Page 110 of Red Flag, Green Light

“I love you, just the way you are.” Her gaze lowers, shy. “Or…perhaps…because of the way you are, I love you.”

I’m not sure if I manage to reach her gracefully, or if I slump onto her in a feverish puddle. One way or another, though, I’m on the floor, kneeling atop a towel full of soup, and pulling her into my arms as my eyes fill with tears. “Ceres…”

“You’re burning up,” she says, tucking her ice-cold fingers under my shirt, against my back.

I swear. “Ceres, please.”

Her frigid lips touch my neck. “You should have planted a camera in my bedroom, to watch me sleep without my knowledge.”

Feeling as though I’m falling apart, I murmur, “This is real life, little goddess, not a story. Don’t encourage deeply-unsettling behavior. Despite all evidence, I maintain that I…am not a creep.”

“I know. You aren’t. I might be. Because it wouldn’t unsettle me at all to learn that you’d put cameras in my house so youcould watch me every moment of every day.” Her fingers coast against my flesh, freezing my skin in their wake. Yet again, I find myself relieved that this nuts woman is with me instead of with literally anyone who would hear what she’s just said as some kind of permission.

Because, yeah.No.

She asks, “Can I see your notes about me?”

I sigh. “You already have.”

“I want to see the tear stains.”

Oh, of course. A tear cascades down my cheek and soaks into her clothes, proving that they’re not really all that special, but whatever she wants, she should have. Always.

Except when whatever she wants is more concerning than what I can mentally bear to facilitate.

I say, “At my desk. The green notebook in the top drawer.”

Interest piques in her body, but she doesn’t pull away. “Are you going to be all right if I let go? Or are you going to collapse?”

An excellent question. “…collapse.”

She helps me back up into bed and kicks the soup towel into a pile by my door before retrieving my notebook and snuggling up with me, her body an ice pack to torment me in every possible way.

“Ceres,” I say as she opens the book and nestles against my shoulder. “Ceres, I’m still sick…” And she’s very, very close. In my bed. While my head is already a throbbing disaster.

Her eyes widen. “Sorry. Should I let you rest? We can go through this later, and you can show me your favorite saved video clips, and I can make you delete any that I find embarrassing, and—”

My nose wrinkles, and I capture her in my arms. “None of them are embarrassing. They’re…you.”

“I’m a very embarrassing person, don’t you know?” she says, with a straight face, as she opens my tear-stained notebookabout her, which I all but transcribed into her story, becausementally unstableisn’t even the tip of the iceberg. Gentle, lovingly, she turns the pages, reads the breakdowns and the scribbles and the abandoned devious plots I toyed with as options to get her to love me. Gasping, she points at a crossed-out word. “Kidnapping?”

I groan.

“Man, missed opportunities.”

My heart can barely handle this. My lips graze her forehead. I try another, feeble, “I’m…sick.”

“I know,” she says, almost delighted. “You’re sick. Twisted. And safe. Everything I’ve ever wanted.”

“I’m so sorry.”

The peace and elation in her expression may haunt me until I die. “I’m not. I’ve waited my entire life for someone to love me like this, to the point of breaking, with morally-gray desperation and crimson-tinted green flags. Because, you know something? If I told you to stop? If I told you to delete everything? What would you do?”

My eyes close. “Mourn…and obey. The last thing I ever want to do is hurt you. All I’ve ever wanted is to know how to make you happy.”

“Good villain,” she says, closing the notebook to wrap me up in a tangle of my sheets and her arms. “We’re the same kind of crazy, Mars.”

“That excuses none of my sins.”

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