Duality: Vol 1, Melancholia (A New Adult Paranormal Romance) (23 page)

I finished that third beer next to her before speaking again.  The buzz from the alcohol was warming me up and loosening my tongue, making it easier for me to think about what I wanted to say.  None of the worries that normally plagued me were getting in the way and clouding my decision-making.

“So, you didn’t answer my text today.  Did I piss you off?  Do you totally hate me now?” 
Did I just say that?  Did I just fucking say that?!

Her glass stopped in mid-tilt.  For a few seconds it just stayed there.  She pulled it away and looked down at it, biting her lip.

“You can just say it.”  I was encouraging her, feeling really bold and sure of myself, now.  I’d already blown it; I had nothing left to lose.  “I’m used to rejection.  Just say, ‘Malcolm, you’re a dick.  Stop texting me,’ and I’ll stop, I swear.  I was just curious, you know?”  I had diarrhea of the mouth, apparently.  I couldn’t shut up because she was just standing there, saying nothing, not even looking at me.  It made me brave and foolish at the same time - a dangerous combination.  “In fact, you don’t have to say anything.  That’s weird, right?  That I’m telling you to reject me?  Doesn’t matter.  Just do what you did.  Don’t answer.  I can take a hint.  I’ll never text you again.  Promise.”  I threw my cup up to my lips and tipped it back as far as I could, leaning back a little to get every last drop.  “I need to get another beer.  You ready for another one?”  I held out my hand to take her cup.

“Please don’t,” she said, finally looking at me.  Her eyes were shiny.

I burped a little, unable to stop the carbonation from coming up.  “‘Scuse me.  What’d you say?  Please don’t what?  Sorry, I’m confused.”  I scratched my head with my cup-holding hand, managing to spill a little liquid down my ear in the process.

“Don’t.”  She reached up and wiped under her eye.  It kind of deflated my energy a little, and the idea of another beer quickly lost its appeal.  I wasn’t sure if she was crying or if I’d splashed her.

“Don’t what, Rae?   Don’t get another beer?”

“No.  Not that.”

I sighed.  “Okaaay.  Don’t what, then?  Don’t keep talking about stupid shit?  I can do that.”  I turned to leave her there.  I had made enough of a fool of myself. 
Time to go home.

She grabbed my arm and pulled me back.  I stumbled a little, bumping into her and making her fall back.  She caught herself but swayed a bit.  “No, that’s not what I meant.  Don’t go.”

“Oh.”  I got my feet back under me and shrugged her off.  I didn’t want her to think she had to hold me up.  I was buzzed but not drunk.  “Okay, I won’t go. What do you want to talk about?”

“I didn’t mean don’t go.”

I rolled my eyes up to the sky, searching for guidance.  Either I was buzzing harder than I thought or she was talking in circles.  When I looked back down at her I felt my heart spasm painfully in my chest.  Her expression slayed me.  She was getting ready to cry, big time.  There were huge pools of tears just balanced at the edge of her eyes.

“Why are you going to to cry?”

“Because.  I don’t want you to stop texting me.”

I jerked my chin back to my chest, totally confused now.  “But … you just … you said …”  I ran my fingers through my hair, my cup bouncing off my head and falling to the ground.  “Shit, Rae.  You’re confusing the crap out of me right now.”  I bent down and snatched my cup off the ground.

She smiled weakly, a giant tear slipping out to track down her cheek.  “Sorry about that.”

I reached up without thinking, using a bent forefinger to start at her jaw and draw it upwards, taking the tear away.  I wiped it on my pant leg.  “No crying allowed.”  I pointed at her face playfully.  “This is a party, you know, not a funeral.”

She looked over her shoulder.  “It could be, you know.  It could easily go from something really happy to something really sad.”

My hand froze in mid tear-squeegeeing.  “Don’t I fucking know it.”  I stood there, staring at her, trying to read her mind.  What I wouldn’t give to know it was the same thing that was going through mine…

She reached up and took my hand.  We slowly let them fall together until they were there between us, down by my waist.  I reached out with my other hand and took her free one, letting our fingers tangle together.  We stood face to face, staring each other in the eye, holding hands.

