Zach holds his silence and I wonder how he can do that when my words have a life of their own.
“No.”
“What?”
“I don’t live for you. Nothing about you matters to me,” he replies after a few seconds.
“Right. Of course. I knew that.”
He totally defended you, Cleo.
He did not. Grace doesn’t know anything.
I scan Zach’s hard face, angled jaw, the flicks of his hair brushing against his eyebrows. For the first time I notice that he looks… pale. Kind of haggard, sweaty, even. His cheekbones have a sunken look and his stubble is thicker, like he didn’t have the time to shave this morning or he simply forgot.
“Do you… are you sick?”
“You worried about me?”
I scoff. “No. I’m just…”
“You’re just what?”
There’s a bite in his voice and it gets my back up. “I’m just wondering if you have a fever. And if you do, then is it contagious because I don’t want to catch anything from you. You’re a little too close to me.”
At this, he gets even closer. As if he’s crossing the threshold, the line, just to scare me.
My glance jerks to his right hand. The hand he uses the most and the one where his tattoo is. I read the script running down his wrist. I can cross the line.
But suddenly, that hand is gone from the wall and I whip my gaze back to him. He fishes something out of his pockets.
“No, Blue. It’s not contagious. What I have is because of you.”
I focus on the object he’s holding and dear God, it’s the laxative.
My eyes go wide when I understand his meaning. He fell for it. He fell for my prank and that’s why he looks like this. Pale and sweaty and clammy.
“I…”
“I found it on the counter last night. Belongs to you, doesn’t it?”
I jerk out a nod.
“Another way to get back at me.”
I go to nod but then stop. Did he say he found it last night?
If he did, then why did he… eat it? Why did he eat the custard? That was the only thing in that fridge I could’ve put it in because that was the only thing meant for him. And for me, too.
“Why did you eat the custard?” I ask, confused. “If you knew… about my prank.”
His answer is a tight clench of his jaw.
Then something else occurs to me. He hasn’t smoked in a while. I haven’t seen him with a cigarette ever since I took his pack. Not that I keep tabs on him but still. Even now, his smell is… un-smoky.
“Wait a second. Are you…” I shake my head because this is bizarre. “Have you not been smoking? Why would you not smoke?”
This is the very first time I don’t understand him. I don’t understand his motivations, his actions.
All these years, it’s been simple. He was rich and bored and bad. And I was the new girl from the other side of the line. He and his friends bullied me because they could. Because no one would lift a finger and because I was on their turf.
Why would he deliberately hurt himself though?
“I…”
I trail off again because I literally have nothing to say. My mind is blank.
Actually, no.
I’m lying. My mind isn’t blank. It’s flooded with stupid, crazy thoughts.
Thoughts like… maybe he did it for me.
He hurt himself. On purpose.
He hurt himself because I wanted him to hurt.
Zach lowers himself over me some more, making my jumbled thoughts go away.
Okay, thank God. Because it’s the craziest thing I’ve ever thought. Zach doesn’t care what I want. He never has.
Crazy with a capital c.
There’s no touching between us, nope. But the weight of his chest inches apart from mine still feels crushing. It still halts my breaths.
“You’re getting brave, aren’t you?” he asks, instead of answering my earlier question.
“What?”
“But there’s a very thin line between being brave and being stupid.”
A barely-leashed threat lingers in his tone. A threat that steals my voice.
He cocks his head to the side and licks his lips. “You don’t wanna cross that line. You don’t wanna be stupid and steal my stuff or run your mouth off about my dick.”
Oh God, I’d forgotten about my careless, harmless little joke.
He knows.
How does he know?
“There are no secrets in this house. Not from me. Do you understand?”
“I –”
“Shh.” He puts his finger on my navy-blue painted lips. “Don’t talk. Just listen. I’ve been real nice to you. Real patient. I’ve been giving you passes because I can’t change history. I can’t change what happened at St. Patrick’s and if these little, childish games make you happy, then you can have your fun. I can allow you to have your fun.”
He lowers his eyes to look at my lips, which I realize are parted. I’m breathing onto his finger, misting it up as he continues, “But it’s getting a little annoying now. People who annoy me, make me angry. And you really don’t wanna make me angry, do you?”
