Page 67 of The Casualty of Us
“You just keep coming around!”
“When you’re ready.”
We both take a breath in the instant that follows before a pause comes that has him crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair and giving me a major case of déjá fucking vu.
“Fine.” I toss a hand in the air, calling him on it with a quick smirk. “I’ll let you know when that happens.” Finally looking down to reach for my book while muttering under my breath, “Wouldn’t hold my breath if I was you.”
“Fuck—I can’t—you—”
I pause with my fingers on the edge of the book, glancing up in time to catch the way his entire face twists right before he ducks his head with a harsh breath. His hands immediately lift to his hair, fingers making a slow pass through the silky black locks with his elbows resting on the edge of the table. My brows fall further with each subsequent second that passes as he keeps taking audible breaths without looking up. Part of me is a little concerned that—
“Fuck!”
I jump in my seat at the sudden shout, jerking my hand back and whipping my head around to run my eyes over the rest of the mess hall nervously.
“Holy shit,” I breathe, meeting a couple of curious gazes before spinning back around to hiss at him. “Shut up!” My voice is one part whisper and three parts outrage, but either way, it has him immediately snapping his head back up while I hurry out, “You’re free to earn yourself more of this on your own time, but don’t drag me into it.”
He stares at me, eyes flashing with something like disbelief, before he scrubs a hand down his face. “Could you please—” His chest rises with a deep breath before he rasps tightly, “Can you please just put a pause on being so fucking stubborn for two seconds?”
I stare at him, catching the way his nostrils flare, and I’m a little thrown by just how on edge he seems, honestly.
“Please,” he presses, the word nothing but pleading and making my stomach flip again. “I am trying here.” His hands drop to the table. “I am trying to be better, O. I am try—”
“Too late.”
I don’t even realize that the quiet words aren’t still in my head until his lips stop moving. His eyes flare in surprise even as my own lips part with it, and the silence hangs between us like a bubble. So tense with hurt and guilt and maybe even some longing that both of us sit still in it. Our gazes locked and unmoving as we both avoid the fallout of it all for another breath.
Then he exhales, sending us careening toward the after my games have been avoiding.
“I know that.” Something in the back of his eyes cracks open to pull at me with a gravity all its own with the quiet words. “But I didn’t lie when I said these have been the best six months of my life. So I’ll take you in any form. Even if it’s hating me.” I purse my lips, watching as his gaze trails down over my face like he’s checking for something before coming back to meet mine as he starts slowly, “I was about six when I woke up one morning to find my mom passed out on the couch.” He drops his eyes to the table with a quick breath. “I didn’t know it at the time, but she’d been partying all night, and the nanny had left for the weekend.” A beat passes before he delivers emptily, “So I tried to make breakfast for myself.”
My face falls with instant understanding, and when his gaze rises back to mine with nothing but pain swirling there, I can’t help the way my heart tries to clench up.
“I ended up setting the whole house on fire.” He jerks a nod, answering a question that I never asked. “I kept trying to wake her up, and the smoke got bad, but…I remember I was too scared to leave her.” The admission leaves him so quietly, it’s almost as if it’s the child who’s saying it, and he clears his throat quickly. “The firemen pulled us out about twenty minutes later, but my mom—” He shakes his head, eyes darting down before they lift back up with a hardness that I know only comes from pain and fear because I know it intimately. “She ended up with some scarring on her back that finished off what was left of her career, and she’s never forgiven me for it.”
And that’s when I can’t take it anymore.
“Hayes—”
“I’ve been living in the burning house my whole life, O,” he cuts me off. “I can’t—I’ve never done well on my own.” The desperation practically bleeds from him with a puff of laughter that sounds anything but funny. “I came here and met you, and I thought…I thought—”
“Hayes.”
“I don’t even know how to be a fucking person, Ophelia. I—” His voice breaks, face crumbling with it before he blows out harshly, “Not a good one.”
And there it is…
“I was trashed out of my mind when I crashed that car.”
I get it now.
“There was no street race.”
The easy acceptance of it.
“I just aimed for the ocean and floored it. Scared the shit out of myself with how much I didn’t care if I made it out for a second.”
Fuck.
