Page 64 of Obsession

His words surprise me. “You don’t disgust me.”

“Oh?”

“I’m…”

Is there a single word to explain how I feel toward Aris? Outraged, horrified, beguiled, humiliated. Is there something that encompasses all of those? Even so, I don’t think it would be enough.

“What?” he presses; I’ve taken too long to answer.

Giving up on simplifying, I turn on my side to face him, wincing slightly from the press on my ribs.

Aris turns to face me as well, and, as it was this morning, our faces are only inches apart. Though there are only two candles still lit, it’s easy to see him; his paleness is luminescent. He’s so beautiful that it hurts to look at him like this, soft in the confines of his own home, at rest with his pet beside him. The beauty is distracting, and I don’t notice that I’ve reached for him until I’ve completed one full stroke of his cheek.

I half-heartedly tell myself that I am playing a part. Tomorrow, I will look at this with shame. For now, it’s just us.

Aris leans into the touch, though his eyes don’t leave my own. Cautious.

“You don’t disgust me, but you hurt me. Broke me,” I say, eyes misting from the truth. I hate talking about this. Acknowledging it. I’ve been with him for a little over a month now, and we’ve discussed it only once, my first night here. “I fear that you had a good time doing it, too. And… I would have expected it from anyone but you. Don’t you know how stupid I felt?”

He watches quietly, sensing that there is more. His eyes are so dark that I can see my own reflection in them.

“I thought I had a new life. I was convinced that I was happy, that I’d been saved by Henry.”

“I saved you,” Aris interrupts fiercely. “Me, not him."

With a sigh, I tuck some of his black hair behind his ear. It’s too short to stay there, so it falls out again, and I go to tuck it back again and again, until I’m essentially just stroking his head.

“Saved me how?” I whisper. “By leaving me? Lying to me?”

I brace for another outburst, though Aris has settled again, listening. It was just the mention of Henry that set him off.

“What would you have been without it?” he asks—not maliciously, just truly curious. Things are different between us when we lay together in the dark. Secrets and truths pass more freely.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve seen the people in those cities. Without me, you would be one of them.”

I don’t say anything for a moment, and then, “This is better, living in a prison?”

He scoffs. “I let you roam.”

“A prison with field trips is still a prison.”

“You came to me willingly,” he insists, and I am unable to contest that.

It is then that I realize a storm is raging outside, rain pounding against the ground like it’s been personally affronted. The night was completely clear earlier. Maybe it's a byproduct of Aris’ reactions, or maybe the storm spawned from air movements. Who knows what’s natural and unnatural anymore?

“I don’t like that I hurt you,” he says after a moment. “I told you before that I could have handled it better, but I thought…”

“What?” It’s strange to see him uncertain like this. Almost apologetic. Not quite, but almost.

“I thought that you would always be there.”

Had I not thought the same?

Silence falls between the two of us, weighed down by his words. Such a humble, vulnerable truth.

The moment is very fragile. I have so many things to say. So many things to know.

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