His to Keep by Lydia Goodfellow
Chapter Nineteen
Getting off the floor, despite my head telling me to leave him alone, my need to confront him spurs me to go over to the bathroom and throw the door open.
“How dare you,” I say to him, storming inside, boiling hot anger taking control. He’s leaning over the sink when I enter, hands gripping the rim of the basin. The shadows on his face deepen, and I know it means he doesn’t want me in here, but I don’t care. I don’t care that I’m invading his privacy. After what he did, nothing is private anymore between us. “How could you walk away from me after...after—”
“After forcing myself on you?” he finishes for me, and I go to shake my head. Deny that it’s not what happened at all, but he puts his hand up to stop me. “Just go.” I don’t move, and he grits his teeth. “I. Said. Go,Ava.”
“Not until you tell me why you kissed me.” Didn’t he demand the same from me after I kissed him? Don’t I deserve to know the truth?
He bows his head. “I shouldn’t have. I’m—”
“Stop saying that!” I snap at him, hating that he keeps apologizing. That we both keep saying sorry to each other for things clearly out of our control. “Stop being sorry for doing something you wanted to do.”
He raises his eyes to look at me, their coldness slicing through me. “Not when it can get you killed.” I step forward, and his back straightens like he doesn’t want me to come any closer.
“Do you honestly think he’d do anything to ruin the ceremony?” My voice cracks and I wipe tears brimming to the surface of my eyes. I don’t want to cry anymore. “He won’t find out this happened. We can keep it a secret.”
There’s silence for a few moments before he mutters, “It doesn’t mean I should’ve done it. But I can’t lie. You’ve done something to me. You’re different.” When he says nothing more, I know he won’t tell me what I’ve done to him or why I’m different. Though there’s no way I can leave the conversation like this—not trying to find out.
“Why are you never honest with me?” I ask, which comes out more like I’m begging him for the truth. Something. “If you had told me about the fence, I wouldn’t have risked going to get us help—”
“That’s your problem right there,” he interrupts fiercely. “That you want to help me when you don’t know me.” There’s that look again. The expression that makes me believe he truly hates his entire existence. He walks forward, minimizing the gap between us. “Trust me, you don’t want me to kiss you.”
He’s standing right in front of me now, and I look up at him slowly, at those blue eyes I can’t seem to get enough of. “Why am I not allowed to want that?”
“Because I don’t deserve it.”
“That’s not answering my question,” I whisper.
“But it’s enough.” It’s not. The things he says without explanations aren’t enough anymore. Not when he’s just kissed me and touched me like that. That wasn’t just a kiss. I’d felt every molecule of his need for me.
“Do you know what?” My voice is hoarse with emotion. Bitter. “I’mglad you didn’t tell me about the fence because then none of this would’ve happened. You act obedient and do everything they say, but after tonight, all I see are lies—your lies. I see someone so desperate for life that it hurt you when I ran, and that’s why you kissed me. Because you wanted me to know that it means something. Whatever this is between us means something.”
“There’s nothing between us,” he snaps, slamming his hand against the basin. “Get it into your head. It doesn’t mean a damn thing.”
“It does.”
“It shouldn’t. You’re his!” His voice rises louder, and I try not to break down in front of him. But he’s making it so hard to keep control. My chest is already tight. Achingly heavy. “Don’t question why this can’t happen when it should be the last thing you should want. Especially with me.”
But I do. I’m confused by it and tormented. I don’t understand what these feelings are or why I have them for him. But here they are, and I don’t know how to stop or make them go away. I just want him to say that he has them too. That he isn’t the person Father Aaron forces him to be deep down.
“If you tell me why you kissed me…I’ll leave you alone,” I say to him finally, just needing him to confirm that my mind didn’t make all of this up. That I’m not going crazy. “Tell me, and I promise I’ll go.”
His shoulders lift and fall as he lets out a heavy breath. “There’s nothing to tell—”
“I don’t believe that. You want me out of here, then tell me something real.”
He turns his head to the side and stares down at the floor. He doesn’t want to, but the need to get me away from him must be stronger than his need to refuse. “I knew my father had plans to build the fence when we first moved here, but I didn’t know if he’d had it made or not. I didn’t know if you’d come back at all when I heard you’d ran. All I knew was that you left, and I was alone again. I could finally die.” I breathe out shakily. Finally? “That half-hour you were gone, I thought of all the ways to do it. Tear the bedsheets and hang myself. Throw the chair through the window and jump. Break the mirror and use the sharp edges of the glass to slit open my wrists. But then I saw him come back with you. Watched him carry you to the house from the window, and do you know what I felt?” I shake my head, speechless as I listen. “Relief. I was relieved when I saw him bringing you back. Back to this room that smells just like you even when you were gone.”
“It’s okay—”
“Nothing about what I just said is okay.” He shakes his head in exasperation at himself. “My father warned me—he said girls like you can get into our heads, and you’re in mine. What happened between us can never happen again. I don’t want you.”
His words might have well been a slap. He turns his back on me, and I know I have to keep my promise and leave him alone. I do it slowly, my bottom lip shaking, so affected by what he just said to me that I physically hurt. Closing the door behind me, I sit on the bed, his words replaying in my head over and over.
You don’t kiss someone like that when you don’t want them. He’s in my head too, and after tonight, I don’t think he should be. He shouldn’t be at all.