Total pages in book: 184
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
And I honestly, honestly wouldn’t care about it.
But then I get a look at his face.
I get a look at his bruised jaw and that black eye. They seem to be pulsating, throbbing almost, on his skin that seems flushed now. So tight. So, so tight and straining, almost like his shirt. And his eyes look bloodshot.
Which is when I realize that this is not anger. This can’t be anger.
It’s much bigger than that, much hotter.
Hotter than fire.
Wildfire.
It scares me, the way he looks right now.
Not for myself, no.
But for him. It looks like he’s going to come apart. It looks like he’s not only going to tear his shirt but also himself. He’s not only going to tear himself but everything around him, and I can’t help but whisper, “Stellan?”
And his breaths escalate. His red-rimmed eyes go frantic at my voice. His bruises become even more stark and glaring.
“Your mother beats you.”
His voice is a whisper, but it’s a heavy whisper. A rough whisper. A whisper made of glass and gravel and something else that I don’t really understand.
While I was so extremely cavalier and comfortable telling him about it just now, bragging about it for some reason—maybe that’s the only way to deal with what she just told me—I’m not feeling any of those things right now.
No, I think my fear for him is increasing.
“Stellan,” I say, stepping toward him. “It’s not that… It’s fine. I’m—”
He grabs hold of my arms then, his fingers digging into my skin. Not in a painful way but in an urgent way. In a way that makes me think that somehow, someway, I’ve stepped on something.
I’ve stepped on a live wire and I’m not sure how that happened.
I’m not even sure what’s happening.
Why is he so heated? So hot to touch as if he has a fever.
“You’re not staying here,” he states.
“What?”
“You’re not staying here,” he declares again, his eyes skittering over my features. “Where she can get to you.”
“She’s… I don’t live with her. I don’t—”
He pulls me closer, his fingers flexing, pulsating. “Even if you don’t live together, she got to you, didn’t she. She fucking got to you and… It’s because of me, isn’t it. You started hanging around the team because of me. Because you lo…” Trailing off, he shakes his head. His breaths are both coming fast and broken somehow. “So this is my fault. This is… You’re not staying here. You’re coming with me.”
“What?”
He shakes me in his grip. “You are. You’re coming with me. I’m taking you away. Right now. You’re—”
“No,” I shout, stopping him.
And even though his grip is tight, I still manage to break it and step away from him. Probably because he wasn’t expecting it. He wasn’t expecting such a vehement denial on my part.
But then why wouldn’t he?
After what he did.
After how he played me.
After how he can’t even say the L-word. He couldn’t, back there. He had to actually cut himself off before he said it.
God.
“I’m not going with you,” I state, taking a couple more steps back.
He steps forward. “Dora—”
“No, stop calling me that!” Another few steps back and I would’ve taken more, but my spine’s stuck to the wall now. “And stop coming close to me.”
He comes to a screeching halt, his body almost rebounding with the force.
“Listen—”
“No,” I say again. “You listen, okay? You fucking listen: first, it’s not your fault. In case you weren’t paying attention, my mother has always hated me. Second, I’m not going anywhere with you. I will never go anywhere with you. We won’t even be in the same room again. We won’t… You lied to me.”
He goes still then.
So absolutely fucking still.
Still as death.
It’s okay, though.
Now I’m the one whose chest is heaving. I’m the one whose breaths are broken. I’m the one vibrating with rage, vibrating with so much fury that I can set this world on fire.
That I can set him on fire.
“You fucking lied,” I lash out. “Not once, not twice. Not even three times. For days. For weeks. For weeks, you lied to me. You deceived me. Every word out of your fucking mouth was a lie. Every time I picked up the phone…”
I trail off.
I have to.
My breaths are running away from me again. It’s been happening ever since I found out how stupid I’ve been. I’ve gotten randomly dizzy over the course of the day. As if it’s hitting me once again, what he did. What he kept doing for days and weeks.
Everything was right there, wasn’t it? All the clues were right there. His sudden possessiveness. His sudden bossiness. The fact that he was doing my fucking homework when I knew—I knew for a fact—that Shepard would never do such a thing.
How he’d take interest in my practice, ask me questions about it. Ask me questions about Biji, about my favorite movies. How he’d asked me to dance that night.