Page 126 of His White Moonlight
The row of my school uniforms stunned me and drew me forward.I touched the ripped skirt of one, remembering how the rip had happened.It’d been the day of a power outage.Without the cameras, I’d known Lindi and her group would come for me and had run for the wall.I almost hadn’t made it.My mad scramble had wrecked the skirt, but I hadn’t thought of it once I’d returned after the power had been restored.A new uniform had been delivered with the clean laundry.
My fingers found the dirt still clinging to the hem.When Grandma had said my old clothes helped him, I’d thought he was keeping them until the scent faded and then getting rid of them.However, the number of uniforms indicated that he was keeping them even after my scent had faded, as if he were collecting them.I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.I should have been scared, but I wasn’t.
“Wrenly…”
I glanced back at Bennett, who was standing in the doorway.
“Why?”
“I was struggling being apart from you.The staff sent me the damaged uniforms.Your scent helped calm me.”
He looked afraid.Of me.Of my reaction to knowing that he’d been hoarding my dirty uniforms for my scent.
I faced the uniforms again, counting them.
“Fifteen.I know I didn’t wreck that many this year.How long have you been collecting these?”
“Since your sophomore year.Mom made me get rid of the ones before that.She said you were too young and people would think I was—” he cleared his throat.“Being creepy.”
It felt like the floor dipped beneath my feet, and I reached out to steady myself on the wall.He’d been collecting my clothes since the beginning?
Before I completely freaked out, I realized what was happening was bigger than his collecting.He was being honest with me.Completely and totally, unfiltered.
“Are you going to keep your word, Bennett, or are you trying to trick me into accepting you with the handholding, hugs, and a kiss?”
“Both.I hope you’ll accept me if you can do those three things, but if you still want to leave after doing them, I’ll let you go.”
Hearing what I’d already suspected, I turned, wanting to escape the closet, but he didn’t move out of my way.
“Move.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Not this time, Wrenly.Talk to me.”
What could I say?Anything close to the truth—that I didn’t know how to do the things he wanted without feeling something—would doom me and elate him.
No matter how I tried to fight it, I was attracted to Bennett.I had been since I first saw him standing on the stairs when I’d come home.But I’d known then that I couldn't acknowledge it.He was supposed to be a brother.At least, that’s what I’d thought.Now that I knew better, my attraction to him was even more dangerous.
I wanted my freedom.I’dearnedit by surviving seven years of hell.
“You’re frustrated.Why?”
“Because I’ve suffered enough, dammit!”
His arms closed around me.
“How?Talk to me.That was supposed to be the best school in the country.I researched for months before deciding.What went wrong, Wrenly?”
I froze in his arms, not believing I’d heard him correctly, and slowly pulled back to look up at him.
“Yousent me there?”
The worry on his face disappeared behind his mask.
“It wasyou?”My voice shook along with my limbs, and I pushed at his chest.
