’t understand. That I don’t even hope to understand in this moment.
“I need you to do this,” he says, his eyes swirling and intense, so, so intense. “I need you to be safe. I need you to be away from her. I need you where she can’t get to you. Not now. Not ever. Not fucking ever, Dora. And I’m going to make it so. I’m going to make it so that she never lays a hand on you and that’s a promise. My fucking promise to you. I will break every other promise I’ve ever made in my life, every other promise that I will ever make in my entire fucking life, to keep this one, do you understand? So I need you to promise me that you’ll go. I need you to do that for me. I need you to let me keep you safe. And I’ll do anything you want for it. Anything at all.”
“Anything?” I whisper.
“Any-fucking-thing,” he promises, his hands so hot on my cheeks.
His breaths so hot.
His body all feverish once again.
I watch him for a few seconds. I watch him watch me. I watch him standing on the edge for me, waiting for my answer. I watch him hanging on to me. As if his head’s on the guillotine and I’m the one with the sword.
Like I’m the one who could kill him if I wanted.
And I realize I’ve never felt this alive in my life.
I’ve never felt this powerful.
All because this man, this cold and heartless man, the man of my dreams, promised he’ll give me anything I wanted.
So what do I want?
“I just got engaged,” I whisper.
In response, he flinches, his fingers pressing into my cheeks.
“To your twin brother.”
His breaths were already hot and fast. Now they’re noisy too.
Now they’re loud and thick.
I slide my hands out of his hair and bring them down to the bruise on his jaw. “I’m going to marry him soon.” I look at my fingers touching the nasty scrape. “Then I’ll be his forever.”
His fist is clenching and unclenching in my hair.
“But before that happens,” I whisper, still staring at his wound. “I want you to kiss me.”
This time, his body doesn’t go through a flinch but a whole shudder.
And I look up.
Into his eyes.
They’re dark and gleaming. Molten and fiery.
I press my fingers into his bruise a little and I know it hurts him. Even though he shows no reaction to it, but I know. Because it hurts me. Because we’re so entwined in this moment. We know each other’s thoughts. We know each other’s desires.
He knows.
He knew before I asked him.
I can see that.
He’s not at all shocked at my request.
I’m not either.
I’m the girl who could have anything in this moment—and I know he will make it so—but this is what I chose.
Him. His kiss.
My destiny.
“You told me you wouldn’t cross that line.” I trace his mouth with my fingers as I keep my gaze steady on him. “In the closet. You said you wouldn’t cross that line for me. You let me go. You let me go after everything you’ve done. All the lies you’ve told. All the games you’ve played. All the deception, all the pretenses. You chose to let me free. And we both know it’s not because you care about me. So maybe you did it because you’re such a good guy after all. Such a good brother. Such a good coach. Maybe because when push comes to shove, you could never break any rules. You could never stray off your path. You could never touch your twin brother’s fiancée. You couldn’t touch his girlfriend, let alone his fiancée.
“But I want you to do it now. I want you to touch me. I want you to kiss me. I want you to break your rules for me. I want you to ruin yourself for me. Destroy yourself. Wreck your morals. Cross all your stupid fucking lines. I want you to do what I did for you. How I lied and cheated. How I fucking loved you despite not being supposed to. I want you to be like me and let me be your Lolita.”
I don’t know what I’m expecting.
I don’t even know what I just did. What I just said.
All I know is that I want him even after everything.
And I want him to hurt because of everything.
Can you hate someone even when you love them?
Can you love someone even when you hate them?
I wonder if hate and love coexist. If fire and ice live together.
I don’t know. All I know is that I want him to say yes.
God, please say yes.
Or I’ll really die. He will really have killed me.
But I guess that’s what’s written in the stars.
My destiny is to be killed by him and his is to kill me.
Because he says, “No.”