Page 101 of Kiss Me Like I Didn't Kill You
Ophelia
I keep my days neat.
Lectures, Bellamy, the library, then repeat.
I hardly see the girls anymore, except for Octavia, and I don’t see Arlo at all. Only the faint prickle of being watched.
Everyone seems to be redrawing their lines after Switzerland. Even Adelaide and Octavia nearly came to blows yesterday, the video was everywhere before lunch.
No new notes have appeared, but I’m not gullible enough to think that’s a good sign.
Or maybe there were never any notes at all. Maybe I’m losing my mind, seeing things that were never there.
Maybe the day I woke up covered in blood was just another hallucination.
Maybe all of it was.
A bad dream I’ll wake from eventually.
After my last class, I take the path that winds back toward the dorms. Once inside the building, I choose the stairs over the lift.
I reach my door, unlock it, slip off my shoes, shrug out of my coat, and freeze.
The air feels faintly charged, a prickle at my back making me instantly alert as I glance around the flat.
Arlo is on my sofa.
He’s sitting there, turned slightly toward the window, his expression impossible to read. I can only see half his face, but it’s enough to put me on edge.
“What are you doing here?” I ask quietly, the words far too loud in the stillness.
“I don’t know,” he says after a moment, his voice distant. His gaze stays fixed on the window, watching the rain gather and slide down the glass.
“I… I think you do.”
He doesn’t answer, and I don’t push. I just wait, the silence sitting thick between us, my pulse slow but heavy.
It takes a moment before he finally turns his head, his eyes finding mine.
Midnight blue to green.
Green to midnight blue.
When he speaks, his voice is rough. “I think I do,” he says.
Then he stands.
Each step he takes toward me is slow. My breath catches somewhere in my chest. He stops only when the tip of his shoe grazes my foot, close enough that I can feel his warmth.
He lifts his hand and tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear with a tenderness that hurts.
“I hate you,” he says quietly.
The words land harder than I’m ready for, like a hit I never saw coming.
His face doesn’t match them. There’s no anger there, no real hate. Just something raw underneath, something he’s fighting to keep down and losing.
“I know,” I whisper, the sound barely there.