“You wanted to know why I hide in bathrooms,” she said, her gaze never leaving my face.  She took a deep breath, her chest expanding with it and then collapsing again as she let it out slowly.  Her breasts pressed against her shirt, making my pants suddenly tighter.

“Yes.  I want to know why you hide in bathrooms, just like me.  That’s what I want to know.  Please tell me you don’t have a bladder problem.”

She giggled, the movement forcing another tear to fall and then her chin to quiver.  I reached up with her hand still in mine and used my finger to wipe it off.

“No, I don’t have a bladder problem.”

“Then why do you do it?  Tell me.”  I leaned in, my voice getting lower.  “Your secret is safe with me.”

“It
is
a secret,” she said in almost a whisper.

“I know it is.  We both have secrets.”  Our foreheads were almost touching.

 “I hide in bathrooms because … because people try to get too close.”  She bit her lip.  There was fear in her expression, but I couldn’t tell if it was fear of the secret, fear of me, or fear of the people she ran from.

“And what happens when they get too close?”  I was just inches from her face, looking down into her beautiful eyes, her soft-looking skin glowing as it reflected the terrace lights.

Mad prayers were rushing through my brain, as I begged any higher power that might be listening to make her reason not what I thought it was.  Before I came here, before this exact moment, I’d wanted Rae to be just like me.  But now that I was touching her, feeling her warmth and seeing her beautiful face and eyes up close, those windows to her soul so deep and full of wounds, I didn’t want her to be like me.  I wanted her to have a bladder problem or a failing kidney or another medical condition that could be cured with prescription drugs and hospital stays.  I didn’t want her to be an agent of darkness.  I didn’t want her to be like me at all.

“When they get too close, they get hooked,” she said, oblivious to my prayers.  “And then they won’t go away.  They get obsessed.  Dangerous.”

I swallowed hard, feeling the burning sickness in my belly rising up into my throat.  I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know how to react other than to want to run, run, run away.  This was awful, terrible. 
She’s cursed, just like me.

But something kept me there.  Something kept my grip soft and relaxed, my eyes staring into hers.  The desire to protect her was overriding my sense of self-preservation or my hero complex or whatever it was that always forced me to keep people at a distance.

I opened my mouth to speak, weighing my words carefully.  I looked her deeply in the eyes and finally said, “I know
exactly
what you mean.”

“But how?” she asked, squeezing my hands for all she was worth.  Her skin had gone clammy against mine all of sudden and she was trembling.  The malt from the beer was on her breath, and it washed over me, making me want to kiss her and see if it was on her tongue too.

I had to say it.  Get it out there, front and center.  It was the last bit, the last piece of the puzzle between us.  With these words, I’d bind her to me forever.  We’d either be two of the same, two in a billion people like no one else, or we just wouldn’t.  She’d be a regular girl and I’d be me.  The guy who makes people want to die.

“Cops are here!” yelled someone from the back door.

My head jerked right, looking for the source of the warning, trying to decide if it was credible or not.

Rae squeezed my hands, her nails digging into my skin.  “Tell me!”  The desperation in her voice yanked me out of the world of parties and cops and getting busted for underage drinking right before I was out of the foster system with a clean record.

“Tell you what?”  I was stalling for time, afraid to say the words.

She spoke through gritted teeth.  “Tell me how you know about the people.  About the hiding.  About
all
of it!”  She yanked on me hard, pulling me even closer.

We were pressed up together from knees to stomach, and by the expression on her face, I could tell she hadn’t meant for that to happen.  Fear turned to acceptance though, as she stared me down, daring me to answer her.

Something like anger and frustration and desire to feel more of her got all wrapped up together into a giant tangle of emotion I didn’t understand.  “Fine.  You want to know?  I’ll tell you how I know.”  I hesitated only a fraction of a second.  “I’m like you.  I have the same problem.  I am … an agent of darkness.”

“What?” she said weakly, moving back half a step.

Desire and hope turned quickly to something else.  But I was too overwhelmed with the idea that I’d just spilled my guts to her, told her my biggest secret, the thing that I could never tell another living soul before this moment, to really care about why she was moving away.

