Page 66 of The Kiss of Deception

A mere mild concussion doesn’t seem capable of capturing the magnitude of the events. It doesn’t seem right that my brush with death only resulted in a stitched bump on my head and a small scar as the only evidence.

Were it not for the sutured skin, I might have believed I imagined the whole thing. I might have been able to convince myself it was all in my head.

I’m grateful for my own sake, but something so minor as a concussion—a mild one, at that—almost makes me feel like the panic I felt was unwarranted; that I overreacted.

I can’t remember how long we stayed there, suspended in time. The clock warped by the terror in my bones, bending and stretching minutes into eternities. But the panic, the black void where nothing but pain and impending death existed, wasn’t something I could easily forget—no matter how much I tried.

Shoes tap on tiles before ebbing away, shadows color the blinds before disappearing, but I don’t hear or see any of them.

With the frenzy of doctors and visitors and questions finally over, and the adrenaline has evaporated, all that’s left for me to do is absorb and process what happened. Avoidance is no longer a possibility when the alternative is to fix my attention on Miles’s statue.

Watching dusk swallow the sky, he distanced himself as I spoke to the police—yet my skin felt heavy with the uncanny familiarity of his full attention as I relayed and relived every second of my personal horror movie. Once I came to the end, he jumped in, informing the detectives he knew the suspect.

Lucy is a fan, one of the few who regularly camp outside the club's facilities to greet the players. He informed them he’s stumbled upon her in other places, too. They quickly deduced the term isn’t fan. It’s stalker.

Then, he trudged back to the square he seems to have rented, where he remains still—so very still, so purposely unmoving, it’s unnerving.

As though I’m glass, and he fears the slightest shift will disturb the breeze and turn me into broken pieces on the ground. That his gaze might splinter, his touch might shatter me completely.

I’m broken already. I’m thousands of tiny broken fragments waiting to be put back together.

Miles leans against the windowsill, like he can’t sustain his own weight. His guilt is too heavy of a burden.

Behind him, the sunlight sets on the horizon as the stars stir. I want to count them as they light up, one, then the other, and sprinkle the sky with sheer beauty. I want to appreciate the absolute preciousness of getting to witness another sunset, getting to live another night and wake up for a new day.

But Miles occupies my entire eyesight.

Through overwhelmed eyes that burn with water, I count four steps. Four brisk steps are all it takes for him to cross the room and tower over my bed.

“Fuck, Zoe.”

His trembling hand swallows my neck, the pad of his thumb falling to my carotid with precision. It presses delicately into my skin, as though the music in the monitor can be a liar, a manipulator lulling him with lies.

It isn’t. Its hum becomes louder as my lungs expand with Miles’s scent, the antiseptic no longer reaches in my nostrils.

My pulse taps against his fingerprint, speaking to him in an ancient language to which only he owns the key to decode.

“You’re okay,” he murmurs.

I’m not sure if it’s a plea or reassurance, or whether it’s sent for my ears or his.

I echo it anyway. “I’m okay.”

Abruptly, as quickly as he’s there, he isn’t.

He retracts with stuttering steps, depriving me of his healing touch. I fist the scratchy sheets to stop my rogue hands from reaching for him.

“I’m sorry.”

That stops him, his head whipping towards me so fast it almost makes me dizzy.

I shift under his stare. The sheets scrape against my bare legs, and for a moment I wonder if my clothes were salvaged. The thought of losing my old bee pajamas stirs a distinct wave of grief.

“Never apologize to me. Why would you?” He drags his palms down his face. “I should be apologizing to you. I should be begging on my fucking knees for your forgiveness. And it wouldn’t be enough.”

I blow a strand of hair out of my face but it comes straight back. “I don’t see any use for you on your knees right now.”

Miles ignores me with great deliberateness. “I should’ve—I shouldn’t—”

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