Page 58 of The Casualty of Us
“So I’ll take whatever you want to throw my way, but don’t pretend you’re not playing games, and don’t expect me to take it without comment.” His nostrils flare. “I told you that I won’t walk around on eggshells with you, so just tell me what you want.”
I swallow to buy myself a second before trying. “There’s noth—”
“What do you want, O?”
“Stop it,” I whisper.
“Want me to bleed some more?” He shrugs, eyes holding mine captive. “Fine. Tell me how much, and I’ll tap a vein for you.”
I press my lips together, trying to keep it in, trying to just get through it—to make it back to—
“Want me to be losing my mind?” His face twists, the next words coming out in a dead kind of rasp. “I’m already there.” He leans in even closer. “Want me to admit that you deserve better? Someone with their shit together?” He pushes, leavingme scrambling to hold myself together. “I’ve been aware of that from day one, but I can’t fucking let you—”
I gasp. “I’m not yours to let anything.”
“Want my heart?” He lifts a hand, motioning to his chest. “It’s already yours. Just hand me the knife if that’s what it takes, but I’d prefer you keep the games between us.”
I blink at him, something about his words finally severing that remaining tie on my control and making me whisper back. “Oh, like you did?”
He goes still for a beat before breathing out quietly. “O…”
“You know what I want?” I muse quietly, setting my hand on the table and leaning back his way. “I want you to go back in time and change it,” His jaw tics at my proclamation, tension between us redoubling with every second that I let it hang there before laughing emptily. “But that’s impossible, right?”
“Ophelia…”
“I want you to explain, Hayes,” I hiss out, dragging in more air as it all starts to escape. “I want you to tell me why you wouldn’t evenkissme but were perfectly fine to—”
“Because I forgot for a second!” His hands shoot to his hair. “And I shouldn’t have even gone in there!”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!”
“Because I was alone and fucked in the head and then—”
“No,” I choke out, cutting him off and narrowing my eyes to take in the way he’s practically dripping with earnestness. “You’re serious…” The quiet words escape before I can filter them, and then a hysterical laugh bubbles up to join them. “This all happened because of your sad little nepo baby shit? Because you can’t stand two seconds without having someone there to give you attention?” I shake my head sharply. “That’s fucking pathetic.”
“You’re right!” He drops his hands from his hair, fingers splayed toward me with an expression like I finally get it. “Yes!You’re right.” A rough gasp leaves him. “Leave me alone for two seconds, and I’m fucking standing in the fire.” His face twists back up in the pause that follows. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t know, Ophelia. I’ve been living in a burning house my whole life.”
And it’s the way he says it with easy acceptance, so factually, like the sky is blue or water is wet…I can’t—
“Which is exactly why I didn’t want to—”
“I don’t care.”
Because I can’t.
Because my stomach is twisting and the sharpened ache is driving inward now, and my fucking head hurts from the effort of trying to pull myself back.
“Don’t fucking lie,” he growls, instantly invading my space again. “You do care.”
His eyes flit over my face as if he’s checking the validity of his own claim, and my own start to burn from the way I won’t even blink.
Both of us playing chicken with our hearts, quite literally, on the table between us.
“Which is also why…” He drops his hands to the table with a harsh exhale. “I think for a second there in my drunken head I figured it didn’t matter if she burned with me, but you.” A beat passes that has me almost wishing for blissful ignorance. “I couldn’t do that to you.” He shakes his head. “Because these last six months have been the best of my lifebecauseof you. Because it would have been more. You would’ve been more. I couldn’t handle that because I lo—”
“No!” I slap the table to stop it, something visceral shooting adrenaline through my veins and making me spit out, “Don’t you dare use a word that you can’t even begin to comprehend the meaning of.”
“And you do?” he scoffs, jaw twitching a couple times before his nostrils flare again. “Tell me, O, what makes what you’re doing to me now so much better?” I open my mouth, ready to rebut, but he rolls right over me, voice desperate like he knows his time is counting down. “I fucked up.” He knocks his knuckles against the table. “I let something stupid happen when I was piss drunk that lasted all of two seconds and I couldn’t even follow through with it.” I shift at the words, and his eyes narrow on mine. “Is that what you want to hear? The details? That I pushed her away pretty much as soon as she kissed me?”
