Page 71 of Doesn't Count

My mouth opens ready to fire off another missile until I register his words. I don’t know when we stopped playing our game of tug of war, but somewhere along the way we gave up. The notion of winning no longer a necessity.

“Khaos?” Confusion clutters my brain as I try to wrap my mind around the idea of giving in to him.

I never needed to concede, to bow down and admit defeat because he’s always been the first to fold. I’m the one holding all the power now with Khaos kneeling before me. Do I show him mercy? Bring him to his feet and restore his battered ego? Do I let him reign again, and over me no less?

Slowly, he grabs my coffee and places it on the counter beside us. When he turns back around, his palms cup my face.

“Just admit that you want this.” He pleads, desperate to level the playing field.

So, I relent, nodding, words caught in my throat. No amount of pesticide could kill the swarm of butterflies flitting around deep in my belly and I’m dying to give in to whatever they want to quell the chaos.

“God dammit!” He slams the wall behind me with the palm of his hand, startling me. “I need you to say it. Tell me you want this because I know you fucking do.”

“Yes! Okay, I want this! I want you!” I shout, unleashing this confession I’ve held on to the last couple months.

"Fuck.” He groans, wrapping his hands around my thighs and lifting me up.

My back slams against the bedroom door, flinging it open as he rushes us to the bed. He drops me to the mattress and grabs his shirt from behind, pulling it over his head. I don’t miss the array of scars that litter his skin, wrapping around to his back. I want to trace each one with my fingertips, but before I can he yanks my wrist until I’m standing in front of him.

“Tell me this one’s going to count.” He demands.

I swallow, fear and excitement clogging my throat. What he’s asking is for me to let my guard down, to drop my defenses and let him in willingly, without any pretense.

“This one counts.” I acknowledge on an unsteady breath.

I brace myself, anticipating an attack that doesn’t come. Instead, I watch in awe as Khaos unties the bandana around his face and lets it fall. The black cloth floats to the floor in slow motion, time coming to a complete pause. Everything else fades away as something I’ve wanted for so long becomes the only thing I see. His bare, unpainted face stares back at me with uncertainty and a vulnerability so potent it nearly brings me to my knees.

My eyes scan every inch of his face as if I’ll never see it again and that may very well be true. I don’t know what has made him change his mind, but I'm not taking this for granted. I palm the side of his face, feeling the dark scruff against his sharp cheek. Everything about him is sharp, his attitude, his features, his words. God that nose, so straight and his lips, they’re like soft pillows that are begging to be kissed. Even the small, iridescent scar that cuts into his upper lip is perfection.

“Tell me you hate me,” it seems to be the only emotion I can handle right now because the antonym belongs in a whole other realm where Khaos and I don’t exist together.

“I hate you.” He mutters.

Chapter Twenty

Khaos

What a lie we tell ourselves. A lie that makes what we have easier to accept because love is the ultimate sacrifice, one we’re not ready to give.

My heart thuds so hard beneath my sternum it’s going to leave a bruise. I wait, suspended in time as Ash devours my face with curious eyes. I try to decipher her thoughts through every feature that crosses her face waiting, waiting, waiting… but -

Ash doesn’t recognize me.

She wouldn’t though. I’m an entirely different person, the boy she used to know is long dead, his memories buried underground for the last five years. No part of Oliver lives in me now, except our obsession with Ashton Crawford; our first love, our first heartbreak, and our only light in the darkest days.

I told myself that Oliver died the second I escaped that hell hole. I left him there to rot with his sins, finally as dead as I hadwished for years. I moved on, I pushed the past behind me, I pulled myself out of the agony that clung to me like the stench of cigarettes.

But then, there she was, standing over me in that barn as perfect and flawless as an angel. I thought for a moment that I was dreaming because the sight before me was something I had only seen in my subconscious until she spoke, and I knew she was real.

That reunion I conjured up in my mind over the years looked very different than the one in reality. Feelings I didn’t know that existed exploded like an unforeseen bomb. That heartbreak from ten years ago resurrecting like Jesus himself, then came the anger and betrayal. Suddenly hate overshadowed any love that I once held onto. She was a reminder of that boy turned beast. The one that committed unthinkable acts, that loathed himself so thoroughly, that was buried in the past.

Then bit by bit, Ash turned into starry nights, long talks about music and books, a warm embrace after a long day. She was still the girl I used to know, the girl I fell in love with, but just a little different now. A little more grown up.

That raw hatred I first felt slowly softened, my resolve breaking completely when she told me she loved me back all those years ago, that she wishes she could change everything. Oliver would have done anything to hear those words, but he’s gone and I’m all that’s left. There’s no point in ever bringing him back.

Now here I am fighting to get Ashton Crawford to fall in love with me all over again, only I don’t have years of friendship on my side anymore. I have irrational thoughts, anger management, and an obsession I’ve let fester for years. Not exactly the recipe for perfection, but something inside of her is drawn to me. I can feel it in the way her eyes drink me in, how herfingers memorize every inch of my face, in the way she fights with me just to get my attention.

Sensing my ambivalence, Ash drops her hands from my face, “What’s wrong?”

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