Chapter Twenty-five #2
“I’ve tried all sorts of things to manipulate you into falling for me. At this point, it’s nearly safe to say it’s occurred against your will.”
“D…”
“Hm?”
“Don’t say that.”
He tilts his face in front of mine. “Is it not true? Do you not believe it to be true?”
“I hated you. Hated you.” I grip the counter, cold granite against my skin. “If you were manipulating me into falling for you, you did a really, really bad job for a really, really long time.”
“Au contraire, I have mercifully been allowed to cultivate exactly the kind of love I crave. An enemies-to-lovers kind. Given my unfortunate personality, anything less than hatred shifting to adoration may not have lasted. You’d have fallen pathetically and gotten over it once I screwed up.
Now, however… Tell me, what could I possibly do wrong that would change your mind? ”
My voice breaks. “You’re…”
“A monster? Yes. You knew that already. Because I’ve showed you. Consistently.”
I…can’t believe this. “You mean…you’ve calculated everything?”
“More or less. Some things didn’t go to plan, but I personally took that as an opportunity to create a better plan.”
“But…”
“Even Junction was part of the plan. You’re welcome to have a look at his, or rather my, burner if you’d like.
It’s in my bedside drawer.” He cups his hand to his mouth, covering his smile in a cage.
“The night ‘he’ approached you, you were supposed to run into my arms, but—as I said—this truly has become the better plan.”
My shoulders slump, and I stand there, cold and stunned. He’s not serious. But of course he is. He hired people to pretend to hire me to assassinate him. He knew the entire time. He risked his life.
For me.
Because…because…because…
He’s insane.
Actually, completely, and utterly insane.
“To what end?” I whisper. “Will you have mercy enough to tell me now?”
“I suppose.” He runs his knuckle over his lips, taking me in like a drug. “You have been such a good patient little toy, haven’t you? I can owe you an explanation now after you’ve done so well in my game.”
My heart pinches, and I lower my gaze.
“It’s because it’s always been obvious, how you are.”
Weak. Pathetic. Frightened. Anxious. Easy to hurt.
Here it is.
The moment.
He’s taken me up as high as I can get; now he’s dropping me so he can watch how pretty I look when I shatter.
The worst part is: he’s not even been discreet about wanting this. He’s told me time and again how he’d like to watch me break. He’s always been a wolf in wolf’s clothing. Blatantly, and clearly, evil. I guess I really have been manipulated perfectly, a doll on puppet strings, dancing to his whim.
In lieu of lifting my chin, he crouches to regain my attention.
Peering up at me, he says, “Your brain has always been a formidable adversary, Azalea. It’s always given you the worst-case scenarios and sent you running with them.
All things considered, I know I’m a pretty rotten scenario.
How you are is as obvious as how I am. We’re both completely unstable.
But I don’t want our future to feel like a worst case waiting to happen.
” His smile vanishes, and he crosses his arms atop his knees, pillowing his chin there.
“I love you. For you. With your brain. With your demons. I’d like to be one of them.
One of the monsters that sticks with you forever.
One of the crazies that fits and feels right.
I don’t want a doubt in your head that this is eternal.
I don’t want that beautiful, cruel brain of yours to ever say you’re too much or too little or too hard or too troublesome for someone like me.
We’re gonna work together against the lies, and to do that, you’re always going to remember this horrible truth.
” Softer than anything I’ve ever seen on his face, he smiles again.
“Malcolm Swallow, your adoring husband, sucks. He deserves no condolences and no accolades. He’s rotten to the core.
But he’d jump off buildings for you anyway.
Nothing matters as much to him as you. Just the way you are.
And he’s done everything to prove it. He’s done everything to bring you right here, to right now.
He’s tramped through madness to make it clear he wants you, dove.
He wants you so badly he’d gladly die to get you.
” When Malcolm straightens up, I follow the sincerity in his eyes.
“We’re the end, dove. You and me. Maybe we’re exactly the horror that your brain has been warning you about.
