Chapter 75
Aurora's heart sank.
Not the usual flip she felt around him.
Not the familiar rush.
This was different.
Heavy. Cold. Dropping somewhere deep in her chest.
Her fingers loosened against his shirt slowly. She hadn't even realized she was still holding onto him.
"W-what...?" she whispered.
Her voice sounded small. Foreign.
"What do you mean...?"
Leonard didn't move.
"What makes you think you've fallen in love with me?" he asked calmly. "What exactly is blinding you like this? What do you think this is?"
Her eyes widened slightly.
That last sentence.
What do you think this is?
It hit harder than the rest.
She stepped back slowly, her arms falling from around him. The space between them suddenly felt too wide.
"What are you saying, Ren...?" she asked, her voice unsteady. "I literally just told you-"
"Noelle." He cut her off.
His tone wasn't loud.
But it stopped her.
"Don't confuse what this is," he continued.
"Don't turn it into something else."
Her chest tightened.
She took another step back.
Now she was fully out of his reach.
"Leonard..." she said slowly, her brows pulling together. "You better make it clear what exactly you mean."
Silence stretched.
He watched her.
Completely unreadable.
"You think this is love?" he finally said.
Aurora's throat went dry.
"Yes," she answered. Softer now. But still firm.
"I think I-"
"You don't."
The words landed flat.
Sharp.
Final.
She blinked.
"What?"
"You don't love me," he repeated calmly.
Her heart dropped again.
"And you definitely don't understand me."
That one hurt.
She shook her head slowly. "You don't get to tell me what I feel."
"I do when you're wrong."
Her eyes flashed.
"Wrong?" she repeated.
"You're reacting," he said. "You're emotional. You're overwhelmed. You confuse intensity with love."
Each word felt like a quiet blade.
Aurora stared at him. "You kissed me," she said.
He didn't react.
"You held me. You climbed my window. You touched me like..." her voice weakened slightly, "like I mattered."
Still nothing.
"You saved me," she continued. "You keep showing up. You-"
"I never said I loved you."
The room went quiet.
Aurora's lips parted.
That one... that one actually hurt.
Badly.
"You let me believe..." she started.
"I never said it," he repeated.
Her chest rose and fell unevenly.
"Then what is this?" she whispered.
Leonard's eyes stayed on hers.
"Attachment," he said. "Obsession. Curiosity. Maybe even desire."
A pause.
"But love?" He shook his head once. "No."
Aurora felt like the ground tilted.
Her fingers curled slowly at her sides.
"You're lying," she whispered.
"Am I?"
"Yes."
"Then prove it," he said.
She froze.
"How?" she asked.
"Tell me what you love about me."
She opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Leonard watched her carefully.
"You don't even know me," he continued quietly. "You know moments. Touches.
Looks. Chaos."
He stepped closer.
"That's not love, Noelle. That's attraction wrapped in adrenaline."
Her eyes burned.
"That's not true," she said weakly.
"Then say it."
Silence.
Her mind scrambled.
His eyes didn't leave hers.
Seconds stretched.
And for the first time since she confessed...
Aurora hesitated.
Leonard saw it.
And something dark flickered behind his eyes.
He leaned closer slightly.
"See?" he murmured.
That broke something.
Her jaw tightened.
"You're unbelievable," she said, her voice shaking. "You make me feel everything and then stand there telling me it's nothing."
"I never said it's nothing."
"Then what is it?!"
This time her voice cracked.
Real emotion slipping through.
Leonard looked at her for a long second.
Then he said quietly,
"It's dangerous."
The air shifted.
Aurora's breathing slowed slightly.
He stepped closer again.
"And you shouldn't fall in love with me."
That one...
That one landed differently.
Not rejection.
A warning.
And suddenly the tension changed.
Aurora's fists hit his chest.
"Then why?!" Her voice broke through everything she'd been holding.
"Why do you never let me be?! Why don't you let me handle things myself?
Why are you always there to save me?!" She hit him again.
"Why did you stop me from drowning in that pool?
! Why did you keep climbing my window?! Why did you force me to dance with you? ! Why did you say I'm bound to you?!"
Her hands kept coming.
"Why did you make those girls kneel in front of everyone for me?
! I tried so hard to push you away! I wanted nothing to do with you!
" Another hit. Harder. "Why did you stay with me on that rooftop when I was falling apart?
! Why did you try to tattoo me?! Why did you bring me here? !"
She was shaking now.
"Answer me! Give me a fucking answer!"
Leonard caught her hands.
Both of them. Mid-air.
