Page 85 of Eternal
He was a machine, and I hated it, hated how easy he made it look, he was too calm, too sure of himself, too…Damirfor my liking.
He’d taken care of me, even when I made it hard, even when I pushed.
Was I mean? I don’t know, maybe, but what else was I supposed to be? Nice? Grateful? That’s not me.
No, I wasn’t mean. I was myself.
And maybe that’s the real problem.
I don’t know how to let someone in, I don’t think I ever learned, people always leave eventually, they stop trying to understand you, they get tired of your demons and pain, and I don’t blame them. It’s easier to walk away than to stay and unravel the mess of me.
But he… he didn’t, at least not yet, because he barely started working with me. Apart from training and random occasions, he never saw me fight; he never witnessed me losing it.
He certainly noticed after seeing the corpses and the finger, but he was still worried about me.
Fool.
I should’ve said something, thank him maybe, tell him I noticed the way he came back, even when I pushed for days and weeks now. But it’s hard to like someone, harder to trust them with your life, when you’ve spent so long learning not to.
So instead, I cleaned my knife, sat on a chair and kept my eyes down, because if I looked at him too long, I might start believing he’d stay, like Vik and Kat. And that would hurt worse than any wound, because I always wonder… What if I let someone in, and they leave?
I need to stop thinking.
Fuck, this injury is really annoying, every breath made my ribs throb, but I kept my mouth shut.
“You’re stiff,” he said, rummaging through the med kit on the metal shelf.
“Don’t worry, it’ll disappear,” I said.
He pulled out a small blister pack of painkillers, popped two into his hand, and grabbed a water bottle from a bag on thetable. Then he walked over, close enough that I had to tilt my head up to meet his eyes.
“Open your mouth.”
I hesitated. It was subtle, a beat too long, but I felt it, the resistance, the memory, the dull ache of wanting too much of something that once ruined me.
“I don’t need it,” I said quietly.
He didn’t argue. He crouched down in front of me and reached up to take my face in his hand. His fingers curled against my cheek, tilting my head back slightly.
“Yes, you do,” he said. “It’s just a painkiller.”
I held his gaze, jaw clenched between his tattooed fingers and then let the breath out. “Okay,” I whispered. I open my hand so he can give them to me. But he shook his head and smiled. “Open.”
He didn’t move, didn’t gloat, he waited.
“Are you serious?” I asked, raising a brow.
“Deadly.”
Fuck. I let my lips part, slowly.
My eyes flicked up to his, skeptical but I did it anyway, barely parting my mouth.
He didn’t rush. His hand still hovered near my chin, and with a slow, deliberate touch, he tilted my head back.
“Tongue out,” he said.
I let my tongue slide out past my lips.
