“What are you doing here?” I whispered, looking at Donovan sternly, but I couldn’t help the smile that formed on my lips when he finally set both feet in my room and closed the window.
This was like some kind of Romeo and Juliet.
Only Romeo is more of an idiot and Juliet is a bitch.
Raising an eyebrow, he didn’t move from his spot and shrugged. “I saw the light on.”
I got up from my desk chair and he immediately approached me, taking my face in his hands. I inhaled deeply, enjoying the touch. “Do you realize you left me here just five hours ago?”
His lips curled to one side. “Not because I wanted to.”
He put his arms around me and I let myself fall onto him. “I didn’t want it either, but we have homework to finish and we’ve been together all day.”
“What about two days?”
“You’re impossible,” I said, shaking my head and he finally kissed me softly.
Damn, I never thought it would be like this. Just two days ago I was about to report him to the police and now he was in my room hugging me and acting like a completely different person than I thought I knew.
When we were friends, he used to brush my hand occasionally or put his arm around my shoulders, but never in the meaningful way he was doing now, never with so much feeling. Back then, I knew it made him nervous to touch me, I could tell, but he did it anyway and I loved it. However, an occasional touch can’t compare to being in his arms, not even close.
As he pulled away and gave me a moment of clarity-which I couldn’t quite achieve with his hands on me-he rested his mouth on top of my head and planted a sweet kiss there. A thought crossed my mind.
His mother.
He’s been with me all day.
What’s going on with her?
Licking my lips, trying to find the words and not get pissed off as I usually do, I opened my mouth, maybe to mess up everything that was going well for us. “Can I ask you something without you freaking out?”
His half-smile disappeared and he looked at me almost as if he felt guilty about something, I don’t know how I could deduce it, I just did. “What?”
“Your mother…” I began to say, but he completely pulled away from me, cutting off my words.
He was definitely going to freak out.
He let out a huff and leaned his body against the wall next to my bed. He pulled away enough to make me understand that I was touching on a taboo subject for him. “What’s going on with her?”
I didn’t approach Donovan, if he was going to act like a child, I was going to let him. “Where is she? I know you moved, I looked for you when you disappeared, remember? And since you came back, you don’t mention her and I’m not very sure when you have time to be with her. It’s not necessary for you to always come see me, we can both be with her if you want to be with me and…”
I could see a flicker of remorse in his eyes, but it was instantly replaced with his deep furrowed brow.
“I need you to decide,” he suddenly let out. His voice became colder, more calm. He pushed himself off the wall and walked towards me, because of my lack of response. “You prefer me to come see you every day, go out, have an incredible time like yesterday, or…”
I sighed, hoping he wouldn’t say anything that would end my little composure towards his hostility. “Or?”
“Or keep asking questions I won’t be able to answer, Alicia, and if I do, I’ll lie to you.”
My eyes shot almost irate at him. “An ultimatum to keep me quiet?” I let out a huff, turned my back on him and started walking towards the bathroom, not wanting to see how he realized what I was about to allow him to do. “Okay, go.”
He immediately walked quite fast towards me and before I could close the door, he grabbed my arm and pulled me strongly against him. “I thought you cared more than that.”
I didn’t know if he was referring to himself or to our whole situation, but by that point, I didn’t care to know.
I didn’t want him to touch me.
I threw my body back, forcing him to let me go, but he didn’t. When he lifted me up and pushed me against the bathroom tiles, he kept me trapped in his arms.
I knew he wasn’t going to let me go and that fact bothered me even more when his cold gaze didn’t change one bit. “I do care, but I can’t ignore the fact that I’m worried about Alice and while this time she wasn’t very present in my head because I was too busy worrying about you, now she won’t leave so easily.”
We couldn’t take our eyes off each other, we were challenging each other as always and it would be strange if one of us gave in. My heart didn’t slow down its fast pace and even though I felt anger towards the person in front of me, when his torso collided with mine, my breathing became much deeper.
My chest began to hurt being aware of how quickly he would distance himself in order not to tell me the truth.
Did he dare tell me I didn’t care that much? Damn, he gave the idea to distance himself, not me. And it hurt. Damn, it did hurt.