I pulled her hands and put them around my back, bringing her closer.  Taking her by the shoulders, I drew her body up against mine.  I could feel almost every inch of her, and even though we were both fully clothed and her in the most conservative outfit of any girl in the whole damn state, pure desire shot through me.  I swear just touching her made bolts of energy fly out of my body and out into the night.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her as I dipped my head down closer and closer.  She didn’t move a muscle as I quickly pressed my lips to hers, before I could change my mind.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Rae

THE BEER WAS DEFINITELY HAVING an effect.  Crazy ideas were swirling through my head.  I actually told Malcolm my intent was to get drunk or tipsy or whatever.  I was practically flirting with him.  My grand idea to ignore him and let him live his life was completely out the window.  All I wanted to do was see him without his shirt on.

I shook my head and then stared at the ground, only able to collect my thoughts when he was gone and getting us more beer.  When he returned, I drank it greedily, looking for the bravery I felt just behind the next cup of bubbly amber liquid.

The alcohol was going to make things happen, for better or for worse, and I wanted that.  Good or bad, I wanted to just
make
something happen instead of running from things that were always happening to me.  This was probably a really bad way of going about it, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do at the moment, and just straight up going for it without a crutch wasn’t going to work.  I was too afraid.  Liquid bravery, that’s what I needed.

Malcolm started crazy-talking about not texting me anymore and being a dick and I just lost it.  I could picture him shunning me for real - not going in Kootch’s car with me anymore, him sitting at a different table in detention - and all it did was make me want to cry.  Stupid tears came rushing up, and I had to focus every bit of willpower I had over my emotions to make them not fall.

“Why are you going to cry?” Malcolm asked, his face full of concern.

Busted
.  It crossed my mind that lying would be the best plan right now, but the beer had other ideas.  “Because.  I don’t want you to stop texting me.”

He was totally confused over my mixed messages, making me feel guilty as hell.  It caused another tear to join the other ones already swimming in my eyes, and that was one tear too many.  I was mortified as I felt the moisture break loose and slide down my cheek.

I stopped breathing for a few seconds when he reached up and wiped it away.  His touch was so tender, and his eyes were so full of concern for me, I’m pretty sure I lost a piece of my heart permanently to him in that moment.

“Sorry about that,” I said, feeling like I was manipulating him with my tears.  But I wasn’t.  These emotions were one-hundred-percent real and I couldn’t control them, much as I might have liked to.

And then he asked me.  He asked me about my secret.  I wanted to keep it from him, to pretend for just a little while longer that I’m normal, just some girl who thinks he’s cute and sits next to him in Art class, put him off.  But he wouldn’t let it go.  And he kept hinting, like he knew. 
Like he knew!

So I did it.  I told him my deepest darkest secret.  The one my parents wouldn’t acknowledge, and the one I had never dared hope to share with anyone else.  “I hide in bathrooms because … because people try to get too close.”  I was scared to death he was going to look at me funny, tell me I’m crazy.  Or just walk away shaking his head.  End of story.

But he didn’t.  “And what happens when they get too close?”   he asked.  He was so close I could feel his breath on my face.  It was sweet, like the beer.  I could smell his boy-scent too, something uniquely Malcolm.  The shadow of a small beard on his chin gave him a slightly rough look, maybe a little sinister.  My blood heated up at the idea of it and I got goosebumps all over.  My palms went sweaty.

I had to answer.  To walk away now would be the end of it all, and I so wasn’t ready for it to be over.  “When they get too close, they get hooked.  And then they won’t go away.  They get obsessed.  Dangerous.”  Jerry the Rainbow came to mind.  Big. Hulking.  Desperate.  Determined.  I shivered at the memory of his face, his hands, his too-strong arms pulling and pressing...

“I know
exactly
what you mean.”  Malcolm stood there, acting totally cool.  Like I hadn’t just told him I’m a freak of the highest degree.

“But how?”  There was no way he could know.  I didn’t see a single Rainbow hanging around him in school, and he’d been there a long time.  He couldn’t possibly know what I was going through.  He couldn’t understand what it’s like to be me. 
Could he?

Someone yelled something from the house, distracting Malcolm from answering.  I almost had a nervous breakdown as I saw our conversation disintegrating because of some loud partying idiot.