Page 58 of His Dark Vices

Those familiar hazel eyes meet mine steadily, but it's like a light has gone out in them. Her light brown skin seems paler, and the smile she offers is weak, like she doesn't have the strength to manage anything wider. There's a youthfulness to her, something reminiscent of our college years, so much so that I wonder if I'm hallucinating.

But what's probably closer to the truth is that the Bree in front of me is a ghost, a ghost of herself.

"Hey," she greets me softly.

It makes me flinch, and I finally drop my eyes. There's so much pain in her voice that it makes my heart ache. Worse, she sounds so far away, even though we're standing close. I've been getting shit on at work since the new year, but nothing has been harder to bear than this.

"Bree," I whisper back, wanting to reach out and hold her. "Why are you here?"

Bree looks past me, then off into the forest, like she doesn't quite know where she is.

"I don't know," she says wistfully. "I had a feeling to come here. I remember the solitude and peace of this little clearing. It felt like no one else knew about it. It felt like I could really be alone here." With a wry smile, she turns back to me. "But I was never really alone here, was I?"

I take her words like a punch in the gut, dropping her empty gaze. I deserve that, though. There's been no way for her to process everything I admitted, nothing for her to receive as recompense. She didn't even truly expose me to the media like she could have. So I deserve a jab like that at the very least.

"We're working on the vulnerability, just like you wrote," I assure her, wanting to please her in some way.

"That's good," she replies, but it's like she hasn't registered the news, like she's dreaming with her eyes wide open.

"It isn't easy," I go on, "but I think I can schedule a press release soon. Everyone was pissed at work. They're leaving it all to me to fix. But thank you for not writing the truth about what happened."

Bree nods, not acknowledging that I'm rambling. The dipping sun is setting her hair aglow, but it lends no warmth to her features.

"How have you been?" I ask seriously, dropping my voice.

"Why?" she asks, and she sounds genuinely curious.

"Because I miss you." I lay it out bluntly, looking earnestly into her eyes. "I care about you. I want to know if you're okay."

There isn't a flicker of recognition in her face. The emotion in my voice doesn't affect her at all. I want to shake her, just to see if she's really alive and breathing, but I'm afraid she'd crumble in my hands.

Fuck, did I do this to her? Did I break her?

Bree lowers her head and stares off into space, her boots fidgeting in the snow.

"I know I fucked up," I start, desperation creeping into my voice. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything. My parents— they left me when I was just a kid, Bree. It fucked me up. I know I should have done better, but it fucked me up for a long time. I wasn't thinking straight. It's like I couldn't think until they were gone."

I watch her for any reaction, but she doesn't appear to register my words.

"I wouldn't change any of it," I say firmly. "Not if it meant not meeting you. As messed up as it all was, meeting you changed my life. And I know you feel what I feel. We share something we've never shared with anyone else. You know what I'm talking about, right?"

The desperation in my voice seems to finally make her look up, but the smile on her face is a pitying one.

"Bree, we can start over." I grab her upper arms and finally give her that little shake, peering into her eyes. "We have the choice to start over and do everything right. We can build something together."

"Start over?" she repeats, looking confused. Then she laughs. "Start over and do what? Have a big happy family? Pretend like you didn't violate every inch of my privacy? Sam, we don't even know each other."

"I do know you?—"

"No, you don't. You collected a bunch of data about me, fucking took notes about what I like to eat and do. How I like to fuck myself, right? That's what you meant when you fucked me that night?"

My hands jerk away from her like I've been burned, and I fall silent.

Whatever anger was working up in her dissipates just as quickly as it appeared. She huffs out a cloud of air and shrugs, returning to that frozen state.

"You collected data on me to control me. That's not the kind of intimacy you think it is. As much as you'd like to, you can't just pretend that didn't happen just because you developed strong feelings for me."

"Bree," I whisper, shaking my head. "It's more than that, and you know it."

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