Chapter 24 #2
“You hold instruments competently,” I said. “But not naturally. Your hands look more at ease when you write in the margins than when you handle a pipette.”
Her mouth had parted slightly. “You’re insane,” she whispered.
“Frequently.”
“You can’t know things like that from a callus.”
“Not alone.”
“Then what else?”
“You look at diagrams longer than text. You redraw methods when you don’t understand them. You sketched Miss Astoria in the corner of your notes three times today.”
Colour rose in her face. “That was private.”
“It was in the shared folder.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
She tried to pull her hand back then, and I let her. The absence of contact irritated me instantly; I needed to touch her when she was around me at all times.
“Art is not practical,” she said, voice colder now.
“No, I guess not.”
“My mother needed me to be practical.”
“No,” I replied. “Your mother needed you to be safe and secure. You decided those were the same thing.”
Her expression sharpened because the sentence had found the right place to wound. “Don’t talk about my mother.”
“Then stop using her as an explanation for your fear.”
She stood abruptly, chair scraping against the floor.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The part where you turn something personal into more evidence to hold over and feed your sick interest in me.”
I stood too, more slowly. “I thought that was why you came.”
“I came for help with the proposal.”
“That is what I’m doing.”
“No,” she said, her voice shaking once with anger. “You are trying to take another piece of me and call it shared understanding. You will never understand what it’s like for me.”
The room went quiet. I walked toward the sideboard and poured water into a glass, giving her space because I did not trust myself with less. When I returned and set the glass beside her laptop, she looked at it suspiciously.
“It’s water, Céline. Not a marriage proposal.”
“That would be less alarming from you.”
I almost laughed. Then, because I was tired of pretending the thought had not been hounding me the whole time she was here, I said, “Move in here.”
She stared at me. For once, she did not seem able to turn the words into something manageable.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I really hope I didn’t.”
“You’re exhausted. The dorm is visible. Your relationship with Chad is already becoming gossip. Christina is circling. The proposal requires work, and you need privacy to do it properly.”
She looked at me as if I had started speaking in another language. “That is the most deranged argument for moving in together I have ever heard.”
“I doubt you have heard many.”
“I have heard zero because normal men don’t ask students to move into their apartments after blackmailing them.”
“Normal men bore you.”
“This is not flirting, Vincent.”
The use of my first name landed exactly as she intended. She rarely used it. When she did, it sounded like she was testing the shape of a weapon in her mouth. I stepped closer.
“It would be practical.”
“It would be insane.”
“You would have your own room, my love.”
“Oh, how generous. Does the room come with surveillance or is that extra?”
“You could bring Miss Astoria.”
Her expression flickered. There. A small, involuntary crack.
“She would like the windows,” I added.
Céline looked toward the rain-dark glass before catching herself.
Then she laughed once, softly, without humor.
“You are unbelievable.”
“She really would.”
“I’m not moving my cat into your apartment.”
“I said you could.”
“And I said I’m not doing it.”
“You haven’t said that yet.”
She stepped closer, anger restoring her balance.
“I am not moving into your apartment. I am not letting you turn my life into some private experiment with better furniture. I am not handing you my mornings, my friends, my cat, my sleep, or whatever else you think you can collect if you make the cage comfortable enough.”
“You think this is about control?” I said.
“I know it is.”
“No. Control would be easier.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Then what is it?”
The question was too direct. I could have lied. I should have. Instead, the truth rose before I could bury it properly. “I dislike not knowing where you are.”
Céline went very still.
“That is not romantic,” she said quietly.
“No.”
“That is not sane.”
“No.”
“And you’re still saying it?”
“Yes.”
Her face changed in a way I did not expect. The anger shifted, unsettled by the nakedness of the admission. She preferred my manipulation because it gave her something to fight. Honesty made the room less stable.
“You don’t get to have me because you’re restless,” she said.
“I know.”
“You don’t get to make me dependent on you just because you don’t like that I have people who love me.”
I said nothing. Her eyes widened slightly. She had found another seam.
“Oh my God.”
“Careful.”
“No.” She stepped back as if seeing the room properly for the first time.
“That’s what this is. Sophia, Anya, Miss Astoria, my mother, even Thad. You don’t just want me away from them because they’re my hiding places. You want to be the only place.”
The words landed between us with astonishing accuracy. I felt something cold shift beneath my ribs.
“You should stop,” I said.
She laughed, and this time there was no humour in it at all.
“Why? Because I’m right?”
“Because you are making yourself sound more intelligent than your choices suggest.”
She flinched.
There. Cruel and deliberate, I hit a nerve.
Necessary, perhaps, because she had come too close to something I was not ready to have named by her mouth.
But the instant the words landed, I regretted them.
Céline’s face closed completely. Not anger now.
Armor. It was remarkable how quickly she could vanish while still standing in front of me.
She gathered her laptop with careful hands.
“I’m leaving.”
“Céline.”
“No.” Her voice was calm now, which was worse.
“You don’t get to wound me because I found the truth before you were ready to admit it.”
I said nothing. She picked up her coat from beside the door and put it on without looking at me. The wet fabric darkened her dress where it touched.
At the elevator, she finally turned back.
“I will finish the proposal. I will stay in your lab. I will do the work because apparently that is the only way to keep what little life I have left from falling apart.” Her voice stayed even, but her eyes were bright.
“But I will not move in here. I will not choose a prettier cage because you’re lonely inside yours. ”
Then the elevator doors opened. She stepped inside. I watched until the doors closed between us.