I’m frozen.
He presses his finger into the plumpness of my lips, flattening my mouth, pushing against my teeth, probably smudging my lipstick.
“Be a good girl, Blue, and shake your head.”
I don’t. I can’t.
He’s never been this close to me. If I thought the bathtub was close, then I was crazy. This is close. This is hovering and looming. This is the definition of the word pervasive.
He’s everywhere.
His smell, his breaths, his voice, his heat and his skin. So much skin.
Then his whole hand captures my jaw, all while his finger is still on my parted lips. He puts pressure on my chin and forces me, makes me shake my head.
“Good. That’s good,” he murmurs. “I told you the first night I came back: don’t tempt me. Stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours.”
His soft tone hits me in the stomach. Right in the indentation of my navel, and I suck in a breath.
Zach notices.
He notices my heaving chest. I bet he also notices how my breasts are punching the fabric. They feel heavy to me. Heavy and dangling and… ripe.
God, and sweaty. Just like his torso, all ridged and corrugated with muscles.
It’s like we’re both suspended in this moment. Him with his eyes on my chest and me with my eyes on his face.
It’s wrong and it shouldn’t happen but it is happening and I want it to stop.
A second later, it does when a sound travels from down the hallway. I hear footsteps bounding, approaching. Someone is climbing the stairs.
The weird paralysis of my body breaks and my palms slip on the wall. Zach looks up at me, at his hand that’s still wrapped around my jaw.
“Let me go.” I look toward the stairs at the end of the hallway.
His reaction, however, is completely opposite to mine.
Amused, he says, “I don’t like your tone.”
My heart’s in my throat, my legs are shaking. “You’re joking, right?”
“Are you laughing?”
I grit my teeth. “Whoever it is, I don’t want them to see me like this. With you, okay? I can’t have anyone think that we have something going on.”
Zach frowns as if he’s genuinely bemused. “But we do have something going on.”
I throw another glance toward the stairs, wanting to push him off, physically. But I don’t want to touch him. Especially when he’s not wearing a shirt. I’m afraid to touch his skin.
“What?”
His eyes bore into mine. The blackness of them reaches out and almost consumes me. “You think about me all the time. I’m the only thought in your head. I make your heart beat faster, don’t I? I make your chest feel tight. You shiver when I’m close. Your pulse is fluttering on your neck. Tell me, did it flutter when he asked you out?”
I gasp; the bastard overheard everything.
Damn it.
And he’s right. He’s so fucking right but I don’t have the time to argue with him.
Zach chuckles humorlessly. “No secrets, remember?” He shakes his head once, slowly. “You wanna fall in love, huh? Let me tell you something about love, Blue. It hurts. Remember when you cut your palm and it was bleeding? It’s like that. Only the cut is in your heart and the blood never stops. In love, you bleed forever. Do you wanna bleed forever, Blue? I bet your heart is real fragile. I bet it cuts easily.”
Every part of my body is attuned to his words, especially my heart. The thing that bleeds in love, according to him. It’s beating like crazy.
Crazy, crazy, crazy. Like me. Why am I not pushing him away?
The sounds and laughter are growing closer and finally I get enough sense to say something. “Let me go.”
He smirks. “Say please.”
I fist my hands. “Please.”
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Getting serious, he continues, “And Blue? A town can handle only one bully and this town’s already got one.”
Something flashes on his face quick like lightning. “Don’t be a bully, Blue. Don’t be like me.”
He tightens his grip on my jaw once more before letting me go and moving away.
Just then, a couple of maintenance guys come into view. They barely pay Zach and me any attention as they walk in another direction.
Deflating, I grab hold of the cart and get out of there.
It feels like the prom.
Tonight’s date with Ryan.
I’m wearing my dark blue dress with white polka dots and pockets. It’s strapless and hugs my body tightly before ending mid-thigh. It’s a kind of dress that I always have to push myself to wear because I think my curves are super visible.
But whatever. I’m wearing it and I have paired it with borrowed blue sandals from Tina.
I told Ryan that I’d meet him right outside the restaurant he picked for us. He was bummed that he wouldn’t get to drive me over but I’m saving that conversation for another time. Fourth or fifth date, maybe.