Page 78 of Sick Bargain

He shakes his head. “Give me another example.”

I get the gauze off his wrists and let both of them rest on his knees, palms up. “Do you expect me to love you?” I ask instead.

He squints at me, blue eyes curious. “Why would you ask that?”

“Because we’re attached now, aren’t we? We’re… us. A kouple… with a K. Wherever the fuck the future goes, we’re going together. Most people call that a relationship, and relationships come with love.”

“You forced us together,” he amends.

“You walked in here.”

“What’s love to you?” Remiel asks.

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “Obsession.”

“Tell me what else you’re obsessed with. Any other people?”

“No.”

“A thing? A place? A hobby?” he asks.

“Not really.” I look around my room. “I feel safe in here, but I’m not obsessed with it. I guess I’m kind of attached to the others, but not obsessed with them. I fixate on things, but eventually, those drop off and become nothing again.”

“Is that my path? You’re fixated on me now, but it’ll drop off?”

“You don’t feel like a fixation,” I tell him. “You feel like an obsession. But I can’t tell what that means. Is love an obsession, or am I too volatile for that?”

Remiel tosses the used gauze to the end of the bed and reaches out to touch me. He hesitates, hand outstretched, eyes on mine for permission. I take his fingers and look at them in my hand. Admiring. Understanding. Feeling.

“I don’t think your love will ever be romantic,” he tells me. “Romance doesn’t do what you did to me. But it’s not all one-sided. I did terrible things, too, and they aren’t romantic. I think your love is more like consumption. It’s fierce and territorial and irrational. Maybe that’s not love. Maybe it’s just possession.”

“Is there a difference?”

He swallows and lets me play with his fingers. “Are we talking about me and you here?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, well, do you want to own me and take away my free will?”

“For a while,” I admit. “Until you start making better choices.”

He laughs, and my eyes snap to his face because… because that’s the first real laugh he’s given me.God, it’s better than his cello.“That’s fair. I bargained my life away, so that’s our foundation.”

“But?”

“But,” he says. “I kind of hope we… if there is awe, I hope it becomes more of a partnership. It doesn’t have to be equal. You give what I need and I give what you need, even if it’s unhealthy. Love, to me, is caring enough about someone to know what they need and wanting to give it to them. It doesn’t have to be romance and kindness and compassion. It can be rough and unhinged and aggressive if that’s the language we speak it in.” He looks up at me. “I barely know you, Krypt. I don’t know what you need because you’ve spent this whole time bringing me back to life. So I can’t love you, and you can’t love me because our relationship hasn’t been about each other. It’s been about a curse. It’s been a deal. It’s been about fear.”

I don’t like that. “So far,” I say, and I’ve never felt more vulnerable than from those two words.

“So far,” he echoes with a small smile. “I don’t expect anything,” he answers my original question. “I just know that I want you. I know you don’t want to acknowledge that, but I do. I don’t want to hurt all the time.” He holds up his wrists. “But I get why you did this. It healed some fear inside me, and I think… I think you gave me what I needed because you care about my life.”

“About owning it,” I insist.

His fingers twitch in mine. “This is the first real conversation we’ve had. One without threats and dares and challenges.”

“So?”

“Why now?” he asks, more astute than I gave him credit for.

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