He held them still.
His eyes found hers.
And then he said it.
The words left his mouth calm and quiet
and devastating.
"Because broken girls are easy to keep around. And you were the most broken one in the room."
Aurora's whole body stilled.
Her hand moved before she could stop it.
The slap landed hard.
His face turned with it. The sound sharp in the quiet room.
He didn't move after. Didn't reach up.
Didn't react.
Just stood there.
Aurora's hand dropped slowly to her side.
Her chest heaved.
"I..." Her voice came out hollow. "I can't believe I'm crying because of you." She laughed, but it didn't sound like a laugh.
"Because of the same gender I promised to loathe until I died." She shook her head slowly, tears falling without permission. "I can't believe I've been this foolish."
Leonard said nothing.
"The first person..." she whispered. "The first guy I ever lo-" She stopped herself. Chuckled painfully. "What have I done?"
She looked around the room like the walls might give her an answer.
"I proved you right." The realization hit her face like cold water.
"I proved you right. You won. They all won.
Everyone who ever said you were using me, adding me to the list of girls you've screwed, girls you've played...
" She clapped slowly in his face. "They were right.
You were right."
Her voice was rising again.
"You took your time with me, didn't you?! Everyone was surprised. I saw it. I heard it. 'Oh she's charming him. Oh she's probably just another number. She'll fade.' They were right!!!" Her breath hitched.
"You used everything. My pain. My trauma. Our so-called childhood strings. You used all of it. You're so smart." She laughed again, broken. "What have I done? Auri what have you done? You bitch. You let yourself fall for him."
She finally looked at him.
He was looking back at her now. Eyes dead. Empty.
"What was I expecting from those eyes?"
Her tears fell hot and fast. "Why did I think those eyes made of ice would ever look at me with what I feel for you-" She stopped. Corrected herself viciously. "What
I thought I felt for you."
She exhaled shakily.
"I must commend you. You gave me first class treatment.
Your villa. Everyone said I was the first you did all that for.
And in return you got exactly what you wanted.
" Her voice cracked completely. "Me. My body.
You literally devoured me in that pool, you bastard.
I let you see me. I let you use me. I let you touch me. I let you-"
She stopped.
Pressed her lips together hard.
"Fuck." She laughed through her tears.
"Auri, you're actually crying. For a guy."
More tears.
She was shaking visibly now.
"Noelle."
"Shut up." Her voice came out like a blade. "Don't you dare. What do you even want to say? What?!"
She looked around the room suddenly. Frantically.
"Where's my bag?"
She started moving. Pulling at things.
Checking surfaces. Muttering under her breath like the words couldn't stay inside anymore.
"Fool. Auri you're such a fool..."
She left the room.
Down the stairs. Through the living room.
Past Onyx, Leonard's tiger, sitting somewhere in the shadows. She didn't even flinch. Didn't even look.
Outside, the night air hit her face and she stopped for one second.
Dark.
It was completely dark outside.
It was still late afternoon when she collapsed at college. Which meant she'd been knocked out for hours. She'd been here for hours.
She kept walking.
Almost passed his car before she saw it.
Her bag. Passenger seat.
She yanked the handle. It opened. She grabbed her bag, pulled out her phone, and called her driver immediately.
He was already there. Standing just outside the gate like he'd been waiting.
She walked toward him.
"Mr. Leona-"
"Save it."
She reached into her bag and held out money. "Get a cab. I'll drive myself."
"Miss-"
"Didn't you fucking hear me?!" Her voice tore through the quiet. "I'll drive myself!"
She got in. Slammed the door. The engine roared and she pulled out fast, headlights cutting through the dark.
Everything replayed.
The confession. His face. His voice. The way he looked at her like she was confused. Like she was wrong. Like she didn't know her own heart.
She hit the steering wheel.
The car pushed faster.
Her mind wouldn't stop. Every moment. Every touch. Every time she'd let him close. Every wall she'd let crumble.
She was going too fast and she knew it and she didn't care.
Then the puppy ran into the road.
And the girl chasing it.
Aurora slammed the brakes.
The car screeched. Her body jerked forward hard against the seatbelt.
Silence.
The girl grabbed the puppy and stumbled back off the road, heart clearly hammering.
Aurora shoved the door open and stood half out of the car, fury still raw on her face.
"What kind of bitch runs into the road like a brainless child?!"
"What kind of bitch drives like a psycho?!" The girl shot back immediately, clutching the puppy to her chest. "You almost killed me!"
"You almost killed yourself!"
Aurora got back in. Slammed the door. Sped off.
