“Well…” I read over the three things she still hadn’t crossed off before going on. “I haven’t really had anything to do with your whole clothes situation. And I’m not even sorry for the vow - I’m glad you belong to me.”
“I don’t belong to you,” she snapped and I laughed.
“Yeah you do, baby. Vow or not. You can feel it just as surely as I can. Besides, it’s like you said the morning after we all killed a man for you - I’m yours too. So as far as I see it, we’re even on that front.”
Her eyes narrowed but she didn’t start yelling, so I was taking that as agreement.
“I’m guessing the bathtub relates to you having to sleep in it before I insisted you got a bed?” I asked. In all honesty, I’d hated that fucking arrangement from day one and I had been the one to put an end to it, but I was willing to admit I was still culpable for the nights she’d spent in there.
“Yes,” she growled.
“And you want revenge for that?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Alright then. Do your worst.”
I tossed the diary aside and reached out to release her arms from the belt. She scrambled out from beneath me, massaging her wrists as she narrowed her eyes at me suspiciously.
“You’re willing to let me get even?” she asked like she sensed a trap, but I was so fucking tired of all the family shit I’d been dealing with recently that I was just glad of the distraction.
“You’ve been fighting three on one for months now,” I said casually, offering her a shrug. “And you’ve still managed to scratch a whole lot off of your little list. So I’m willing to give you the upper hand for once. Besides, you’re too hooked on me to do any lasting damage, so I’m not too worried.”
She bristled at that assessment and I hid my smile beneath my thumb.
“I’m not hooked on you,” she assured me.
“Sure you are,” I replied, leaning back against the foot of my bed and gazing at her across the mattress. “You’re hooked on hating me right now instead of wanting me. But whatever way you cut it up, I’m on your mind all the damn time. It’s two sides of the same coin.”
She tutted dismissively, but she didn’t outright deny it again. Couldn’t. The truth spoke for itself. We might drive each other insane most of the time, but here we were. Facing off. Again. It was a cycle that just wouldn’t quit and I didn’t fucking want it to.
“How about you give me something instead of me punishing you,” she said slowly, licking her lips as her eyes got that steely glint in them which made me fucking ache for her. “It’s not like you give a shit about pain or humiliation anyway, so that won’t hurt you. What I want is something real. Something you don’t want to give me. A single truth – one that matters.”
I pushed my tongue into my cheek as I considered that, wondering why she wanted to play this game with me again. Why she cared about getting to know more about me at all. The most frustrating thing about it was that she was right, I didn’t really give a shit. I didn’t care when she’d slathered me in fish paste in front of the whole fucking school. I didn’t care when that tape of me covered in syrup and tampons had circulated around everyone I knew (and even though she hadn’t admitted to that one, I knew it had been her). Physical pain just got me high on life. The only things that really touched me were the weapons she’d already wielded against me, the darkness of my truth which had the power to cut deeper than anything else ever would.
“So was your offer just bullshit then, Kyan? You don’t really want me to get even at all. You’re willing to let me punish you in ways that won’t affect you because you don’t care about them, but you just hate the idea of giving me anything else that’s real, don’t you?”
“Fine,” I grunted, willing to admit to my own bullshit.
But I didn’t know what to tell her. The worst of my truths came unbidden to my lips and for a second, I wondered if I should just tell her. Blurt it out, rip the band-aid off and accept the fact that she’d never again look at me the way I ached for her to. Because wasn’t everything else between us a lie while I hid that? Shouldn’t I just fucking get it out there, tell Saint and Blake too and let them choose their own feelings on it even if it left me abandoned and alone? But I couldn’t do it. And maybe that made me a fucking coward, but I was pretty sure that if Tatum Rivers ever looked at me the way I looked at myself, I’d break into a thousand fucking pieces and never find a modicum of peace again in my entire miserable life.
I hesitated for so long that she rolled her eyes at me, getting up and retrieving her diary from the floor and making a move towards the door. But I couldn’t let her go, snatching her free hand into my grasp and looking up at her as her brows rose expectantly.
No, I couldn’t tell her about the worst of me or my family or Royaume D'élite. But I could lay myself bare for her in another way. I could let her see what I saw when I looked at her.
I got to my feet and lifted the mattress, grabbing the closest sketchbook from beneath it and flipping it open, leafing past tattoo designs until I found a sketch
