Page 50 of Ugly Truths
“What?” The question comes out quieter than I intended.
Pain surges forward in his eyes. When he speaks again, it’s a frustrated growl. “Do you even care?”
I swear I can feel the second the blood freezes in my veins.
He's a blur of motion, closing the distance between us in three quick strides. The force of his presence pushes the air from my lungs.
I instinctively step back, but there’s nowhere to go. My spine hits the counter, the edge biting into my skin. Before I can blink, his hand is just under my jaw, firm enough to make my pulse jump.
“Do you even care?” he repeats. His pupils are blown wide, swallowing the brown of his irises.
My mind reels. I search his face for answers, for something—anything—that will help me make sense of his words, but I’m just as lost as when this conversation started.
“I…” My voice shakes, throat bobbing against his hold. “Of course I care.”
His fingers don’t tighten or loosen. They simply stay, as if daring me to give him something more. Hesitantly, I reach for him, brushing a hand under his jacket and against his abdomen through the fabric of his shirt in a featherlight touch.
A test. A question.
An attempt to understand.
Though I’m still not sure what he’s looking for, I decide to be honest. “I’ll do anything you want me to, Silas.” The words spill out in a soft yet certain whisper. “You just need to tell me.”
The emotion that flickers across his face shifts too fast for me to pin down and know which one might be the most prominent.
He doesn’t know what he wants from me, either.
My free hand moves to his wrist, fingers brushing his skin before I gently pull his hand away from my throat. Without much resistance, he lets it fall to his side.
“What do you need?” I ask. “For me to come to you?”
A faint wash of pink suddenly appears on his cheeks, and I dip my head to maintain eye contact. His abdomen expands under my touch in a long, shaky breath before lifting his focus to me again. All of the same conflicting thoughts he hissed at me in the guest bedroom swirl through his eyes and press on me like a physical weight.
And suddenly, it clicks.
He wants me to choose him.
My vision spins.
How is that even possible?
I blink. There’s no world where this makes any sense, but I can see it as clear as day. He's asking because some part of him wants to let me try one more time.
What made him change his mind? Was it something I did? Something someone said to him?
My heart pounds so furiously against my ribcage that my body shakes.
I could turn away right now and lick my wounds until they eventually heal or at least scab over enough for the pain to be tolerable. In a few weeks or months, I could be halfway across the world, starting over and figuring out who I am. It’s the life I’d been fantasizing about since I was twenty-five. No one to answer to. No fear.
Or I could try to dissect Silas’s emotions and stay with him, however long that might be. I’d spend my time trying to convince him of my feelings and show him how much of what we experienced before was real. We’d argue. He wouldn’t trust me. And I’d have to take everysecond of it. There would be no more pretty lies or careful wordplay. Only fractured, imperfect, ugly truths.
And at the end of all of it, he might decide that he still doesn’t want me.
“Si,” I breathe, the nickname soft and intimate in a way I never thought I’d be able to say again. His expression flickers, the faintest crack in the armor he’s so carefully built to protect himself from me.
My hands glide up his chest. His skin is warm, but he stays rigid.
“It never even crossed my mind to try to win you back after everything,” I murmur. My fingers keep moving, brushing lightly along his stubble, wishing my touch would ease some of the tension radiating from him the way it used to. “I don’t deserve it. Or you.”