"Lunatic!" The girl's voice followed the car down the road.
She looked down at the puppy in her arms and exhaled hard. "So much for going for a walk. Did you have to run into the road like that? I almost lost you, Sky." She shook her head, turning back the way she came. "I hate New York. So many mad people."
Inside the car, Aurora told herself the tears had stopped.
They hadn't.
Her vision was blurring. She blinked hard, gripping the wheel tighter, jaw set against everything trying to pour out of her.
"Fuck, Auri. What have you done?" she whispered. "What have you done? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. He used you and you let him."
She drove faster.
Beating lights. Cutting lanes. Not caring.
She just knew one thing.
She was disappointed in herself.
And she hated herself more now than she ever had before.
★
[RAVEN MANSION]
Xander knocked twice and walked in.
Gemma and Melvin were still awake. The kind of awake that had nothing to do with choice.
"What is actually being done about Zane?" Xander asked.
Melvin looked at him slowly. "Xan..."
"I'm not doing the back and forth tonight."
He stepped fully inside, jaw set. "Years. It's been years. What is being done?"
"Everything was done," Melvin said.
"Everything that could be."
"And he's still free. He definitely is."
Melvin didn't answer.
"He's still out there," Xander continued, his voice dropping lower, harder. "Breathing. Living. Probably watching her right now. The same man who..." He stopped.
Exhaled through his nose. "And Aurora is somewhere carrying a life she doesn't even fully know is hers."
Gemma's hands twisted slowly in her lap.
"Xander." Her voice was fraying at the edges. "Please. She's lives in this house. She'll be home soon.You need to lower-"
"It's not fair." His voice cracked slightly.
"She's my cousin. She walks around every single day not knowing what was done to her. Not knowing what she survived. And Zane gets to just-"
"You think we don't know it's not fair?!"
Gemma's voice finally broke loose, wet and raw and exhausted. "You think I don't lie awake every night knowing? You think I don't look at my daughter's face every morning and feel it all over again?!"
Melvin reached for her hand.
She pulled away.
She was already unraveling.
Down the hallway, Elara's door opened softly.
She appeared at the frame, hair messy, eyes reading the room immediately. She looked at Xander. At Gemma. At Melvin's tight jaw.
"What's happening?" she asked quietly.
"Go back Lara," Xander said.
"Don't..."
"Lara." Melvin's voice was low. Final.
She didn't move.
She could feel it. The same weight she'd been carrying since that night in the hallway with the jug of water trembling in her hands.
"Is it Zane?" she asked. "Is he still out there?"
"We don't know," Gemma whispered.
"Then what do we do?" Elara stepped inside now, voice rising slightly. "We just keep pretending? We keep watching her live like this while he could be anywhere, doing anything. Psychos like that don't give up, you know. And he could even be watchi-"
"WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO
ELARA?!" Gemma stood up.
The room went sharp.
Tears were streaming down her face now, freely, devastatingly.
"What do you want me to do?! Go back in time?! Undo it?! I can't! I can't undo what that monster did to my child! I can't undo the night he raped her! I can't undo the coma, the silence, the two months she couldn't speak, the memory we had to wipe just so she could survive being alive!"
Her voice shattered on the last word.
"I can't undo any of it! All I can do is stand here every single day and pray she never remembers and pray he never comes back and pray that somehow, somehow she gets to be okay-"
"Mum."
The word came from the doorway.
Not Elara.
Not Xander.
Everyone turned.
Aurora stood at the entrance of the hallway.
Bag on her shoulder. Eyes already raw and swollen from crying.
Her eyes were fixed on Gemma.
Not moving.
Not blinking.
"What did you just say?" she whispered.
The room didn't breathe.
"Auri..." Melvin moved toward her.
Her hand came up. Stopping him without touching him.
Her eyes never left her mother.
"He... he did.... He did what....?" Her voice was barely sound. Just air. Just the shape of words.
"Z-Zane... did what....?"
Gemma's face collapsed completely.
"Auri baby...."
"He raped me." It wasn't a question this time.
It was the ground disappearing.
Her bag dropped from her shoulder.
It hit the floor.
And Aurora stood there in the hallway of her own home, with her mother's tears confirming every word, and the world she had been living in quietly dismantling itself around her feet.
Her head banged sharply, like she was hit on the head with a log of wood. She grabbed her head. Blinking away the tears blocking her vision.
Memories that once came in fragments, blurred. They slowly came together.
Her lips parted.
Nothing came out.
Her knees buckled.
TBC . . .