The Contradiction of Solitude(16)

I forced my fingers to relax in my lap but they instead curled like rigid claws. Ready to swipe and to maim.

“No,” I murmured, looking up at the man beside me through my lashes. He was beautiful in a way that was appealing to a woman like me. With a pleasing face that hid so much behind an affable smile. Dancing green eyes that looked sad.

He was a man who had seen and dealt with much. It was written all over him.

My newly tattooed skin throbbed in a dull ache. My sign.

My reason.

“Okay, good. I don’t want to scare you off too soon,” he teased with just enough bite to make me curious.

I licked my lips and gave him my attention. I knew he wanted it.

“I’m glad to see you, Elian.” He seemed to startle at my use of his name. It’s the first time I had said it. Out loud.

He gave me a smile, yet I didn’t feel special. He gave his smiles away to anyone and everyone who wanted one.

I wanted something else.

Something that was only for me.

“You don’t seem like the live music kind of girl,” Elian observed, watching me as intently as I was watching him.

“And what kind of girl do I seem like?’ I asked, flirting just a little. Just enough.

Elian smiled that faux happy smile and rested his arms on his knees, picking at a spot on his jeans in what appeared to be an anxious gesture.

He leaned forward, his nose brushing against my hair, his breath hot on my neck. “The mysterious kind,” he whispered and I shivered. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to. But I did all the same.

Elian leaned back and turned toward the stage, his head bobbing slightly in time to the music. Words were trapped in my throat, unmoving.

But I had nothing to say anyway.

“I thought you didn’t like music,” Elian continued.

“I don’t.”

He frowned but didn’t badger me for more information.

And I focused on the band all the while I burned.

Elian leaned forward, listening to the music with his lips parted ever so slightly. He breathed slowly. Steadily. The constant rise and fall of his chest was mesmerizing. My mouth felt dry, and the buzzing in my ears became louder.

“The best way to understand another human being is to watch them breathe. The way they take in air, their chest expanding and contracting lets you know what they’re feeling…what they’re thinking. How they do something as integral as staying alive, tells you everything you need to know.” My father spoke softly, staring up into the night sky. I sometimes wondered if he was talking more to himself than to me.

But I didn’t care. His words became my law and I believed everything he told me implicitly. Before. After. Because even the lies mattered.

Elian’s breaths were rhythmic and unhurried. But every once in a while he would stop, holding the air in. Then let it out in one, long rush. The breaths of a man trying to be sure of himself, but doubting at the same time. Daddy was right. Elian’s breathing told me so much.

“You’re looking at me,” he said, his lips quirking upward in a barely there smile.

Most people would have been embarrassed at having been caught ogling.

I wasn’t most people.

“Yes I was,” I admitted, bowing my head so that my hair fell on either side of my face. A dark, concealing curtain between him and me.

“Don’t stop,” he whispered, reaching out and tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. I looked up at him. I couldn’t help it. Our eyes met. Coal black with dancing green.

Gazes met and clung, holding on tightly and with the promise of something more.

And I felt it in that moment. The moment when, against his better judgment, he began to fall.

For a woman he didn’t know.

A stranger.

But one who pulled him in all the same.

I bit down on my bottom lip to stop myself from grinning like a fool. So, so easy.

So, so hard…

I twisted so that I faced him, feeling the tugging pain from my bandaged skin.

“I won’t,” I promised, knowing he didn’t understand the implications. Though I wasn’t sure that I did either.

His fingers drifted down my cheek and I shivered again. Violent chills. His eyes sparked and lit up at my involuntary movement.

“Why are you here?” he asked, and I knew that his question meant more than why I was at the concert. I was quickly learning that Elian’s words couldn’t be taken just at face value. He layered everything with something deeper. I appreciated that he took the time to ask the important things.

I opened my mouth to give him an answer, though for the first time in my life I wasn’t exactly sure what I would say.

“There you are, man! We’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

Elian blinked, as though waking up and dropped his hand from my face. He sat back, an embarrassed grin on his face, as though he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t.

I wanted to snarl at the intrusion. I wanted to scream over a moment ruined. But I did neither. I folded my hands in my lap and looked up at the people who had joined us.

I recognized Elian’s friend who often came with him to Denny’s. There was another guy I recognized from seeing him going in and out of the guitar studio. I didn’t know his name and I didn’t really care to know it.

And there was a woman with bright red hair and a shirt that barely covered her chest. She was drinking a beer sloppily. She was wearing an unattractive scowl on her face as she looked at me.