Chapter 39 #2
She turned to me, eyes rimmed in pale pink. “Maybe not. But you’re still human, and I can see through your anger now.” She set her chin in a stubborn way, one that told me not to argue with her.
I didn’t.
Instead, I stood up.
“I’m going to go for a run. Dante said there’s a path in the trees over by the house. I’ll see you later.”
Once I reached the edge of the trees, I took off. I roamed this trail years ago. It goes through the trees, then onto a hidden path that circles the lake and makes a loop back to the house.
Despite being a loop, it was long and stretched for miles.
The woods swallowed me whole by the third step, the world filtering instantly to pine sap, rot, and the low hush of air pushing through the needles overhead.
My body fought the cold, muscles refusing to loosen, lungs straining against the armor of my chest. I ran until my pulse drowned out everything. The memory of her face, the tightness in my gut, the shame humming in my teeth.
With every stride, my mind tried to shake out the same set of memories.
Amelia in the water, her small fists beating against the cold, every moment I’d ever seen her afraid of me, every time she’d forgiven me, even when I’d given her no reason to. It was a loop, a punishment, a treadmill that never let up.
I turned onto the smaller path, legs burning, feet hammering the frostbitten earth. The world here was stripped down. I could let myself dissolve into the afterimage of my own violence.
A branch snapped back and clawed my cheek, but I barely felt it over the raw ache in my chest.
I picked up speed and tried to outrun what I already knew. That I wanted her more than I wanted to change, more than I wanted anything. That I’d hurt her again, eventually, even if I swore I wouldn’t.
The trail arched towards the lake, the water flat and empty, the sky low and mean. I stopped, bracing my hands on my knees, sucking in air that felt more like broken glass than oxygen.
I wanted to scream, to break something, to tear open my own skin just to see if I was still real. Instead, I stood there, hunched and shaking, feeling the animal inside me snarl against its cage.
The voice in my head told me to keep running, to stay gone, to spare her the mess of loving someone who was just a shed snakeskin of anger and need. I almost turned around and did it.
It would be easy. I could just keep going, circle the lake, walk the highway out of Pathosbury forever, and let her have the peace she said she wanted.
The only thing that stopped me was the echo of Amelia’s voice, the way she’d said I wasn’t the villain anymore. The way she’d sat next to me, close enough for her cold foot to knock mine under the table.
I crumpled to the ground, fists filled with mud and dead grass, the taste of iron in my mouth. I’d spent most of my life pretending that wanting things was weakness, that needing anyone meant you were a mark.
But I wanted her. I wanted her so fucking bad I could barely get air in my lungs.
After a few hours, I limped back toward the cabin. The wind coming off the lake was brutal, but it felt right. I let it batter me, let it strip away everything but the ache.
Even from a hundred yards out, I could see the warm glow from the windows, Amelia’s silhouette moving through the kitchen.
She was bent over the stove, shoulders hunched, hair tucked behind one ear. I stood in the shadow outside, watching her scrape the bottom of a pan with a wooden spoon, lips pursed in concentration.
I pressed my fist to my mouth and waited for the heat in my chest to either die down or incinerate the rest of me.
I hated how much I needed her. I hated how I couldn’t even walk into a room without checking where she was, that every surface of my mind had her fingerprints pressed into it. I hated that she made me want to be better, when all I’d ever learned was how to be worse.
Inside, Dante was sprawled on the couch, eyes closed, hands folded over his stomach like he was sleeping off a hangover. He barely moved when I came in, just lifted one eyelid and grunted.
Amelia straightened, sensing me behind her. She didn’t say anything, but I could feel her eyes tracking me as I went to the fridge for a beer.
I stood there with the bottle in my hand, not opening it, just using the cold to numb the tremor in my grip. I felt her come up behind me. Close but not touching. I could hear her breathing, high and tight.
I wanted to turn, to crush her against the fridge and kiss her until she forgot every bad thing I’d ever done, but I held still, waiting for her to make the next move.
“You’re bleeding,” she said softly. She reached and touched my cheekbone, her thumb gentle and tentative, like she was afraid I'd snap at the contact. I let her. The pad of her finger was warm, leaving a smear of something clean where it traced the line of blood just under my eye.
"Shit. Sorry," she said, and pulled her hand back, but I caught her wrist before she could step away.
