Chapter 39 #3
How could I make him realize that it would help him if he started writing again?
“Why did you ever stop?”
It took him a few seconds to look me in the eye.
“Your father financed my studies at Maplecrest,” nodding slowly, I tried to understand how he and my father had ever come into contact. “On one condition. I would never write again.”
What?
“He didn’t.”
Of course Davian wasn’t lying. That sounded like something my controlling father would do.
“He said it would distract me, that it had ruined my life up to then, and that it was a pointless waste of effort. I fought against accepting it for months, but he was right.” Davian shook his head.
“When I gave it up, I got my life back on track. I became a lawyer, I was able to give my daughter a good life…”
“Don't you think you've suffered enough?” I looked at him desperately. “Lara is grown up. And my father never had the right to tell you what...”
“I owe Joseph. I still owe him a hell of a lot.”
Something tortured in his expression mingled with something frustrated.
“You don't owe that man anything,” I said with growing anger toward my father. “He manipulated you. He controlled you. That man never wanted what's best for you, Davian! Never!”
He turned away, squeezed his eyes shut, and rubbed the outer ends of his eyebrows with his thumb and index finger.
“You don't want to admit it. You're repressing it. But it's obvious.”
“I'm trying to process what happened over the weekend.” He raised both hands, looking at me with reddened eyes. “Give me time. Please. You know I'm on your side.”
His words made my eyes glaze over.
He was desperate. Because of me. That had never been my intention.
I pressed my finger on the table in front of me, leaning lightly against the edge.
“I don't want you to be on my side for me. I want you to see which side is better for you in this life. I want you to write again...”
The fact that I was on this side resembled more a dangerous coincidence.
Davian approached the table, propped himself up on it, and looked at me desperately.
“Why is it so important to you that I write again when you know what it does to us when we lose ourselves too deeply in it?”
“We all die eventually. But what would you prefer?”
I automatically propped myself up on the table as well and leaned forward, looking at him intently.
“A tedious, lifeless, sluggish existence with a constant feeling of inner emptiness, or a short, intense, intuitive life in which you explore every possibility, make the most of every opportunity and choose those things that are truly important to you?”
I wanted the best for him. And yet I was aware that my madness was not healthy, even if it made me feel alive.
Maybe that was what I wanted. To see life in his eyes.
Davian stared directly into my eyes before his gaze wandered downward. Only now did I realize that there was only a hand's length between us.
Poison Ivy
Hemi Moore
“The latter has something nostalgic about it.” He reached out his hand, placed two fingers under my chin, and lifted it slightly, causing me to inhale sharply. “You have something nostalgic about you.”
Something challenging settled in his gaze, something dark that made every hair on my body stand on end.
His fingers on my chin were my undoing.
“You could write a book about it,” I whispered, realizing too late how my tone mirrored his gaze. “You could write about everything.”
For just a fraction of a second, my eyebrows rose almost unnoticeably.
Immediately, something settled in his ink eyes that nothing could have prepared my body for. An emotion that threw me completely off balance.
Desire.
Hormones exploded in my stomach. And his gaze... wandered uninhibitedly to my lips, causing heat to rush through my entire body.
“Everything that moves you,” I whispered with a trembling voice. “That keeps your eyes open at night.”
His lips parted slightly and he sucked in air almost imperceptibly before finding his way back to my eyes.
“That tears your mind apart.”
He exhaled almost inaudibly.
“Things... you try not to think about.”
My head was empty. There was only Davian in front of me. His closeness, his trembling fingers under my chin... And yet I felt the wetness between my thighs.
When he pulled his hand away and straightened, his jaw tightening, I knew I had gone too far. As I always did.
Disillusionment settled over all the pulsing emotions that only Davian could evoke in me.
“You should leave now.”
His voice gave away how hard he was right now, and I found it difficult not to smirk provocatively at him, while at the same time wanting to sink into the ground.
That’s Lara’s dad.
Everything about this was wrong. And yet I felt alive playing with fire.
Before I could do something rash, I slung my bag over my shoulder, but looked back at Davian one last time.
“If you give writing a chance, I'll give these debates a chance.”
I didn't need an answer. His overwhelmed look said it all.
He would write.
Please don't read me.
I haven't been read for far too long.
– Leaking Batteries Diary