Dreams of 18

We both know it’s the lie of the century. His eyes even go to the disguise that’s dangling from my sweaty fingers.

He humors me with a twitch of his lips. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You do that,” I say, keeping up the charade.

Then my back hits the wall and settles into it and I forget how to make words.

He comes to a stop a few feet away from me, his shoulders blocking the measly light trickling through the windows, completely throwing us into shadow, turning day into night.

I notice his eyes are brown, dark brown, rapidly going darker. Will I ever get over how gorgeous his eyes are, and how chameleon-like and unpredictable?

He roams them over my face, rattling me a little more before carelessly murmuring, “Tell me something. What do you do when someone leaves you on the side of the road?”

“What?”

When he leans toward me and puts his hand, splayed wide on the wall, up above my head, I know I’m not going to like what he has to say.

But that doesn’t matter, not at all, because he’s just inched closer to me.

I can smell his spicy scent mixed in with whiskey, and I can feel his heat on my skin.

“It’s late at night. The road’s deserted and you know fuck-all about the town. What do you do, Violet?”

My hands are fisting and un-fisting the same way my mouth is opening and closing, trying to come up with an answer.

I mean, what is he even asking me? It’s not as if I get abandoned all the time.

“Well, I’m not sure what the right answer is. Seeing as it had never happened to me before last night. But I opted to walk back to civilization.”

That gets me flaring nostrils.

“You walk back to civilization. But let’s say that you had your phone and you could’ve called for a cab. You could’ve called for an Uber. Do you do that? Or do you walk for miles? Not only that but you walk like you own the highway. Like you have no cares in the world. You’ve got your giant, ridiculous headphones on and you’re dancing to the music. Is that what you do?”

He’s talking a lot.

He never talks this much and he’s saying a lot of things that he should have no knowledge about.

I mean, how does he know I was dancing? I was sad and I knew if I didn’t do anything to distract myself, I’d lie down on the road and cry until dawn.

“How do you –”

“And then, when you’ve walked for miles like an idiot, what do you do? Do you sleep in the car? Instead of finding a decent, secure place to spend the night in? Come on. Enlighten me, Violet.”

I try again when he pauses, his chest swelling, pushing his plaid shirt to its limits. “How do you know what I did after you left me?”

I swear I hear something.

A growl, maybe, originating somewhere deep in him. Or the fabric finally being pushed to its limits and tearing with how large his breath is.

“Answer me. Is that what you do when you’ve been left on the side of a motherfucking deserted road?”

His tone is thick and coated with sand. Every word he’s uttered, every curse he’s spewed, is seething with heat.

They hit me like darts, sharp and cutting. But I’m not cringing with the sting of them. I’m not wincing or hissing in pain.

I like them.

I like the burn of his razor-sharp words. I like how electric they are.

Because I get what’s happening here.

He’s mad at me for surviving his wrath, isn’t he? He’s mad that he did something horrible to me and yet, I came back. I didn’t run away, crying.

I’m still here.

He’s mad that he hasn’t been able to scare me.

I unclench my hand and my disguise falls down to the floor. “You came back for me, didn’t you? That’s how you know what I was doing. That I walked for miles. That’s… That’s how you knew where to find me.”

His frown is thundering but I don’t get deterred. That’s agreement enough.

He did think I’d be scared of him. He thought I’d be like one of his players or something.

Oh, Mr. Edwards.

I’m not normal. Typical things like angry beasts don’t scare me. I’m scared of other tiny things like front doors or getting stopped on a street by a stranger.

“What I don’t get is, why didn’t I see you?”

“Because as I said, you were too busy to notice anything. Too busy and too fucking reckless.”

“So you came back and then what? You followed me?”

He’s silent and still frowning, and again I know I’m right.

I also know I shouldn’t get too excited.

But I can’t help it. He not only saved me the whole anxiety of talking to a stranger and finding a room for the night, he followed me home.