Chapter Forty-Seven Damion #2
“It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. It is the east, and Juliet is the sun,” she whispered.
Her poem of self-preservation.
“Julia.” I said it quietly, afraid of scaring her off.
Terrified of her running off and disappearing forever.
She lifted her head and turned toward me, and her tear-streaked face broke my heart.
“Please,” I said, slowly walking closer. “Please let me explain.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head.
“Please,” I begged, trying to swallow around the lump in my throat. “I know we can work this out if you’ll—”
“Seriously?” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me like I was out of my mind.
I was panicked, desperate to get her to stop looking at me like that. I took a couple of steps, needing to be closer, and said, “The past few weeks, since Nebraska, it has been… like, fucking perfection, right? I don’t know how, but it’s been—”
“A lie, Damion,” she said, shaking her head.
She blinked fast, amber eyes full of thoughts that I couldn’t decipher, thoughts I needed to tap into.
I swallowed down the fear as she continued watching me like I was a stranger. “I know this looks so bad, Jules, but you have to know how I feel.”
She shook her head, lips pressing together. I could fix this, right? Make her understand.
I had to.
“My parents were wrong about your family, but I figured that out a long time ago. The only reason I haven’t told you everything is because I didn’t know how, but you have to believe me that everything between us is one hundred percent real.”
“It’s not.” She said it matter-of-factly, shaking her head.
“No, but it is,” I argued, stepping closer.
She took a step back, then two, like she needed distance. “Stop it.”
“I can’t because I can’t let you go, Julia,” I confessed, my chest burning as I looked into her eyes. “I know I sound nuts, but it’s the truth. I don’t want to be without you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Damion—”
“God, that was ineloquent, right?” I said with a laugh, even though nothing was funny. I felt this close to tears because please God, help me, I couldn’t get her to stop looking at me like that.
Like she felt nothing. And the idea of my Julia being numb, of not feeling, was devastating. Because I felt every fucking thing when I was with her.
“But I’m so damn deeply into all of you,” I confessed, my heart pounding in my chest. “Like, head-over-heels entranced by the person you are.”
Her eyebrows scrunched together and she bit down on her lower lip, which fueled me. Made me believe she was feeling something.
I stepped closer, gently setting my hands on her shoulders, and she didn’t move away from me, praise Jesus.
“I love that you can drive a stick shift through a goddamn cornfield, and I love that you came gunning for me when you thought I’d stolen your wallet,” I said in a rush, my brain giving me a montage of so many Julia moments.
“I’m obsessed with how funny you are and the way you tried to find accessible poetry for your boomer bodega friend.
You leash-trained your cat and you eat french fries every day.
You are the most interesting person I know, the breath of fresh air that I need to breathe when all my life I’ve felt suffocated.
I might’ve fucked up by being too much of a coward to tell you about Uncle Remi, but you can’t give up on us because I was an idiot. ”
She made a noise in her throat that I couldn’t translate, and she crossed her arms protectively over her chest. Those eyes stayed trained on me as she stood there, but she said nothing.
I needed her to say something.
She stared up at me, her expression unreadable.
Tell me what you’re thinking, Julia.
“Say something,” I begged. “Tell me—”
“It is unbelievable that you think I care how you feel about me right now,” she said, narrowing her eyes as she brushed my hands away from her shoulders.
“That ‘us’ matters at all. God, Damion, your parents are suing my parents, accusing them of fraud and theft, and you think I give a damn about your feelings?”
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
“They don’t have anything, though,” I said, wanting to reassure her, needing to reassure her so we could move on to getting everything back on track with us. I’d just confessed, to her and to myself, that I was fucking in love with her. “There isn’t any proof. The suit won’t stick.”
“Oh, well, if you say so,” she said bitterly, rolling her eyes. “My parents were just served legal documents in the middle of a ball, in front of everyone, but as long as you think—”
“Jules—”
“You know that you’re no different from the rest of them, right?” she said in disgust. Her voice was raspy when she glared up at me and said, “You like to think you’re this rebel who does whatever he wants, but Damion, you’re just better at pretending.”
Ouch. I swallowed and wanted to throw up as she glared like I was the world’s biggest disappointment.
“Underneath it all, you are nothing but a Skin. A Tom,” she said, giving her head a shake. I felt gut-punched by the hate in her eyes, but that was nothing compared to the pain when she ripped my heart out.
She looked me in the eye and said, “I bet your father is so proud.”