Kasien （Age 18） #2
I stare up at the sky, jaw tightening.
“You still haven’t told me about the rest of the day.”
“Aren’t you a little insistent? I also want to ask you something.”
“Okay,” I exhale quietly. “I’m sorry. I’m homeschooled. It’s weird, I know. Let’s get back to your day.”
“Wait, it’s not weird, it’s interesting. How does that work?”
Oh God, please, no.
“How tired are you?”
“A lot. Why?”
“Then you should sleep,” I say, forcing my voice into something steady.
A small pause.
“Why did you call me, Kasien?”
Kasien.
The way she says it—slow, soft—it hits harder than it should, as if I’m hearing the name for the first time. I close my eyes and take a breath.
“Because I wanted to hear you. But,”
Fuck it. No point holding back now.
“But?”
“But now it’s not quite enough,” I murmur under my breath, a slow smile settling in as I tilt my head slightly, like I’m testing how far I can push her.
My fingers press to the bridge of my nose, eyes still closed as I push through it—“Can I come?”
Please say yes.
Silence. Too long. I knew it. Too much.
“I’m sorry,” I start, already pulling back—
“No, come.”
I freeze. There’s something in her voice—she’s smiling. I can hear it.
Fuck.
I get up and realize I’m still just in a towel.
“I’ll be there in ten.”
“Okay,” she whispers and hangs up.
I quickly get into some clothes and grab my keys, taking two stairs at a time, stumbling into the garage.
Music blasts in my car just to burn off the restless energy building under my skin.
No idea what I’m about to do. Didn’t think this through at all. Doesn’t matter.
Me: I’m here.
I get out of the car slower than I expected, like my body needs a second to catch up with what I’m doing. The night air is still warm, quiet wrapping around the house as I walk along the side of it, stopping at the low hedge fence that apparently has a personal issue with her.
This is a little intrusive. Probably more than a little.
She’s going to have to get used to it.
The garden door opens and she rushes out, freezing the second she sees me. I don’t even think about it, I just step over the hedge to close the distance between us.
It’s higher than it looked.
“What are you doing?” she whispers, eyes wide, something between surprise and actual fear flickering in them.
Okay. Maybe showing up at her house wasn’t my most reasonable idea.
“I was thinking I could save you from a crash this time,” I whisper back and try to look as innocent as possible while she’s wearing some funny shorts and an oversized hoodie again.
It’s fucking irresistible.
She just stands there, staring at me like she hasn’t decided yet whether to run or laugh.
I move before I can think about it too much, one arm sliding under her knees, the other around her back, lifting her and throwing her on the other side of the hedge.
For a second, I almost don’t let go. But I do, because this is as far as I can play it off like it’s nothing.
As I step back to follow her, the hedge catches me off guard. My jeans snag on a twig and I stumble forward, catching myself on my hands before I fully eat the ground.
Not graceful.
At all.
She snorts, immediately covering her mouth, trying to hold the laugh back. I look up at her from where I am, pushing myself back up.
God, she’s so cute.
“It’s harder than it looked,” I mutter under my breath, a quiet laugh slipping out with it.
The automatic garden light suddenly flicks on, flooding the space with brightness. She whispers something I don’t catch and bolts toward the car. I follow without questioning it.
What’s the deal? Why are we running?
I need to ask.
We get to the car, both of us jumping in and closing the doors, catching our breath. My gaze falls at her right away. She’s wearing that same shy smile.
Something spreads through me, as if my body is about to melt. I sink back into the seat without breaking eye contact. There’s no way she’s tired. She's glowing.
“So what’s the deal with that running? Is your mom keeping you under lock and key?” I raise my eyebrows.
She laughs at me.
Yes. That’s it. I needed that more than I thought.
“I know it looks ridiculous,” she says, still smiling, “but she’s working long shifts and she’s really tired. When I wake her up, she can’t fall asleep anymore and gets irritated the next morning. That’s all.”
I nod slowly as she relaxes into the seat, shoulders dropping, the tension leaving her body.
She seems comfortable. She’s comfortable with me.
“So what did you do after school?” I ask, voice quieter now, Radiohead playing low in the background, filling the silence instead of breaking it.
“I was just reading. I read a lot.” She laces her fingers together and tucks her hands between her thighs like she’s trying to warm them.
“Are you cold?”
“No,” she says, too quickly. “Nervous,” she adds.
I swallow.
What is she doing to me?
I keep looking at her, but the words don’t come. Her gaze flickers around the car, anywhere but me.
“In a good way or in a bad way?” I ask hesitantly, afraid of the answer.
She glances out the window instead of answering, like she’s buying herself time, then turns back to me. My body is angled toward her now, shoulder pressed lightly against the door, head resting against the window.
Her hair isn’t tied up into a ponytail tonight. It falls everywhere in messy waves, catching the light in a way that makes it impossible not to look at it. Some strands are golden, some more dark.
I want to lean in. Breathe it in.
That would be weird as fuck.
“You look like you didn’t sleep much,” she says softly. She always sounds like she actually cares.
“I had a long day,” I reply quietly.
“Bad one?”
Her skin has that olive undertone that makes it look warm even in the dark, like the night can’t quite drain the color out of her. My eyes drop to her lips for a fraction of a second.
Fuck. She noticed.
I force my gaze back up to those eyes that make it a little too easy to forget how to breathe.
“It’s good now,” I say under my breath, my gaze still caught on her, like the rest of the world has gone quiet.
And even in the dark, I swear I see her blush.
I shift in my seat, trying to bleed some of the tension out of my body, and make myself keep going.
