“You’re looking at me as if you’re trying to find something important.”
“Maybe I am.”
“And what’s that?”
“You don’t need to know…right now,” I crossed my arms and replied nonchalantly, throwing his previous words back at him.
He smirked and gave a slight shake of his head. “You know one day you’ll thank me for all I’ve kept from you.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I believe it because I mean it and it’s the truth.” Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees.
He’d ditched our school’s uniform jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his white button-down. In this big room filled with furniture and décor that easily cost more than my poor broken down Kia and chilled air full of pregnant suspense, he resembled more of a crime lord than a high-school student. It was an unnerving yet perfect fit for him. He also looked crazy good right then.
I tried not to let his smooth, inked skin and the way one strand of silky, dark hair had broken free and now rested on his forehead distract me from the importance of the conversation we needed to have.
It was more of a struggle than I would ever admit.
“You know relationships built on distrust and secrecy don’t usually last, right?”
“It’s our secrets that tie us together.”
“Those same secrets will break us apart,” I retorted, “And I’m not keeping anything from you. It’s the other way around, remember? You literally just said it.”
He palmed his hair back into its usual flawless style and sat up. “You and I will never be apart, not permanently.”
Um, what? “You mean if we break up it’s only going to be temporary?”
“We don’t break up, we just break. We fall apart maybe even hate each other but we never separate without coming back together. It’s not possible.”
Wow. This was getting deeper than I imagined it would.
I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and shifted deeper into the couch, pushing myself against stubborn leather, turning his words over in my head.
“Judas…” I began tentatively, “People split up all the time. Aren’t we kind of--.”
“We aren’t people.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that we’re--.”
“We don’t,” he swiftly cut me off for a second time.
I laughed despite how serious he was being and the finality in which he spoke those last two words. I couldn’t picture my life without him now that he’d come crashing back into it. I never wanted to let Judas go. My heart hurt and I felt sick even entertaining the idea.
The first time Judas and I met, we sparked and ignited into an all-consuming inferno of illicit passion.
It was an encounter of pleasure after a hidden crime was committed by two familiar strangers. Things weren’t like that now. The secret we had back then was something we shared between us. These secrets he spoke of now were all guarded and kept me in the dark.
I sighed and looked at him subjectively. He did the same to me, studiously.
“Whatever it is you’re thinking, I don’t think I’m going to like it,” he said softly.
“You won’t,” I replied honestly.
For however whacked I might have been, I hadn’t completely lost my inner voice of reason. Judas was hinting at a future I couldn’t fathom having together no matter how badly I wanted to be with him, I simply couldn’t envision that for us. The way we were going wouldn’t lead us to a happily-ever-after. It would lead us to a brutal ruin.
It would be easier if I let him go, probably the wiser thing to do, but I couldn’t. Judas and I were two fucked up individuals going about life as the world expected us to. Somehow in the middle of all the chaos, we’d found each other. Giving him up would be dangerous, a risk to both my physical state and my mental. But keeping him could be just the same.
“I don’t know what to do,” I murmured, diverting my gaze to his tempered coffee table.
Less than forty-eight hours ago I thought I knew exactly that. Just like I was sure I could handle lying to Audrey until I realized she was already close to figuring out the truth. What if I was wrong about everything? I wanted to be strong and never waver in the choices I made. I’d hate to look back on my life with aged bitterness because all I had were regrets.
I swear it all felt like too much sometimes. Either way, I saw it right now the outcome was the same.
Someone was going to get hurt.
That someone would most likely be me.
Judas shifted so that his body was more angled towards mine. “What are you so unsure about?”
Something in his tone made me hesitant to immediately respond, shelving the answer that first came to mind. Why did he sound slightly amused?
“This discussion is heavier than it should be,” I replied with forced pep, “I’m only eighteen. I don’t know what I want to eat for dinner most nights. How can I realistically plan out a distant future?”