But now that it’s right in front of you, now that you know you can survive it, what do you have to say? ”
What do I have to say about this?
About tricking me. And tormenting me. And torturing my brain.
About manipulating me. And confronting me. And becoming my monster.
A bigger one than the ones in my head.
The biggest one I have ever dealt with.
What could I possibly say to all that?
“I love you.” The feeling fills my body, leaving nothing else. It’s so much, but it is good, and I can hardly fathom a world without it. Now that it’s sprung forth, it overflows. And it burns. And it blazes.
Calmly, he nods. “Always?”
“Yes.”
“And you know I love you?”
My voice breaks. “I think you’re crazy.”
“Crazy in love with you?”
I’m struggling to wrap my mind around the slim possibility of that. “Even though I’m…”
“Significantly less of a handful than I am?”
I flush.
He chuckles. “Yeah. Of course. Come on.”
Absently, I trail after him and sink into his bed when he pulls the covers down for me. Without touching, he tucks me, then climbs in on his side. I watch him settle, facing me, and I allow my body to give up on illusions of control.
I will live. Or I will die. But if I focus so much on the threat of the latter, I’ll never obtain the former. And what’s the point of being alive if I don’t actually live?
“Talk to me,” he says, so simply.
“I nearly stabbed you,” I tell him.
He smiles. “I know. I thought it was cute.”
“You’re nuts.”
“And you almost stabbed a man.” He tucks his arm up under his head. “We’re pretty perfect together, aren’t we?”
“How did you know we would be?”
“Didn’t. I just fell in love with you. Then I hoped a whole bunch. Then I schemed a whole bunch more.”
Breathing gets easier, even if the breaths become more shallow. “Did you really manipulate me into falling for you?”
“Who knows the extent of the list of my crimes? Do you care if I did so long as you’re loved?”
My head shakes.
“Do you know that you’re loved? Really, really loved? Have I done at all a good job of making you feel how much I love you?”
“You haven’t touched me tonight.”
“I said I wouldn’t.”
“If I were a man…”
“You’d still be cute.”
I mellow, eyeing his smile. “…I’d be interested in things that I don’t know whether or not I’ll ever be able to do. Do you…not care about that?”
“Azalea,” he murmurs, sheathing his hand in the sheet to cup my cheek without touching it. “If you ever want to, we’ll get there, and if you don’t, we won’t.”
My voice strains. “What if I’m never even comfortable kissing you, crow?”
He sighs, and I flinch. Sweetly, he says, “It’s like you’ve immediately forgotten that I’m a train wreck. Poor, poor, horrible Malcolm can’t have kisses. Boo hoo. So what if you never get that comfortable? As if I deserve anything half so lovely.”
“If I love you, I don’t want to treat you in accordance with what you deserve. I want to—”
He cups the sheet to my mouth, silencing me. “Punish me? Could I be so lucky?”
His hand slips away, and I stare.
“I’m messed up,” he says. “Please tell me you got that part. Or else I’m going to start feeling mildly disquieted concerning all the evil plotting I’ve committed under the justification of proving to you that I’m worse. In truth, I could find anything to justify my behavior. That’s just how I am.”
“Mildly disquieted,” I echo.
“Very mildly. It’s part of being worse. Guilt and I don’t spend much time together.”
I can’t stop myself. As my heart squeezes, I smile. “You love me.”
“So much, Azalea. It hit me like it just hit you. So, tell me, if I couldn’t give you anything more than what I already have, would you still love me? Could you even help yourself?”
“No, I don’t think I could.”
“That’s how it is. Tell your brain that.
Lots. Over and over and over. Spiral with it until it’s the only thing left on repeat.
If it were just this…” He lifts his covered hand, and I set my palm against the sheet, letting our fingers match.
“…and nothing more…I would still love you. You would still be my wife. And I would always call you mine. Understood?”
With the peace of those words sinking into my flesh, I close my eyes, tangle our fingers together amid the sheet, and say, “I think…I’m starting to.”