Page 38 of Between Dusk and Dawn

"This is dumb." I huffed, moving away and plopping myself down at the small table where I worked and ate most of my meals. "I don't even know why I'm getting so worked up about any of this. I don't even want to marry you."

He pulled out the chair next to me, cracking a slight grin. "I need you to."

I rolled my eyes. "This is very dramatic, Walsh. Even for you."

He leaned back in the wooden chair. "I'm being serious. I need you to come to Dansport with me and live in my house. I live near the woods."

"No," I said, setting my glass down. "I have school."

There were a lot of reasons I couldn’t marry Walsh Solis, but the biggest one was the secret I was keeping. I wasn’t worthy of love or being loved by anyone. For me, a love marriage was the shit people had in fairy tales. In real life, marriage was about two toxic people who fed off each other.

If I married Walsh, who was just as broken and toxic as I was, then we would somehow end up like my parents, with kids who had scars on their hands simply for being kids. I couldn’t let that happen.

"You can finish it online," he replied.

"You have an answer for everything?"

"Yes," he said with another lopsided grin.

"I don't understand." Real tears threatened to spill. "None of this makes sense. You don't even like me. The last time I saw you was at graduation outside your apartment. You stuffed me in the back of a car after you told me you were somehow going to ruin my life one day and that my time was coming for what I did to your sister. And speaking of Ember, does she agree with this plan?"

He flicked a piece of hair off his forehead and crossed his arms over his chest. "No. She has no idea. No one does."

"I'm not doing this. You can't decide after three years of ignoring me and an entire year before that where you were punishing me by purposely isolating me?—"

"I did not do that. You did that to yourself."

"Please do not talk over me," I demanded.

"Okay. I'm listening," he said, taking a sip of wine before putting his glass down on the table.

Truthfully, I was surprised he stood down from my request. He was the type to fight me on everything, so this felt…out of place.

"You cannot come in here and make demands of me, Walsh Solis. I have a life that I’ve tried so hard to work for, a life I am trying to be proud of."

"What happened last night—" I held up a hand, and he used his fingers to gesture zipping his mouth shut.

"What happened last night was a fluke. I appreciate you helping me at the bar, but I am tired, Walsh. I am exhausted trying to figure out who I am now after what happened with your sister. I lost myself when I was trying to punish you. I was so determined to fucking ruin your life by using Ember as a scapegoat to all of it, that I lost myself."

"No." He butt-in again, and I scowled, but his hands reached for me. I refused to take them, but he still held them out. "You lost who you thought you were."

I paused, taking in his comment. "But I want to be that version of myself again. You don’t get to dictate which parts I get to show to the world just because you think you know me better, which, by the way, you don't."

"Bet."

"Oh my God." I groaned. "Stop with the fucking interrupting."

"No, but seriously. Ask me a question you think I don’t know."

"My favorite ice cream flavor?" I cocked my head. I hated ice cream, so it was a trick question.

"None. You are slightly lactose intolerant, so if you are forced to eat something, you much prefer Italian ice or sorbet."

"How the fuck did you know that?" I asked, then held up a hand, stopping him as he was about to answer. "No, I changed my mind. I don’t want to know."

Walsh always had this weird knack for knowing things about me, sometimes even before I did. When we first met, it was like he had a GPS tracker on me, always aware of where I was on campus and what I was up to. At first, I thought it was just because I'm a creature of habit, but there was something more to it that I couldn't put my finger on.

"Tell me about my scars, then."

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