But he wouldn’t know that.
I lifted my chin, trying to look as strong and determined as possible, even though I didn’t feel that way inside. “Are you going to keep me here forever?”
“No, just until you come to your senses,” he murmured, getting closer to my face. Did he think that giving me a ghostly taste of his lips on mine would affect me?
Yes, it did, and a lot.
His body also responded to his own insinuations.
We were totally incomprehensible. I wouldn’t know if we were fighting or if we were about to fuck.
His hard gaze traced my body and provoked a shudder from the deepest part of my being, an intense electric current sweeping over every nerve.
I held my breath and before my mind went completely blank-I knew that if we kept going like this, the moment would come-I answered, “It’s not fair what you’re asking me and you know it.”
He averted his gaze from mine for a few brief seconds, as if looking at me, all of a sudden, was painful. “It’s the only thing I can give you for now.”
Squirming so that he knew I wanted him away from me right now-or maybe I just wanted to hold onto him so that even if I asked him to leave, he would stay-I spoke with my heavy words, “I… I can’t accept it.”
He still didn’t let go of me and I remembered his options. I kept quiet or he left.
I couldn’t keep quiet. I shook my head at the sight of Donovan hesitating and it was hard for me to see how he was even considering leaving me, he was making these moments a torture for me. “If you leave, for real, don’t come back this time.”
Panic seemed to jump on him. He stiffened his shoulders and a wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows. He blinked looking for a sign of exaggeration in my words, but found nothing. “Now you’re not being fair.”
I wanted to curl up on the floor because of how hard he was making this for me.
Why if he loved me was he giving me a damn ultimatum? Had he said anything about what he confessed to me days ago? Was he really in love with me? Because with every word of his, he tore my heart a little more, making it more visible how much I wanted him.
“If you really care, don’t come back. Do you know what it’s like for me to see you go and not even know if you’ll come back? That you disappear for weeks, trying to forget you and when I’m a couple of lockers ahead, you come back and I go back to square one,” I hissed a curse, lowered his gaze to the floor and wrinkled his nose contracting his whole face, angry, but I didn’t know if it was with me or with himself. “You think I don’t care, but you have no idea how much I do. So please leave and don’t come back.”
“Are you sure what you’re asking for?” I was surprised that his eyes were still cold but his voice felt on the verge of breaking.
I blinked several times at the tears that threatened to run down my cheeks. “No, but my heart is breaking and your job since I fell in love with you is to twist the knife.”
He grimaced. “You don’t understand…”
I closed my eyes and rested my head on the cold tile, trying to put each of my thoughts in one place. “Since you came back, that’s all you know how to tell me, that I don’t understand. I want to understand, and you won’t let me. There’s nothing more I can do with what we have, and I’m not going to keep quiet just to have you by my side, no matter how much I want to.”
He growled and let me go, dragging his hands through his hair. His expression fell. “What the hell am I doing?” he whispered to himself, and without one last glance, he walked out the door and I collapsed.
I put my hand over my mouth and closed my eyes trying not to cry.
“Don’t cry.”
“Don’t cry.”
“He’s not worth it.”
I felt the first drop of many that followed, run down my cheek to reach my fingers and slip between them.
Almost instantly arms took possessively around my waist. With wide open eyes I saw how Donovan held me, changing his mind.
Staying.
Defeated and afflicted.
“My mother…” he began, with a hoarse voice. “She’s in a center, I couldn’t control her, not anymore, Celina.”
He lifted his face and his eyes were closed tightly, hating the words that had just come out of his mouth.
Hurt for his mother and for him, I rested my palm on his cheek, wanting him to open his eyes to look at me. When he didn’t, I planted a soft kiss on his lips and a sob scraped his throat.
As if he were punishing me, he threw his hand to my nape wildly and connected my forehead with his, but it felt good, God, yes it felt great. “Don’t let me go so easily.”
“Don’t implant in me the idea that going away is the easiest thing in the world.”
“Hell, I’m a goddamn dying man.”
I shuddered and his mouth covered mine. My lips parted, letting his tongue immerse inside.
And that was all.
For both of us.