Space (Laws of Physics #2)(53)

“Oh. I’m thinking of something right now and it’ll take you from zero to the speed of light on the uncomfortable Richter scale.”

“The Richter scale measures earthquakes.” I paused in front of the window seat, looking at her in my arms, liking her there, the weight of her, and didn’t put her down like I should.

“Yes.” She smiled up at me, sighing languidly like she was relaxed and enjoying herself. “But this will rock your world so much, it’ll send it hurtling through space at the speed of light.”

Smirking, I shook my head once. “Nope.” It was time to go.

“Do you want to hear it?” she whispered, like the question was the beginning of a secret.

“I do, very much,” I whispered in return, bending to place her on the window seat and preparing to leave. “But I don’t want you to say anything that you’ll regret when you’re sober, and I don’t think—”

“I loved you.”

I stopped.

I’d just set her down, was currently crouching in front of her, poised to straighten, stand, and leave, and I stopped. I couldn’t move.

I looked at her and I wondered how she could believe the words she was saying even as I grasped at them, willing them to be true. My heart shoved itself against my ribcage and the suddenness and pain of it made anything other than complete stillness impossible.

She smiled at me, her gaze tracing my features like she was memorizing them, or remembering them. “See?” she asked softly, lightly, the word a little slurred. “Now you’re uncomfortable. I win. Yay.”

I shook my head, dazed. When I managed that small movement, I tried speaking. “I’m not uncomfortable.” My voice was hoarse.

“You are.” Her golden-brown eyes inspected me, still cloudy with liquor, but no less intelligent or assessing. “And if that didn’t make you uncomfortable, this definitely will. I’m still in love with you. I’m so very, very much in love with you.”

I closed my eyes, wondering if this was a dream. Maybe I was the one who was drunk. Maybe she wasn’t here, and this was me wishing.

“Either I’m in love with you, or I’m in love with my guilty feelings. I don’t know. I’ve never been in love, so I have no baseline comparison. Six days! All it took was six days. Nothing about this makes sense. But it has to be love, because how else could it survive two-years of no contact? How else!? It won’t go away. And I win. I win at this game.” Her confused agony compelled my eyes open.

Did she know what she was saying? What was love to Mona DaVinci? What did it look like? Did it open and stretch in front of her like a cavern, with no way around, no alternate course? Just through and through, into the unknown, the absence of it only coming into focus when the breadth of it was revealed?

“I love you,” she repeated, firmer this time, but somehow awkward. “And that—if me saying so makes you uncomfortable, I understand.” Still drunk, her clumsiness of speech a sobering reminder. She’s still drunk, and these are just words absent evidence or action.

I shook my head, scattering the hope. Thinking about this now, taking her seriously was foolishness. I’d been a fool for her once. If I could help it, I wanted to avoid being a fool for her again . . . if I can help it.

With another deep inhale, I stood. “I’m still not uncomfortable.”

She lifted her hands as though to reach for me. “Okay, how about if I said—”

“Mona.” I caught her fingers before they made contact, pressed them between my palms. “Please stop talking. You are drunk and you don’t want to say these things.”

“I do.” She stood and I backed away, letting her go and bringing my hands to my hips. Her voice was still a whisper as she insisted, “I do want to say them, I want to shout them. They burn me up with the heat of plasma, molecules of transcendent temperatures boiling inside me.”

“Mona—”

“You burned that letter, and I guess I know why. You thought it was going to be more tepid and polite requests. But it wasn’t. It was the opposite of polite.” It was unclear whether she was speaking to me or herself. She pushed her fingers into her hair, gripping her scalp. “It was all these hot feelings. I’m suffocating, choking on air, because it doesn’t smell like you. And now that you’re here, I’m still choking, because you hate me, and I don’t blame you. I hate me too.”

These are still just words.

I took another step away, stalling, needing to clear my throat before speaking. “I don’t . . . I don’t hate you.”

“You should.” She glanced up suddenly, her stare glassy but fierce. “You should.”

“And you should go to sleep.” I lifted my hands, palms out, hoping she would surrender. Talking about this now, while she was drunk, was pointless.

It was pointless, and yet my heart beat frantically, like it was true.

Her eyes followed me as I took another step backward, and then another, this new, unexpected connection between us stretching, the growing distance necessary, but painful. Would it last the night? God, I hope so. But I wasn’t counting on it.

Mona watched my shuffling movements toward the door. I told myself the deliberateness of my steps was about being gentle, easing out of her room. It wasn’t about reluctance, or hungrily admiring her disheveled beauty.