Chapter Forty #2
I can’t deny that it hurts, because it does. It feels like a punch to the gut watching him switch back so quickly.
‘You mean you won’t feel guilty for using me to get yourself off,’ he retorts, savagely. My mouth opens, but he speaks before I can. ‘No, I get it. You needed an escape, and I was stupid enough to fall for it.’
‘How dare you—’
‘I laid my heart down and told you my truth. Well, here’s one more, Ria.
’ He glowers, and I realise I’ve never seen him this angry before.
‘You’re so hellbent on painting me as the villain of your story, but you have no idea what you’re talking about.
You have no clue what monsters lurk outside your door and if it weren’t for me, you’d be dead by now. ’
His words cut into me like a thousand tiny daggers. But his anger only serves to stoke mine. ‘I didn’t paint you as anything. You did that all by yourself, it’s not my fault I saw your true colours for once.’
‘Like I said, you know nothing.’
‘Then feel free to enlighten me!’ I throw my hands up, exasperated. He says he laid his heart down, but something as simple as sharing what’s going on within the walls of this academy is too hard? He claims to care for me, yet this is where he draws the line?
The second he starts shaking his head I retreat, putting distance between us.
‘It’s not that easy,’ he explains.
‘Then make it easy.’ He doesn’t speak, and with a cracked voice I growl at him, ‘You hurt me with one hand and then try to help me with the other. I don’t know what you want from me, Sebastian.’
‘Everything!’ he shouts, his own voice breaking.
He stalks toward me with purposeful strides.
His hands reach for either side of my face, bringing me close to his.
‘I. Want. Everything,’ he demands with a burning intensity in his eyes.
Each enunciated word hits like a strike to my chest. ‘I didn’t want to hurt you, Arianell,’ he says it like a confession. A declaration.
‘Then why did you?’ My voice is small; I’m taken aback by the intensity radiating off him. How were we ripping each other’s clothes off one moment, to screaming at each other and then declaring our feelings the next?
‘Because I thought I could keep you safe if I made you leave.’
My brows furrow in confusion. I pull back from his touch like I’ve been slapped. ‘You what?’
‘I thought if I could convince you that you didn’t belong here, that you’d listen and go back home.
Where it’s safe. I didn’t expect you to be so fucking stubborn.
Every time I pushed, you seemed to dig your heels in deeper and Stars—’ He runs his hands through his hair, causing it to stick up in thirty different directions.
‘Then Harley died and then Moira attacked you and I realised I was wrong. I was so fucking wrong and I’m sorry. ’
‘You … you did all of it to make me leave?’ I ask, trying to wrap my head around everything. How cruel he was during the ceremony. The fight we had when I first met Nicks. Every insult and glare he sent my way. All of it was to make me want to go home?
For my safety?
‘Yes. And I realise how messed up it was, but it was the only way I thought I could protect you.’
‘From what?’ My arms flare wide. ‘Protect me from what, Sebastian?’
‘From ending up like Lukas!’ he shouts. His words hit me like a physical blow, knocking me back a step.
My throat closes around a sound that doesn’t quite make it out. My brother’s name settles like ash in the air between us. Hearing him say it – it’s suffocating.
‘He was my best friend, and this place took him from me. It took him from you too, and the second I saw you in the Grand Hall, trying to hide inside of your robes, I knew I had to do something – anything – to make sure it didn’t take you as well.
’ His fists clench like he’s still holding back more words, and Stars, I want to scream at him to stop holding back on me, because I can take it.
‘That wasn’t your decision to make! My safety isn’t your concern. I knew what I was walking into when I came here.’ I stab a finger at my own chest as my voice raises an octave. ‘I knew people would hate me because of him. It isn’t up to you to decide whether I should be here or not.’
‘So what? I should have just stood back and done nothing?’
‘Yes! Because that’s better than the alternative.’
‘Which is?’
‘Hurting me and making me hate you.’ Emotion clogs my throat.
Because that’s what he did. He made me look at him differently.
He tainted the memories I had of him and replaced them with a person I don’t know.
I thought he might be a safe place for me to fall once I arrived here; I thought out of everyone he would understand the pain I’ve been through and could help me navigate what to do next.
‘Ria.’ His voice falls to a soft whisper that’s almost buried by the wind. But even if it was, I’d know the shape his lips make when he says my name like that.
‘I’ve spent this whole time hating you,’ I tell him honestly.
‘For every cruel word. Every time you’ve looked at me like I don’t matter, like I’m worth nothing.
That’s how you made me feel, Sebastian. Like nothing.
That’s why I don’t want you close, that’s why I’ve pushed you away each time you’ve pried down my walls, because I can’t stop replaying the look you gave me when I was rejected from the gates.
It was just like him—’ My voice dies off.
Him. My father. He looked at me just how my father does each time I failed to bring my magic forth. Like I was an embarrassment to the family. Unworthy.
Sebastian’s face falls. I don’t have to elaborate. He knows who I’m speaking of, he’s seen it firsthand. A few kisses and an orgasm after a near death doesn’t wipe that kind of betrayal away.
Though in the moment it felt like it could.
It felt like his lips and tongue could kiss and lick all my wounds, inside and out, and I’d be cleansed.
Made brand new and moulded in whatever form he desired.
And that scares me, which is why I need space to gather my thoughts, to decide how I feel about this revelation.
Because at the moment I don’t know if learning it was all a fabrication – the way he spoke to me, the taunts and jabs that were just a ploy to get me to leave – is better than if it were all true and he did, in fact, hate me.
I also don’t know where this leaves him and Lukas.
And while I know I should be questioning him about it to learn more, I know to my very core that I can’t handle whatever his answer might be right now.
I’m not equipped to hear it, not yet anyway.
There’s still a lingering wave of guilt on standby, ready and waiting to swallow me whole for my own treacherous thoughts from earlier.
Where I started to blame Lukas, started to harbour anger for him when I know deep down it’s not his fault.
None of this is his fault. I just needed something – or someone – to blame for my own misfortune.
To make me feel less shitty about myself for a moment.
‘I need to get back,’ I say and walk away, putting distance between us.