Page 40 of His

“When?”

“When I was fifteen.”

He paused, and I tried to read the emotion on his face. His eyes shone a deep blue-gray in the fog of the hot water. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Was he pitying me? Was he annoyed with me? I wanted desperately to know, but as soon as I saw a bit of him open up, he pulled back and wore a mask of indifference.

“Was that why you ran away? Because you tried to commit suicide and failed?”

I turned my head up sharply.

“How do you know about me running away?”

“How do you know about that?”he repeated, mocking me lightly. “Come on, you work in a library. I looked it up.”

I pulled my wrist away from him and he let my hand go. The scars throbbed as I remembered the day I had tried to commit suicide. The note. The knife.

“Thanks for reminding me I failed,” I said.

“Failed miserably. You’re much more alive than most people.”

Raising my eyes to his, I was met with a blank stare. I didn’t know what he meant by that. I didn’t feel alive. I was a prisoner. It didn’t sound like an insult, though, and I flexed my hand, trying to get rid of the phantom ache.

“Did you know about my suicide?” I asked. “Before, I mean?”

“They don’t keep juvenile records on public file. I only noticed the scars.”

He shuddered, and I felt emboldened.

“I cut myself,” I said. I don’t know why, but I wanted him to know all of the details. He didn’t seem to want to know, but I didn’t care. “In a bathtub, so it would be easy to clean up.”

“You see, this is why I couldn’t leave you alone in the bathroom,” he said, the joke falling flat. Then he turned serious again, his eyelashes fluttering down on his cheeks. He moved to my side, the bar of soap gliding over my shoulder. My breath went shallow as he touched my neck.

“Did it hurt, kitten?”

The scar throbbed again, and I clamped back on the feeling. Was he being nice to me in order to manipulate me? I wanted to reach out to him, but I didn’t want him to have control over me. Not like that. I pressed my lips together before speaking.

“It hurt less than I thought, and I felt myself just—slipping away”

“Yes.”

“That’s why I’m not so scared. To die, that is. It was… peaceful.”

A smile tugged on the corners of his mouth.

“What?”

He looked up at me, his hand falling back from my skin.

“The way I kill people, it’s not peaceful for them.”

I jerked away from him, the water splashing at the edge of the tub.

“Why would you say that?”

“Say what?”

“Why would you say that to me? That you wouldn’t kill me peacefully? Or—”

“Oh, I wouldn’t kill you at all,” he said, raising his eyebrows as though he was surprised my conclusion.

---