Thick Love (Thin Love, #2)(102)
Loving me sounded like a sickness. It sounded like something that hinted at a past behavior Aly recovered from, something she wouldn’t ever do again.
Aly took two steps backward, then walked toward the door, her thin skirt slapping against her thighs and that long, dark hair swinging as she hurried away from me.
Away from me, I thought. Away.
“I’m a selfish *, Aly.” She slowed, glanced over her shoulder but didn’t stop. “I’m a selfish * because I don’t care that I don’t deserve you. I want to be with you anyway.”
“Yeah?” she said, turning around with her lips tight. “And what if I don’t want to be with you?”
“You do.” Her mouth dropped open and I took her surprise as an opportunity to catch up to her. “You do even though you don’t know why. Even though it makes zero f*cking sense.” When Aly laughed, a forced sound that made me clench my teeth together, I pulled her toward me with my hand on the back of her neck. She didn’t struggle or tell me not to touch her. “You want me as badly as I want you.”
“No, I don’t. I…”
I silenced her with my mouth over hers, lifting Aly up to lean her against the mirrored wall. She tasted like hot chocolate and mint and felt like Christmas morning when you’re five—exciting, anxious, all the anticipation of an amazing day where nothing you wanted would be denied.
She kissed me back, let me take her bottom lip between my teeth, her tongue against mine and only when I could tell her breathing was short did I pull back, keeping her still with my forehead against hers. “I know I f*cked up. I know I hurt you over and over again, but Aly, please don’t think I meant any of it. Please don’t think I ever stopped wanting you.”
“Ransom, please rete…stop.” She sounded a little breathless, fighting something she kept to herself. “Wanting each other has never been the problem.”
I pushed back and stared down at her because I didn’t believe she was serious. “You think all I want is to get inside you?” I hated that one look from her filled me with so much doubt. “Aly, I can get that anywhere with anyone.”
“Why don’t you?”
“They aren’t you.”
Aly’s mouth hung open for a different reason then, but she recovered, sliding away from me and I let her go, not wanting to push her more than I had. But if I wanted her to believe me, I had to explain what these few days and seeing my mother laying in that bed had given me.
She stretched her neck, moved around the studio as though she was looking for something that would distract her from my gaze. Finally, she sat on the floor and pulled her knees against her chest.
Silence echoed through the studio. Aly just sat there with a suspicious squint in her eyes. Finally I scraped my fingers through my hair in frustration before I started to speak.
“I’m Haku.” Aly’s frown was quick and I knew a question would come, but I shook my head, stopping her before she could ask me. “When my folks got married I spent a lot of time with the Hale family in Hawaii, with my great aunt Malia especially.” Aly didn’t loosen her shoulders as I spoke and I hope she’d hang on, just one more time so I could explain myself. “Malia told me stories, folktales from the island, legends I’d never heard before.” I stopped right in front of Aly as she stared up at me and moved down on my haunches wanting so much to touch her again. “The past year and a half I spent a lot of time on my own.” I shrugged, knowing that keeping myself from the people who loved me had been a selfish, stupid decision. “I kept wondering what it would take, how in the hell I could somehow make up for what I’d done.”
“Ransom…” there was tension in her voice, impatience, but I moved closer, sitting next to her on the floor.
“I remembered one of the legends Malia told me about. Haku, a warrior who challenged every man on the Big Island. He was proud. He was vain and any time word came to him of another battle, some brave warrior who’d defeated his enemy, Haku would find him. He’d challenged the warrior and strike him dead.” The tension had eased on Aly’s face and she didn’t try to avoid the brush of my leg against hers. “This went on for decades until finally, Haku thought he had killed every threat, until he was the fiercest, the strongest. He grew lazy, became too confident by all his victories and one day, a strange warrior challenged him, someone no one knew. Someone without any people at all. The challenger sent his servant to call Haku out in front of his family. ‘Meet my master at the top of Mauna a Wākea and he will destroy you.’ And so Haku, still vain, still arrogant, climbed for days to Mauna a Wākea, battling beasts and storms, boasting and patting himself on the back every time he conquered another hurdle that tried stopping him from reaching the top. And when he had bled and battled, when the earth or the weather could not keep him from his final challenger, Haku climbed on his hands and knees, his boasts fainter, his ego dimmed but still firm, and he stood in front of his challenger and looked into his eyes, crying out in fear.”
“Why? Who was it?” Aly asked, eyes wide, curious.
“Haku looked at the man before him and was filled with regret. He looked at his younger self, the fetch of who he was, the only challenger he could never defeat.” Aly’s mouth had no tension just then and I wondered if she understood my point, if that stupid folklore made any sense to her. “That was what my guilt was. All this time, that’s what was holding me back—myself. It weighed me down just like Haku’s arrogance. No one could touch me. No one could challenge me because that heavy guilt had me trapped.” Aly didn’t frown, didn’t flinch from me when I moved my hand closer to hers. “All I had to do was look at myself, see that I was the enemy. I was the one threatening everything I wanted for myself.” She looked down at our hands resting side by side, silent, breath even and I wondered what she thought. I wondered if she understood that I wanted to jump off that mountain, be free from all the guilt weighing me down.