Without Merit(46)

I could listen to him breathe out my name like that for eternity.

“Merit,” he says again, kissing up my jaw. “What is this?”

I shake my head, wanting him to stop questioning it. Don’t stop. Just go. Green light all the way.

He somehow mistakes my green light for a yellow light, because he pauses. He presses his forehead to the side of my head and takes a moment between kisses to catch his breath. I do the same.

“Merit,” he says again, pulling away to look down on me. His eyes roam over my face and then down to my chest, back up my face. “Why are you wearing this?” He puts most of his weight on his hands now, removing the pressure that was just all over me.

I want the pressure back. I try to pull him back to me, but he just pulls his face from my hands. He puts all of his weight onto one arm now as he moves his hand to the braid in my hair. He wraps his hand around the braid and slides his fingers down it, all the way to the end. His eyes are moving from my braid, to my face, to the nightgown, to my braid, to my face.

I don’t like this.

He sits up, falling back onto his calves. He’s kneeling on the couch in front of me. My legs are still on either side of him.

“Why are you wearing Honor’s clothes?”

I push my hands into the couch and sit up, pulling my legs away from him. We’re facing each other now, but he’s so much taller than me, even kneeling. He’s towering over me. Questioning me. I close my eyes.

I feel his hand on my chin. Gentle. “Hey.” The word is a whisper. “Look at me.”

I do, because I’d do anything he asked as long as it was done in that tone. Sweet and protective. He brushes my hair back and repeats himself.

“Why are you dressed like her?”

I can feel the tears as they begin to form in my eyes. I shake my head, hoping to stop the flow. “I was curious.”

He releases my face and his hand falls to his lap. “About what?”

I shrug. “I just wanted to see what it felt like. Being her. But then you walked in the door.”

His lips fold together. He pulls a hand through his hair and then sits back against the couch. He’s no longer facing me.

“Why did you try to kiss me? Before I knew you weren’t her?”

I blow out a steady breath, but the air around me is shaking. My whole body is shaking. I’m scared of the truth. I’m not as good at it as Sagan seems to want me to be. “I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to kiss you again.” I drag my hands down my face and fall against the couch next to him. As if one mortifying life moment isn’t enough for one week.

I feel Sagan stand up. I hear him pace the floor a few times. When he pauses, I open my eyes and look up at him. His hands are on his hips and he’s looking down at me. “Do you think Honor and I . . .” He tosses his hand at the couch. “Do you think I do things like this with her? Do you think we’re together like that?”

My mouth falls open. I clamp it shut. His question is confusing me. “Aren’t you?”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment. He just stares at me in disbelief. And then . . .

“No.”

There’s so much truth in that word, but it has to be a lie. Of course they do stuff like this. Of course they kiss.

“Merit, Honor is my friend. She’s seeing my best friend, I would never do that to him.” He sighs. “It’s complicated.”

“But . . .” I shake my head, more confused than ever on how to respond. “Why do you both make it seem that way?”

He laughs incredulously. He tilts his face up and stares at the ceiling for a moment. “We don’t. That’s just how you choose to see it.”

I think back on the last couple of weeks. All the times he’s been referred to as her boyfriend were when I referred to him that way. He never called himself her boyfriend. Honor never said he was her boyfriend. And aside from a few hugs, I’ve never once seen him kiss her. I’ve only seen them hold hands at the pool.

But that doesn’t explain why he kissed me the day he followed me out of the antiques store. He thought I was Honor then and he kissed me. And the fight they had the other night about Colby . . .

I cover my face with my hands again as I try to separate everything I’m feeling. Everything that’s happening. “But your fight the other night. About her seeing Colby . . .”

“Colby is my friend,” he interrupts. “But so is Honor. I don’t like that she’s so caught up in these unhealthy relationships. I get angry at her when she doesn’t listen to me. We fight. It’s what friends do.”

“Oh.”

Sagan begins pacing the floor again. He walks from one end of the couch to the other. He stops in front of me. “Why did you kiss me when I thought you were Honor?”

I’m pretty sure I already answered this question. “I already told you . . .” I look up at him and it’s the first time he looks angry. I clamp my mouth shut again.

He inhales a slow, controlled breath. “Let me get this straight,” he says. “You thought I was Honor’s boyfriend so you pretended to be her and then you tried to kiss me?”

I try to shake my head, but my head doesn’t move. “Sagan.”

“What kind of person does that to her own sister, Merit?” He grimaces and turns away from me, gripping the back of his neck with his hands. He walks into the kitchen and grabs his hoodie off the back of a chair. I look completely pathetic as I stand up and take a few steps toward him.