Page 46 of The Villain
“I’m not hungry,” I lie.
“I can hear your stomach growling.”
“And you care?”
“Sit.”
I open my mouth to argue, but I need to eat and what am I going to do? Hide out in the bedroom until this is over? And what does over look like exactly?
He takes a dish out of a cupboard and plates a generous serving of bacon and eggs, then turns to me, waiting.
I look up at him. This is awkward. There’s a giant elephant in the room.
“Sit, Moth.”
His use of the nickname Moth snaps me out of my stupor. A moth is an annoying, ugly wannabe butterfly. I should remember that that’s what he thinks of me.
Not that I care. Why would I?
Narrowing my eyes, I reach out to take the plate. He holds onto it and for a second, I wonder if he’s going to say something, to mention last night, and I don’t know what I want, but then he releases it. Feeling stupid, I cross the room and sit at the table where my things are laid out. He follows me with utensils and a glass of freshly squeezed juice. I try to picture him standing there barefoot, hair wet from a shower, drinking coffee and juicing oranges.
“Why do you call me Moth?”
“Do you know the symbolism?” he asks, surprising me.
I look up from my plate to find his eyes on me. “Ugly, stupid things that burn themselves up.”
One eyebrow rises in that way of his and I hate how shallow I am for falling for his easy beauty.
“Life is a matter of perspective, Allegra. Have you ever wanted something so badly, even knowing how bad it is for you, that you’d be willing to die for it? Think of the moth wanting so badly to be a part of the flame she’s unable to resist even knowing it will burn her up. Consume her. That’s neither ugly nor stupid. The symbolism, well, that’s beautiful.”
I pick up my coffee, unsure how to respond. His answer is not what I expected. “I don’t think they think all that through.”
“No, you’re probably right,” he says, one corner of his mouth curved upward. I can’t tell if he’s laughing at me or what. “But don’t get a big head over it. It was the small wings,” he says with a disarming wink, and I have to tell myself he’s just insulting me. Definitely not flirting.
“Cassian means hollow and vain,” I blurt out.
He smiles and although that smile makes the corners of his eyes crinkle, there’s a shadow in them, under them. He’s got something on his mind. Whatever this is, this casual almost-flirtation, it’s an act. “Did you have to look that up?”
I roll my eyes. “How would I do that? You’ve cut me off from the world, remember?”
“What would life be like to simply be hollow and vain, Moth?” he asks, clearly unbothered by my attempt to insult him. Those shadows deepen as he considers his own question making me think I see something else in his eyes. Sadness. Like last night. I saw this last night too, briefly, beneath whatever else was going on. “Easier, Ithink,” he says.
“What?” I ask, having lost the thread of our conversation.
“Life would be easier if we were simply hollow and vain.”
I think he’s right about that. But again, I’m left uncertain, confused.
“What’s your password?” he asks, snapping out of it, back to asshole Cassian again as he picks up my iPad.
Well, asshole Cassian I can handle better than this deeper, more profound, sad version. “That’s none of your business.” I eat a bite of eggs, then another, famished.
“Tell it to me all the same.”
I look up at him, forgetting the impact those eyes have on me. He shaved this morning. I’m used to him with a five o’clock shadow and seeing him clean-shaven after the overgrown beard of last night is kind of like seeing him barefoot. It makes him appear weirdly vulnerable.
He’s not though. His nickname is Reaper. He earned that name. I remember what my brother said that triggered him. I want to ask him what Michael meant, but can guess. Did Cassian kill his brother?
