The Other Side(44)

She shifts and all of her attention is on me. “I need to hear it. Now.”

I shake my head. “No, I shouldn’t have brought it up. It’s stupid. You write song lyrics, real poetry. This was just an assignment.”

She makes a Pfft sound to dismiss my dismissal. “There is nothing amateur about the depths of your soul, Toby. Tell me.” When I don’t say anything, she adds, “Please,” and searches for my hand with hers.

When her fingers slot with mine and her thumb doesn’t wrap around the back of my hand but instead curls and slips between our palms, the knuckle and nail stroking my palm whisper soft, I ask, “You sure you want to hear it?”

She leans in until I can feel her lips touch my hair. “More than anything,” she whispers.

The words, the feel and the sound of them, make me shiver. The kind of shiver that begins down deep in the pit of my being and spreads like adrenaline-based lust through my veins. This. Girl. I close my eyes, carve out my black heart, and bare it for her to see, feel, and hear. It’s absolutely terrifying.

“Darkness is passive denial of light.

And aggressive denial of self.

Thoughts rearranged,

Emotions relabeled,

Personality retracted

By a thief

Until all that remains

Is a delicate, reluctant cacophony of shame.

Screaming,

So much blame.

So much blame.

Conscience profound.

Self-preservation drowned.

So much blame.

So much blame.





It all fades into oblivion

When everything goes black.

My sacred companion, disregard,

She soothes.

Like the dull blade of contempt,

She maims.

Whispering,

So much blame.

So much blame.

A mercenary with an end game.

A victim with my name.

So much blame.

So much blame.”





She’s unmoving except for her vigilante thumb still sweeping, determined to encourage me, comfort me, and arouse me—because it’s doing all three. Which is at odds with the silence—it’s crushing me, humiliating me, and filleting me.

Unable to bear my unease, paired with my boner, I make a move to get off the bed while hurriedly saying, “I should go—”

Her grip tightens on my hand and before I can rise, she’s pushed me on my back and is hovering over the top of me, her long hair like curtains on either side of my face. “No, you most certainly should not go.” She pauses and swallows. “I’ve never wished I could touch someone’s voice before, but I want to touch yours so badly my fingers itch.” Her statement has the reverse effect and I feel tactile-lessly touched by her words. Stroked. Tempted. Stimulated. “You wrote that?” she whispers like the moment won’t allow for anything more.

“Yeah. It’s stupid, I know.”

She shakes her head and puts a hand over my mouth so I can’t talk. “No, it’s not stupid. It’s gut-wrenching, and sad, and painful, and severely gorgeous. You have no idea what you reciting poetry does to me. That was sexy.”

“Really?” I ask from behind her hand.

“Come on, Toby. You know you’re sexy, poetry or not.”

I shake my head, bewildered by her response. I’ve never been called sexy in my life.

She releases me and says, “To your core,” while she climbs off the bed and walks out of the room only to return seconds later with a spiral notebook and a blue Bic pen with a gnarled cap that’s been chewed unmercifully. “Please write that down. And then read it to me again. And again. Poems flirt like hell with my mind.” The flush in her cheeks tells me she means it.

I feel the same way about songs I love.

I write the poem down.

Then I read it.

Again.

And again.

And again.

At her request.

I’m sitting on the bed. She’s standing. Pacing in the narrow space between the wall and the bed. And she’s smiling—it’s contemplative, and turned-on, and melancholy. After the fourth reading she asks, “Is that how you really feel? Deep down where you don’t hide?”

Yes. “No,” I lie before I can stop myself.

She nods but ignores my denial. “Is it ever too much? The guilt? The blame? The darkness?” There’s genuine concern in her voice.

“No.” So much for not lying to her tonight.

“Would you tell someone if it ever gets to that point?” She’s always so bold.

I’m not. “Yes,” I lie again. Effectively, apparently.

Finally satisfied with what she presumes is the truth, she sits down on the bed next to me and changes gears. “I have a bottle of vodka hidden in a shoebox in my closet. Well, half of a bottle of vodka. I took it from the open bar at my cousin’s wedding last year. Do you want some?”

“No.” It feels like a lie, but I immediately know that it isn’t, because there’s something I want even more.

“You don’t drink?” she questions curiously.

I let the truth go. “I do. But I’d rather kiss you instead.”

She licks her lips and her quick comeback stalls and turns into a slow, thought-out counter. “We can do both.”