Home > Black Hearts (Sins Duet #1)(22)

Black Hearts (Sins Duet #1)(22)
Author: Karina Halle

Interesting. Very interesting.

People like my father.

“So they end up exposing pieces of themselves that they don’t see. I guess I have the same intuition as her but the one on one is too much for me. I prefer to work with nature. With this.” She gestures to the fog. “No one else really understands how beautiful this is to me.”

I look back at the fog, moving faster now. I wouldn’t call it beautiful. Moody. Dark, maybe. If anything, her beauty stands out more because of the bleakness around her.

“My goal is to take photos that show how I see the world. All the beauty in it. The world is such an ugly and beautiful place, horrible and hopeful. I want to show the light in all the dark places.” She pauses and gives me a sheepish look. “Sorry. I know that must have sounded hella pretentious.”

I slowly shake my head because she sounds anything but that. She sounds real. She sounds like something I want to shake loose from her, to let free and run wild.

“You’re not pretentious,” I tell her, my voice low. “Not even close.”

“That’s not what I hear.”

“What do you hear?” I move in closer to her, the distance between us just a few inches. She doesn’t back up. “What does the world tell you you are?”

I watch her swallow, take a moment. “Oh, you know. I’m too self-absorbed. Narcissistic. Pretentious. I live too much in my head, I’m too anti-social, too distant. I feel too much, care too much. My mother has always chided me for being too sensitive and then I was diagnosed with having hyper-sensitivity, so it turns out she was right. I am too sensitive. About everything. And there’s not a single thing I can do about it except know that when I experience reality, it’s not what everyone else experiences. For better or for worse.” She sighs. “Mainly for worse.”

I feel like this is something she doesn’t unload on many people. My instincts about her were right. She’s fragile but not weak, too much a part of the world and too much removed from it. A contradiction.

“I’m sorry,” she says, shooting me a glance. “I didn’t mean to blab away like that. I know you probably think I’m crazy now. Hell, I think I’m crazy half the time. I really wish I could just be like everyone else. To just…shut it all off.”

“You’re not crazy,” I tell her. “I’m just understanding you better.”

Her mouth quirks up into a dry smile. “I’m surprised you understand me at all. We’ve only just met.”

“True,” I tell her as I reach out and run my fingers along her jaw, tipping her chin up. “But I’m sure you of all people would know that sometimes you can connect with someone in ways you didn’t think you could. Or should.”

She barely nods, her eyes focused on mine, anticipation on her brow. I’m met with the overwhelming desire to protect and shield her which is extremely inconvenient, if not unwelcome, given the circumstances. One minute I need to fuck her, the next I need to protect her, and in the end, what I really need is to do the job I set out to do.

I abruptly drop my hand away from her chin and nod at the bridge. “Okay, so if you’re seeing something different, show me what it is.”

A flash of rejection moves across her brow but she quickly shakes it off and fishes her camera out of the bag. I ask her mundane questions as she sets up the shot, what’s her aperture, speed, things I know little about, and she answers with full confidence, like she’s teaching a class.

She spends about ten minutes getting all the photos she needs, her brow furrowed, her lips pursed as she works, completely immersed with no sign of being self-conscious. She’s in her zone. I’m not even there. I can watch her intensely, every little move and mannerism, and she doesn’t even notice.

When she’s done, she tells me to do the same, but I tell her I’m here to learn from her and that’s all. So we head back to the car and we snake up toward the bridge, parking at one of the lots.

“I’ve never walked across the bridge before,” she says as we sit in the car.

“Really?”

She shakes her head. “I’ve been too afraid.”

“Fear of heights? Vertigo?”

“No…more like, I’ll fling myself off if given the chance.” She tries to look reassuring. “Don’t worry, I’m not suicidal. And I know I won’t do it. It’s just…I fear that I might.”

“Fear of losing control.”

“I guess. Fear of dying. Fear of those ten seconds as you fall, feeling everything too much for the last time. But you’ll hold on to me if anything happens…won’t you?”

I can only stare at her for a moment. So far she hasn’t ceased to fascinate me. “Of course I’ll hold you. The whole way.”

And even though I can’t remember the last time I held a girl’s hand—maybe my sister’s when we were young—when we get out of the car, I hold on to hers. Small, cold and slowly warming in my grasp.

It feels natural. Disturbingly so.

Heights don’t bother me in the slightest, but even then, the walk across the bridge is disorienting. Maybe it’s the amount of people who are walking, the long span of the bridge which is more up and down than you realize, the cars whizzing past, the fog that twists shapes and throws you off balance. Nevertheless, I stay between her and the tall fence that separates us from certain death.

   
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