Page 39 of Light As A Feather
“Tell me. What was the deal, then?” His grip around the glass turns to strangulation, and my mouth goes dry as he peers up at me.
“It wasn’t that simple of an exchange.”
“What did you promise him?”
“Me,” I gasp. “In exchange for your life, I promised him that he could have me in death. Your life for my soul to keep.” Saying it aloud is as painful for me as it is for him. Our grimaces matching. “Bound. Forever. When I die, I will remain in this house. But I’ll belong to him.”
He stands, and despite what I know of him, I flinch—the reflexive response to sudden movements and clashing fists as natural as breathing, ingrained in me from a young age. Hawthorne stills, his gaze apologetic, his body tense with anger that he would never unleash in front of me. It’s not mine to bear; we both know who it belongs to.
“There was no other way.” A promise, a confession, a placation.
“Why would you do that?” The punch through the chest I’ve just delivered has left him breathless. “Why? Sol, no.” He’s shaking his head. His rejection useless, his distress wasted. A deal is a deal, as I’m often reminded.
“This is the way it has to be.”
“No. I don’t accept that.” He begins to pace. “How can you look at me and expect me to be okay with this? How are you okay with this?”
“I made my choice. I’ve come to terms with it.”
“So, you’re just fine with selling yourself into some fucked up arrangement that leaves you at the mercy of that sick fuck for all of eternity.”
“I was the only reason he targeted you in the first place. I couldn’t let you pay the price for me.” It was a big decision for a teenager to make, but I wouldn’t make a different decision now.“I would trade an eternity of misery for just a few more minutes with you. That gamble paid off. You’re alive, Hawthorne. Nearly two decades later, you live and breathe. I would have taken anything, and you’ve had years. You’ll have a lifetime.”
“I live and breathe, and I’ve been a fucking ghost of myself every second that I’ve been without you. What kind oflifeis that? What kind of life have we both been living?” The air quotes he throws up at the last word are sharp, more like claws. As if he could tear the harsh reality of it to pieces with his bare hands.
I wanted to save him this pain. The realization of just how much that night changed everything. But despite all my sacrifices, all the lonely nights I spent in cold motel rooms with the miles tearing me in two—the part of me that belonged with him and the stranger I had to become—I can’t bear to imagine the alternative.
“There wasn’t any other choice,” I say with the heaviness of all the regrets I hold onto. They build within me, a hundred angry buzzing bees stinging my most tender parts. “There’s no point in arguing about this; what’s done is done.” I turn away from him, desperate to shield myself from his ability to read me.
“I’m not letting this go. I’m not lettingyougo. I meant it when I said you are mine.” Hawthorne’s hand slides around my waist, pulling me against him, letting me lean on him without me even having to ask.Intuitive.He learned the language of my body and mind quickly—more intense in his study than even the most dedicated students—and never lost his fluency.
The pounding of his heart beats against my back, each steady drum of it pushing me toward the ledge of no return. He deserves to know just how much I ruined his life. I take a step away, creating distance between us. There’s no way I can be in his embrace when I say this.
“The reason you were even in danger in the first place was because of me.”
“How can you say that? He came after us.”
“He came for me. He attacked you because he knew you mattered to me. He knew that I loved you.” My voice cracks, all that old guilt shredding me to pieces. “I made you a threat to him. I made you atarget.” A fresh dose of self-hatred makes its way through my veins.
“No, Sol.” His fingers wrap around my wrist. “Look at me.”
Reluctantly, I do. He tilts my head up so our eyes lock. I search his gaze for resentment or disgust, expressions that I’ve been on the receiving end of so many times from so many people in my life, but not from him. There in his gaze, there’s only that undying love that’s like a flare shooting into the sky when you’re lost at sea, a beacon of hope, of possibility that maybe help is coming, that maybe this isn’t as bleak as it seems.
“When I made the agreement, death seemed like such a distant thing. I thought I’d bought us a lifetime. Time to grow up, to really fall in love, to enjoy our lives in exchange for an afterlife of discontentment. A fair deal, I’d told myself.” I let out a sigh, still trying so hard not to hate the naive girl that I was. “But Ivan was greedier,more calculated,than I realized. Everything had been leading to that moment; he was just waiting for his opportunity to back me into a corner. To fully sink his teeth into me and claim me.”
“He was fuckinggroomingyou.”
“I guess you could call it that…” I sigh at my naivety. “Our bond may have officially started that night, the deal may have cemented it, but he’d been laying the groundwork for it all along.” My anger rises at the memories. Inch by fucking inch, he pushed himself into my life. Night after night, he wound our connection tighter and tighter. Pulling me closer and closer, and he never stopped. “Now, there’s barely any separation between me and him.” My eyes sting as I mourn the girl I was. The one who wanted someone to see her, but not like that. The one whohad found happiness in a boy who loved every single thing about her, who’d become her home, only for it to become haunted by a jealous and possessive spirit who wanted her however he could have her—even miserably.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this when it started?” Thorne asks.
“What? Tell you that I was so desperate for male validation that I let a dead man give it to me? So unfamiliar with feeling desired that I didn’t know the difference between genuine affection and manipulation.” My insides crawl with embarrassment. “What awkward, insecure girl doesn’t want to hear she’s beautiful. I allowed him to linger around me, to dole out his compliments and touches because I was lonely and self-conscious. I wanted to feel special.” I scoff at the foolishness. “And it turns out, I wasn’t even special. I was just like all the other young girls who eat up the attention of older men who spot their vulnerabilities from a mile away. The ones who get exploited and used up, hollowed out, and spend the rest of their lives trying to replace what was stolen from them. But I handed those pieces of myself over to him. There’s no getting them back. Deal or no deal, I was always damned, and it’s my fault.”
“You were a victim, Sol. Youare.”
“What are you not understanding? Iallowedhim to prey on me. I welcomed it. And then I led him to you. If I’d never fed him exactly what he was looking for from the palm of my hand, if I’d never let him get such a foothold in our lives, you never would’ve had to go through all of this.”
“You can’t convince me that you deserved it. That you deserve any of this. He’s a predator, period. He manipulated you, Sol. That’s not your fault. He exploited your big heart, your love for me, to hurt you. I wouldn’t change a thing if it meant having you in my life. The only thing I’d change is ever letting you walk out the door.”
