Page 37 of The Reaper
Eventually, I was the one to break.
“So, I’m guessing you’ve been watching for a lot longer than I anticipated?”
She lowered her head, and stared into her lap as her hands twisted together. I wanted to reach over and take her hand in mine, but for the first time in my life, I felt something that made me second guess everything. I felt nervous.
“I’m not going to lie, not anymore,” she said quietly. “Yes, I’ve watched you. I think about you a lot too.” She looked up at me then and the sadness in her eyes made my heart feel like it’d been pierced by a million needles. “You’re like a drug that I take every day. And you know what they say about addicts? The addiction is also the cure.”
I couldn’t speak. My throat had become painful, as if it was made from shards of glass and razor blades. How had I not noticed her before? Where the hell had my head been lately that I could let someone like her fade into the background, to remain unseen? Because I sure as hell noticed her now. She was everywhere. My mind couldn’t focus on anything because it was drowning in her.
She took a deep breath and stared straight ahead, then said, “I need to forget about you, stop thinking about you, because I know you don’t think about me.”
She grabbed the door handle to leave but I shot my arm across to stop her.
“You’re not leaving. Not like this,” I told her, taking her hand in mine, fighting the nerves I felt and running my thumb over her knuckles.
“I have to,” she replied sadly, looking down at where our hands were joined and covering my hand with her own.
“You’re upset,” I stated. “I’m not letting you leave me, not when you’re like this.”
She squeezed my hand, then pulled hers free, and turning to me with a sad smile she said, “It’s okay. I’m used to it.”
Those four words.
Four simple words were what broke me.
I’m used to it.
“You shouldn’t have to be used to anything,” I said, whilst my brain screamed at me to make this right. “You shouldn’t be used to feeling upset. Not because of me.”
I took a few deep breaths, trying to make sense of the feelings inside, feelings that I didn’t fully understand, but they were warning me, telling me I couldn’t let her walk away. I had to be honest, even if it put me in a position that I didn’t feel comfortable with. She was opening up to me; I had to do the same.
“I know I’ve only just met you. And this is all going to sound weird. Hell, I don’t even understand it myself, but I do think about you, Leah May. I think about you way more than I should. Just because I don’t say it, doesn’t mean I don’t feel it too.”
I expected her to look happy, be hopeful after what I’d said, but she didn’t. Sadness still glistened in her eyes. Tears threatened to fall, and she was doing everything in her power to keep them locked up safely where they were.
“Of course I think about you,” I carried on, wishing that she’d truly hear what I was saying. “And it makes no sense to me. All I know is you came into my life a few weeks ago, a little raven flapping her wings around me and tapping away. How could I not notice you?
“Some days, you’re all I think about, and it’s confusing because I don’t really know you, but I feel like I need to know you, and I worry. I worry so damn much, because you’re like a bird that doesn’t want to be caged, but you’re so small and gentle, so trusting. And I worry about the things out there in the world, things that could hurt you. I get scared myself, because I didn’t know I could feel the kind of way I’m feeling right now.
“I didn’t ever think I’d feel this way about another person, especially one I’ve only just met. It’s like I’m going insane, and I can’t control anything. When I asked Liv if you’d gotten home safely the other night––”
“You asked about me?” she said, quietly interrupting my rambled speech.
“Of course I did. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep that night if I hadn’t known you were safe at home. I wanted to drive you myself but––”
“You care,” she stated, and smiled as she looked at her lap. Then she glanced across at me and said, “It’s enough. You see me too, and that’s enough.”
I didn’t know what was going on, and I couldn’t seem to form any meaningful words, but I did manage to say, “I don’t understand.”
“It’s enough that you see me, Devon. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
I furrowed my brow, still no clearer about what she meant. I was opening up, telling her things I wouldn’t dare tell another soul, so why did it feel like she was slipping away from me?
The rain was lashing down outside, and I watched as she put her hand against the passenger window, her fingers tracing the trail of water as it trickled down the glass, and on a whisper she said, “It can’t rain forever, right?”
If I thought my heart hurt before, it was nothing compared to the crushing pain I felt in that moment. When she opened the car door and stepped out into the rain, leaving before I could stop her, it felt like my heart had been ripped from my chest. Lying battered on the floor, drowning in the gutter, all hope washed away by the rain. This girl saw me. She knew what I was, what I’d done, and she liked me anyway.
What sort of a fool lets a girl like that walk away?
