Chapter 15 #3
Stomping back into my apartment after a long day, trying to catch up on lectures, I whipped off my shoes, grabbed a pack of jelly snakes from the cupboard, and dropped onto the sofa next to Mortimer.
I patted my leg once, hoping that the little hellion himself would at least do me the courtesy of letting me pet him, but he sauntered over to Thallor, settling in beside him and placing a paw on his leg.
When I scoffed in response, all he did was roll his eyes at me.
I wasn’t sure if it was possible for a cat to roll its eyes, but I swear I saw him do it.
Thallor clicked a few buttons on my remote before pulling up The Breakfast Club and pressing play.
I looked up at him with a confused look, but he simply shrugged at me.
“I’m not sure you were in the right frame of mind to show me last time.
And I’ve come to realise I quite enjoy your running commentary through films.”
Try as I might to try and stop it, the smile that stretched across my face was wide enough to make my cheeks ache, but it was worth it to see the smile reflected back at me.
One that I saw so rarely. One that I felt was just for me.
I’d slowly been introducing Thallor to John Hughes and his brilliance, in addition to a few other films that came out around the same time that I simply adored.
I was convinced that he had protested for the sake of protesting, but after the first two, Say Anything and Sixteen Candles, it had become something of a routine for us.
I would tell him fun facts, titbits of behind-the-scenes knowledge, and Thallor would complain about how little humans actually communicated before stating that ‘these films would be a lot shorter if people just said how they feel.’
As if it were that easy. But, of course, it wasn’t as simple as that.
Or maybe it was. But when I looked at him, I felt all those messy and complex feelings I knew I’d never utter aloud.
Because it was always the simplest, most obvious feelings that were the hardest to share.
Like Claire hiding behind her stereotype or Bender acting tough on the outside because ultimately, he didn’t see himself as good enough, people kept their emotions close to their chest out of a misplaced fear of being misunderstood.
Or worse, because feelings make us vulnerable.
How would you react if I told you how I feel?
How would you react if I said I put off making wishes because I like having you around?
How would you react if I told you I was desperate not to feel those feelings because I knew they’d break me in the end?
‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ by Simple Minds echoed through my living room a little while later.
I looked up at Thallor with a smile on my face, leaning into that fuzzy feeling I got in my stomach after watching one of those films. But the look he was giving me was one that replaced that fuzzy feeling with hundreds and hundreds of butterflies.
They took flight inside me, fluttering about in waves of nervous energy that I needed to combat the only way I knew how.
“I hope Jude feels like that about me after our date,” I blurted out, averting my gaze so I didn’t have to see the shock on Thallor’s face…and the ghost of hurt I saw there too.
But even keeping my eyes plastered on the television, I could feel his reaction.
I could feel his body tense next to mine.
It felt like a bucket of ice-cold, glacial water had been dumped on both of us, pulling us from that dangerous space we both seemed to linger in these days.
“You’re not still going, are you?” he said quietly.
I kept my eyes focused on the credits that rolled across the screen.
Going against my better judgement, I looked at him when he didn’t say anything else, the flickers of shock still clear on his face.
Why did he have to do that? Why did he always have to look at me like that?
Like I was the only person in the world.
It was almost as if I could see my own longing reflected back at me.
I let out an exasperated sigh, trying to push the idea of me being special to Thallor to the back of my mind. Because I’m not. I’m just me.
“I guess so,” I said as I settled in, taking the remote from him and looking for another film, and ignoring the death glare that Mortimer was giving me. This is for the best, right?
“I figured a distraction might be good.” A distraction from everything that’s happened. A distraction from the feelings inside me that I am struggling to ignore. A distraction from you.
“Right, a distraction,” Thallor repeated, nodding his head a little too robotically. “Well, he would be an idiot not to.”
“Huh?”
And I couldn’t help but smile as he motioned, punching the air before letting his back settle back across the sofa.
And that was the problem. It was in all the small things Thallor did.
In all the small inconsequential actions that wormed their way into my chest and refused to leave.
Because it was those little details–the small moments made just for us that I held close to my heart–that would leave me broken in the end.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” I said before grabbing the last gummy snake from his hand and biting into it, grinning.
He didn’t say anything for a moment; he just let his gaze settle on mine.
I begged my cheeks not to blush. But there was something in the pink that highlighted his high cheekbones and the boyish look etched across his face, contrasting to the vibrant red of his hair, that tested everything within me
“Only when it comes to you,” he murmured before turning back to the television and settling in as the opening credits for another film played in front of us.
And just like that, we settled back into our quiet routine. One where I was just Quincey and he was just Thallor. One where nothing bad had happened to me, and he hadn’t ridden in on a horse to save me. One where the princess didn’t fall in love with the knight. That was what I told myself anyway.
Sometimes when I tried to get to sleep, I’d see flashes of memories that were dark and scary.
Memories that would pull me back to that terrifying place until I wasn’t sure what was real and what was not.
And whilst I hated those feelings being inside me, I also knew they were enveloped by something warmer.
Something that saw the broken, chipped off pieces of my soul and held them gently.
Something that saw my heart, the mass of dirt and ash and rubble that it was.
But out of that rubble emerged something brighter.
Something the cynic in me hadn’t thought possible.
It awoke a fire in me that, as much as I tried, I couldn’t ignore.
Like his hair.
Like his eyes.
It burned red.