“You didn’t answer my question. I don’t want to make you nervous.”
“Aren’t you nervous too?”
I could lie. Easily. But something about the way she’s looking at me makes it feel pointless. Like I want her to know exactly what she’s doing to me.
“I’m freaking out on the inside,” I admit, a quiet laugh slipping out with it when she laughs back, relieved. So I continue.
“What do you like to read?” I ask.
She inhales like she needs a second to think, then glances down before answering.
“Anything with a good story,” she explains. “But there has to be romance,” she adds, visibly shy.
I don’t get why she sounds shy about it. Isn’t that what makes life worth it? I’ve only just started to realize that.
“Can you lend me your favorite book?”
“Why?”
“So I know what kind of romance you like,” I reply, keeping my tone casual even though the words land heavier than I meant them to.
Color rises into her face so fast it almost startles me, and suddenly she’s too quiet.
Right.
Too honest.
I shift slightly and try to smooth it over before I ruin this.
“And so I know what keeps you up at night.” I let the pause sit between us for a second before adding, with a small smirk, “Besides me.”
She narrows her eyes, fighting a smile.
“What makes you think you have that kind of power over me?”
I tilt my head, pretending to think, my voice softer now.
“I hope I do. Because if I don’t, then it’s only me losing my mind over this, and that would make me feel quite pathetic."
She laughs and I can’t help it, my eyes drop to her lips again. I quickly look away and rub my hand through my hair since I don’t know where to put it. I rest my other hand on the steering wheel, my knuckles white with the tension.
“Can I ask you something?” she says tenderly.
“Anything.”
She shifts in her seat nervously, brushing a loose wavy strand of hair behind her ear.
“What happened to your hands?”
I swallow and instinctively pull my hand away from the steering wheel, hiding both of them in my hoodie pockets. Her question slams straight into my chest before I can even think.
Of course she noticed.
I forgot about them for a moment. I shove them deeper into my pockets like an idiot, my shoulders tensing as I stare at the windshield.
“Accident,” I mutter, my voice lower than I intended. “Nothing serious.”
She doesn’t buy it. I feel her eyes on me—careful, not judging, just too curious and too gentle.
“Kasien,” she almost whispers, and it’s ridiculous how my entire body reacts to hearing my name like that. “Why did you hide them?”
I swallow hard.
Because they’re disgusting.
Because I spent the whole day scrubbing blood and brain off concrete and then my own skin like a lunatic.
Because nothing about me is soft enough for you.
But I can’t tell her that. So I just shrug.
“They’re not exactly nice to look at,” I say with a forceful laugh.
She reaches forward, hesitant at first, then braver, and her fingers stop right next to my pocket.
“Can I?” she asks quietly.
Jesus Christ.
My heart starts beating like it wants to jump out of my ribcage. I pull one hand out slowly, stiffly, palm up, still half-looking away because I cannot handle whatever expression she’s wearing right now. The scars are rough, the knuckles raw. All of it fucking ugly.
Her hand lands on mine, feather-light, like she’s afraid she’ll hurt me. I actually forget how to breathe. She turns my hand gently, her thumb brushing the melted skin, tracing the lines like she’s memorizing them.
“Kasien,” she says, softer this time. “They’re beautiful.”
My head snaps toward her before I can stop myself.
“What?” I sound actually offended.
Jesus. Smooth.
But she just smiles—small, shy, but so real it makes something in me unravel.
“I mean it,” she continues, her thumb still on my hand, like she’s trying to warm them. “They look strong. Like you use them for things that matter.”
My brows furrow slightly.
If she only knew.
Her eyes flick to mine, and there’s this tiny smile—unsure, nervous, but full of something that hits me so hard I forget to blink.
Her fingertips glide over my knuckles again, careful, almost reverent, and every thought I had about feeling disgusting or wrong just evaporates under her touch.
If I leaned a few inches forward, I could kiss her. If she looked at me for one second longer, I would.
But I don’t.
I don’t really know how to do that.
I fucked half the dancers from the Velvet club and some Vermilion wives but I never really kissed anyone.
I’m a real nutcase.
So I just sit there like an idiot with my heart in my throat, letting her hold the part of me I hate the most.
And for the first time all day, I don’t feel dirty.
She tilts her head and runs her fingers along the scars up to the wrist, touching the spot where they end. She grazes the inside of my wrist and runs her fingers along the veins, as if she’s getting to know me through the touch. As if she’s not realizing what she’s doing.
The touch is sending heat down my body, settling at the bottom of my spine.
Shit.
Okay, I was actually afraid the vardenafil would mess up my natural hormones, but I guess I’m fine.
Yeah. I’m fine.
I squeeze my eyes shut for a second to calm down, then she stops and takes her hand away.
Let’s wrap this up. I’m a little too out of it.
“You should sleep,” I tell her, barely whispering.
She just nods and smiles.
We get out of the car and I walk her to the hedge fence. I grab her and throw her back over the fence, gently, stretching the moment as long as I can. She gives me one more smile before she turns to the door.
“Wait,” I whisper-yell. “The book. Throw it out the window.”
“Fine, it’s the one facing the street, on the right,” she explains.
I nod and she disappears through the door. I walk around the corner of the house and wait under the window until she leans out and throws me the book. The moment it lands in my hand, I check the title.
Wuthering Heights.
Toxic, obsessive, destructive romance.
Of course.
I lift my gaze to her window, giving her a wink, unable to hide the satisfied smile before leaving for my car.
So I’ll read it one more time, I guess.