Page 24 of My Lovely Tragedy
“You’re lost,” I conclude. He nods solemnly in my peripheral. “What do you hope to achieve by being here?”
He inhales deeply, the sound sharp as his lungs fill. “I don’t know. A break? Space? Time to finally fucking be alone.”
“Except you are not alone.”
He hums non-committedly. “But I am, in a way. You don’t know me. Didn’t know who I was. Makes it easier somehow. To not have to live up to expectations of preconceived notions. To not feel like you’re wearing a fucking mask every day of your life.”
His words stab a place deep inside me I feared would always remain untouched. The very spot I have spent my entire life guarding with the strength I’ve gathered solely from the determination to never be seen. To never have a person in so deep, they’ll never find their way out. Because once they are in, once they have burrowed and dug and chipped away, there is no letting them escape.
And Brooklyn has found that place with as little as a few words, spoken from those perfect lips like he meant them for my very soul.
“That doesn’t even make sense,” he mumbles, ducking his head and shaking it, sending gold strands fluttering over the countertop. My arm reaches out without thought to capture his hand. My fingers curl around the ulnar side, the tips furrowing into the soft flesh beneath. Brooklyn jolts at the unexpected touch, and the vibration is nearly enough to make me move, but I withstand, instead choosing to hold a little tighter. To feel the shift of tendons and bones as he curls his fingers inward, knowingly—purposefully—touching me.
Our eyes don’t meet, but we both watch where our skin is connected through flesh and blood and bone. Through live tissue and pulsing nerves. Chemical bonds with atoms.
“It makes all the sense in the world, Brooklyn. Masks are heavy. Debilitating and crippling. Of course, you would want to spread your wings and feel the breeze of freedom. But you’re not sinking toward the water with melted wings.” I squeeze his hand until I feel his pulse beneath my fingertips.
Proof of life. Of death.
The eloquence of sight.
“You’re soaring up, beyond the density of clouds, out of the flares, where the sky is bright and clear and filled with the sharpest air that will fill your lungs and bring you back to life.” I choke on the words, breath stolen with their intensity, but I force them out, needing to say them. Knowing they need to be heard.
Brooklyn flips his wrist, so the back of his hand is now against my palm. My own is twisted at an odd angle, but the protest dies on my lips at the sight of thin silvery scars adorning Brooklyn’s delicate flesh. At his pain, so visibly transcribed in a way I never imagined possible. In a way Iunderstand.
I reach out with my other hand, hesitant, fingers hovering just above. The heat of his skin melts into me.
Brooklyn nods, a small, barely-there motion. Swallowing the saliva pooling on my tongue, I let my fingers fall to graze the thin skin, brushing over a tendon. Down and across each line. Tracing the pattern of his pain, of his truth.
“Did you wish to die?” My voice is hushed, cracked with the strain of keeping my own feelings buried.
Brooklyn tenses before he snorts and pulls away, leaving my hand hanging limply in the air. Cold and forgotten.
Lonely.
“You talk a lot for someone who doesn’t know anything.” He crosses his arms over his chest, fists buried beneath his armpits, the anger radiating off him palpable. But so is his vulnerability.
A defense mechanism. Another mask. Beaten into submission over time to become instinct. A survival tactic.
And I see right through it.
“I think I know more than you wish I did.”
CHAPTERSEVEN
BROOKLYN
Tobias’s wordswon’t fucking stop spinning in my mind. The slow, reverent way he spoke about knowing me. Like he actually fuckingdoes.
I grit my teeth, eyes locked on the black ceiling like staring into the solid void will give me answers. But there aren’t any.
All there is, isthis.Confusion and honesty despite all trepidation.
I’ve spilled my fucking guts—without really meaning to. I didn’t plan to reveal so much, but it’s like the moment I fucking look at him, the walls crumble to the ground, and I’m left exposed. Cold and vulnerable andI hate it.I also can’t stop it.
A switch has flipped in my brain, and I’m past caring. If I ever really cared at all. And I don’t think I did—not really anyway.
What’s the point? Tobias gives off the impression of caring. Of wanting to know me.For some fucking reason.And honestly, it’s fuckingnicethat someone does. And not just the persona I give the public world or even the half-assed portrayal I give my best friends—the people who mean the most to me—butme.