"Don't," I said, holding her there, her pulse thrumming under my grip. I stared at her, willing her not to break eye contact, willing her to see that this was me trying. Not just to be better, but to let myself want her, to let myself be seen.
She swallowed, the line of her throat working as she held my gaze. Then, in a voice so soft it was barely even there, she said, "Let me clean it."
Amelia led me to the cramped bathroom, her fingers still caught in mine. She flicked the light on, the dim bulb haloing her in sickly yellow. The door shut behind us.
I sat on the edge of the tub while she rummaged in the medicine cabinet for a first-aid kit, her every movement deliberate, like she was afraid of making the wrong move and setting off a landmine.
She knelt in front of me, legs folded, the hem of her sweatshirt riding up to expose a crescent of pale skin at her waist. She dabbed the cut with a wad of cotton. I watched her face, the set of her jaw, the concentration in her brow.
"You don't have to," I started, but she cut me off.
"I want to," she said. Her hands were so delicate, like the gentleness of flower petals.
She pressed the gauze to my cheekbone, then leaned back to inspect her handiwork. Her face was inches from mine, eyes gone wide and star-bright, and I could feel her breath ghosting over my lips.
I tried to look away, to find some anchor in the peeling wallpaper or the rusted faucet, but her eyes wouldn’t let me go.
She reached up, fingers trembling just a little, and brushed a strand of hair from my forehead. “You don’t make it easy, you know,” she whispered, so close I could have counted the freckles on her nose.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding, and before I could think better of it, I reached for her. My hand found the curve of her jaw, thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone.
For a second, she just stared at me, unreadable, like she was waiting for the punchline of a joke only I could tell.
I kissed her.
It wasn’t planned. Wasn’t even really a choice, more like an inevitability, a fuse burning down all day to this one, brief explosion.
Her lips were cold at first, then warming, opening beneath mine. She made a soft sound in her throat, halfway between surprise and relief, and then she was kissing me back, hands flying up to knot in my shirt, pulling me closer.
It was messy and a little desperate. She clung to me with a fierceness that almost scared me, almost, because I wanted it just as much, maybe more.
I was clumsy with need, mouth awkward and hungry, but she met me move for move, her fingers slipping into my hair, scratching hard at my scalp the way she must’ve always wanted to do.
My hands went to her waist. I wanted to say her name, but I was busy memorizing the way her lips fit against mine.
I sank down to the tile, pulling her with me, until she was on my lap while I sat against the tub.
I held her there, the weight of her thighs was warm, the taste of her mouth both foreign and so frighteningly familiar that I wanted to howl.
She pressed into me. Her body not quite yielding, not quite resisting, as if she too was stunned by the violence of her own wanting.
I couldn’t stop, not even if the house caught fire, not even if Dante himself broke down the door to drag us apart.
After a few moments, the kiss turned to a deep slowness. She opened for me, and I met her there, matching the rhythm, letting her set the pace even as my hands mapped the tense slope of her ribs through the fabric of the borrowed sweatshirt.
Her hands slid down my neck, thumbs bracketing my jaw, and I had to close my eyes against it because if I didn’t, I’d say something stupid, something that would ruin the fragile, golden now of this moment.
I let my instincts take over, the old muscle memory of wanting but never having, and I kissed her until I was dizzy, until my lungs burned, until I forgot that I was supposed to be holding back.
Her breath shivered out of her, a soft moan caught against my tongue as she shifted on my lap, pressing against my groin, which was hardening with each second that drifted by.
I felt her shift again, cautiously, as if she was savoring the feeling of my hardness, like she was hungry for it, yet hesitant on crossing that line.
I couldn’t help but groan at the friction.
I let my hands slide up to cradle her face, thumbs brushing her cheekbones as I pulled back just enough to see her.
Flushed, lips swollen, eyes half-lidded. The bathroom's harsh light caught in her irises, turning them to liquid emerald.
Something primal and possessive roared through my blood as I took in her parted lips, the shallow rise and fall of her chest.
Without speaking, I reclaimed her mouth, harder this time, all restraint evaporating like morning mist.
She shifted in my lap again, more deliberate, and the friction against my hardness sent lightning coursing through my veins.
I groaned, deep and guttural, the sound vibrating between us as my hands gripped her hips, guiding her movement against me.