Those were the eyes that changed everything.
His snarl of frustration brought me back to life. If I was normal, healthy, I would have been mad about the entire thing. Michaelwantedme to be mad about the entire thing, but in the dark, I couldn’t feel much of anything besides guilt. He had violated every piece of privacy I had, had probably watched me change 1000 times, but the dark only brought calculations. How much time had we wasted pretending we didn’t need each other? How many memories did we throw aside pretending we weren’t lonely?
“I wish none of this ever happened,” I murmured. “I wish I never met Josh. Then I wouldn’t have gone to that stupid party. I wish I hadn’t let you pull away. I should have just—”
The silence strangled everything. I didn’t think I’d ever be ready to admit that I should have just begged him to stay. If I had trusted in him after that night with Josh, if I truly believed that Michael had my safety at heart, then none of this would have happened. If I had just begged him to stay by my side, the accident in the woods never would have happened. If I had begged him to love me the way I loved him—
That thought only brought an ache.
“Don’t act like shit would have been any different,” Michael hissed, his legs crossing again. “I would have destroyed you, Birdie. I would have taken everything from you and then I would have left you to rot.” He wanted me to feel sick, but the hollow words just drew a shiver over my skin. I snuggled deeper into my nest of blankets. “You can’t have a normal life if I’m in it, Birdie.”
“Think that ship sailed a long time ago.”
The words wouldn’t bring a chuckle out of him, but maybe I already knew that. Michael never had been very good at smiling, at finding peace. My eyes flittered shut and for a moment, I let myself fall back into the fantasies I’d forbidden so many years ago. If things had been different, Michael and I could have spent the last six years together. We could have been married, could have been starting a family, could have been happy.
“I took you from your life. I’ve ruined everything for you. I couldn’t keep one god damn promise to you.” The quiet admission snapped my eyes open. On the other side of the door, Michael repositioned himself for the third time. “I’ve never done anything good for you, Birdie. I don’t deserve the way you look at me.”
“Michael.”
“You should look at me the way you look at him.”
“Who?”
“That kid from your office.”
When my heart sank, I was certain he could feel it. I was certain he couldseeit, and when that sickness bubbled up, I buried myself in my blankets again. With Michael so close to me, the last thing I wanted to think about was Tristan, was the friend I thought I had. I wanted to just move on, but the silence from the other side of the door reminded me that moving on really wasn’t a choice anymore.
“He used to be my friend,” I admitted, hoping a half-truth would be better than nothing. “I just set some boundaries and he didn’t take it very well.” His silence sent another shiver over me. “Why do you care so much about Tristan? You said Josh was the one who did all this.”
The name brought a shiver over both of us, but with a sharp breath, Michael relaxed back against the wall.
“Josh is only doing this because of me, Birdie. I’m not even in your fucking life and I’m still ruining it.”
“That’s not true.” When those words came, the three he needed to hear, his body twitched. I didn’t need to study him to know his back had tensed, that his gaze had shifted, that this beast was threatening to tear my throat out. From my nest of blankets, I scooted closer to the door. “You were one of the best things to happen to me, Michael. I would have been all alone if it weren’t for you. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you.”
“Don’t be so fucking dense.” This time, his snap stiffened me. This time, I wasn’t strong enough to fight him back. From the other side of the door, the beast chuckled. “You think this fuck is dangerous? I will ruin you, Birdie. And when push comes to shove, I won’t give a shit about whether it kills you.” Quiet brought another hiss, another sound of frustration, another murmur I’d never be able to forget. “The only favor I’ve ever done you is leaving you.”
“They can’t both be true.”
“Birdie.”
“Either you saved me and you’re kind, or I’m supposed to believe that you’ll hurt me. They can’t both be true, Michael.”
I could have handled another snap. Iexpectedanother bite, but when his silence came, my chest tightened uncontrollably. My hand pressed against the door when my body convulsed, but I wasn’t sure it mattered. Every time I got close to him, he wanted to tear into me.
I was losing him all over again.
“Michael.”
I could feel the truth on his tongue. The quiet whispered something darker, hummed something real, but something terrible crawled out his throat instead. Before he could snarl out the first bit of truth he’d ever shared, the beast chose to save himself. He pulled away. He pulled away like he always did. “I’ll be back later.”
“Michael, please.”
I knew better than to believe the plea would ever reach him. Michael was gone before his name even left my tongue. My loneliness came in one swoop, came with the sound of a door slamming shut. For a moment, time had reversed for both of us. For a moment, we got to be two kids in the library, but that wouldn’t last forever. We weren’t the way we used to be, were we? One night wasn’t going to change that. I wasn’t allowed to touch him anymore, wasn’t allowed to depend on him. He didn’t want me to need him. He promised he’d hurt me if he did, and on the ground, I faced the same question I had all those years ago, the same one that pulled us apart forever:
Was I supposed to trust his snarls or my intuition?
How could a man who made me feel so whole also be the one to make me feel so abandoned?
If we weren’t meant to be, why did he feel so right?