Page 51 of Out of My Flocking Mind

“Of course it wasn’t personal. Do you really believe that I would leave your safety to someone else if I had another option?”

“You’re always so serious. Maybe you do need a booty call.”

“Are you offering?”

“Sorry, but you know the whole hot to crazy ratio? Mine is way too far on the crazy side to be a good bet for one-night stands.”

“Good thing I have no interest in one-night stands, then.”

I went to answer, to snap out a snarky little comeback, but then his words settled. Was he suggesting that our time hadn’t been a one-time thing? He couldn’t be implying he wanted something more than a little fun, right?

Again, the words of so many others hit me. Beth claiming that Harrison might have stolen someone’s power, the rumors that he’d hurt others to gain his position. Ignis talking about how isolated and lonely he had been his entire life. All these people thought they knew him, wanted to classify him and put him in some neat little box where they could feel empowered.

And I’d done the same exact thing, hadn’t I? I’d decided who and what he was based on what made me the most comfortable, assuming that a man like him just participated in our little fling because it was easy and available. Never, anywhere in my mind, had I even thought that it might be something more, something deeper.

A rumbling in my stomach that had nothing to do with food kept me quiet, when I had no fucking idea how to respond or deal with that idea.

Why was it that people couldn’t keep things nice and casual?

These men were worse than women…

Chapter Twelve

“I should go see Ignis soon,” I said as I sat in the living room of Harrison’s house. I had stretched out on the couch, my heels up on the table. Harrison used to try to get me not to sit like this, but I must have worn him down enough that he no longer cared.

“Why?”

I shrugged. “I’m used to seeing her every week. It’s part of my routine.”

“Her powers don’t work well on you, do they? How can she make you feel better, then?”

“Well, no, they don’t really work. At least, I don’t think they do. She says she doesn’t really feel emotions from me, but I’m not sure if she can affect my moods or not. Still, talking to her makes me feel better.”

Harrison closed the book that had been open in his lap, looking across at me. “I am capable of doing anything she does—typically better.”

“Are you being jealous?” I lifted my eyebrow, amused by the thought.

“It isn’t jealousy.” He paused, then let out a rush of air. “Even if it were, why would you leave where you are safe in order to have Ignis help you, when I could do so here? If you have a headache, if you have anxiety, if you need sleep, I can help with any of that. I dislike that you still don’t trust me.”

I nearly told him I did trust him, but I knew better than to utter that. The fact was… I didn’t, not fully. Even if I didn’t think he was the monster others seemed to think, I also knew he wasn’t entirely honest with me. “It’s not like that,” I said, the words true but softer than the full truth. “I just don’t like the idea of letting anyone dig through my brain. I went through that already—remember? Turns out, it is not my kink.”

“What you went through was the equivalent of a mental vivisection. That is not what I am suggesting. Even if I didn’t use my powers, you could still speak to me. We have spent weeks together at this point and you say so little to me. You still talk to me as though we are strangers, even after everything we have been through. You are the first person I have allowed into my home, who can stand being near me, and yet you keep up these walls.”

I dropped my head back so I stared up at the high ceilings instead of at him. “You’re no better. Last I checked, you aren’t telling me shit about your life. You don’t tell me who you met with the other day, you don’t tell me anything unless you’ve got no choice. So you’d better be careful because you might topple right off your high horse up there.”

“What do you want to know? What piece of information would make you feel better around me? If I tell you about my childhood, will you trust me? If I tell you the weight placed on me by my position in my clan, will that allow you to rely on me?”

And the fact was, he wasn’t wrong. There was no one specific piece of information that would suddenly make it so that I believed in him. People were too complicated, too deep for me to take one little bit of background as the end all to them.

“Exactly,” he said, then sighed and got to his feet. “Nothing I could tell you would fix this. You look at me with distrust, and there’s no way that one little story will get you to let go of that. I doubt it is even about me, at the end of the day. I saw how you acted around Kelvin, heard you rejected Galen’s offer to become his mate. You refuse to allow anyone close. Even Ignis, who you claim to miss, you do not tell the truth to. Perhaps I need to simply recognize that there is a line between you and everyone else, and to stop trying to force a relationship that won’t ever occur.”

Fuck, the boy could guilt trip better than my mom. I actually felt bad about it, all of a sudden. Looking back, logically, he hadn’t fucked me over. Instead, he’d helped me, again and again. Even still, even with that, something about him just made me untrusting.

Or maybe it wasn’t him at all—maybe it was just about me.

I thought back over the past years—fuck, over my whole life. Had there really been a single person I’d let close to me? Someone I didn’t hide from? I didn’t push away?

Even with my own family, who I loved endlessly, I never let myself relax. I still played a part, still hid away everything painful and real inside me. Suddenly, my future felt much longer than it had been before. Was this what I was forced to expect for the rest of my life? This same isolation? The loneliness?

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