Page 61 of Equilibrium
“We had a disagreement,” he finally mumbled, still refusing to meet my eyes. I stepped closer, my chest right in front of his eyes, my thighs between his and one of my hands in his hair, while the other one kept a hold of his shoulder. “It’s nothing.”
“Why did you let him hit you?” I asked again because I had to know. I was curious by nature, and I don’t know, somewhere deep inside, I needed to know that he wasn’t as self-destructive as I was. I needed to know that whatever haunted him at night wasn’t the same thing that haunted me. I tightened my fingers against the silky strands coated with blood when he slowly, gently, almost too carefully, placed his hands on my waist pulling me closer.
My knees hit the side of the bed as he spread his legs wider, and I would’ve lost my footing if he hadn’t been holding me. “I don’t know why,” he confessed. “We had a disagreement, and he got pissed.”
“He got so pissed that he almost tried to rearrange your bone structure?” I was getting fucking pissed, I just didn’t know at whom exactly. This whole situation was pissing me off. “That’s not okay.”
“It’s nothing,” he stubbornly answered, repeating the same words, but it wasn’t enough. I didn’t know him well enough to even try to guess what was going through his head, but something was wrong. The man I met four years ago seemed like the kind of man that wouldn’t take shit from anybody. Hell, even the Storm from a couple of days ago seemed like he wouldn’t take shit from anybody, but this version of him was something I wasn’t familiar with.
“Don’t give me that crappy answer,” I murmured, still petting his hair. “Don’t give me bullshit answers just because you don’t want to talk to me or because you’re mad at me.” He tightened his hold on my waist and closed his eyes, as if even looking at me was something he didn’t want to do. As if all of this was too much. “Is it me? Is it my presence here?” My voice wobbled. I actually started liking it here. I didn’t forget about Maya or what I had to do, but somewhere deep inside, I wanted this. I wanted to be a part of something that didn’t want to kill me.
I wanted to have a family.
His eyes flashed open, bewildered, angry, but I wanted to know the truth. If this was just another place where I wasn’t wanted, I would leave. As soon as I got better, I would leave. The last thing I wanted was to be a burden, and for some reason, for my entire life, I felt like one. Even if nobody voiced it, there was a part of me that hated asking questions, hated asking for help and hated being taken care of, because I always felt like people didn’t really want to do it. That they were doing it out of obligation, or out of fear.
“Sunshine,” he croaked. “It isn’t you.” I didn’t believe him. How could I when he refused to tell me anything? “We just had a disagreement over a mission, but it isn’t you.”
I started pulling back, dropping my hands from his shoulder and from his hair, but he didn’t allow me to. He pulled me closer, so close that my breasts were plastered against his chest. Our heartbeats mashed together, and I could feel the little studs from his nipple piercings grazing me. He placed a hand on the back of my neck, grazing the sensitive skin on the sides and pulled me closer to his face.
“Stop this.” A whisper or a plea, I wasn’t really sure, but he looked like he was in pain. Not the physical one, not from the injuries, but from the fact that I was pulling away. “Don’t pull away from me. Don’t you ever pull away from me.”
His eyes were burning into mine, an eternal hurricane that could swallow me whole. I would let it. I would let it swallow me whole because I wanted this. I wanted him. Somewhere between lying to myself, running away from him, and trying to think about what to do, I realized I wanted this. I wanted to stay here, to be a part of something bigger, something better.
And he cared for me, I could see that. No, I knew that, because I cared about him too. I probably cared about him from the first moment I met him, I was just too consumed by everything else that was going on around us. But I was tired of running.
I was so fucking tired. I was tired of being alone, of being abandoned, of not being wanted. I was tired of blocking him and not even trying to understand what was happening between us. I thought killing Kieran would bring me some peace, but it didn’t. I was still as numb as I was years ago. I was still as shattered as before. But in the span of the last couple of days, where I was acting like a spoiled child, getting butthurt over nothing, trying to block whatever was happening between us, it happened.
Unfortunately, even while I avoided him, I couldn’t avoid my feelings. I couldn’t avoid the fact that every time I touched myself at night, it was with his name on my lips. I couldn’t run away from everything in my life. It was a tiring and lonesome task, and I was tired of being alone.
“Storm.” I placed my hands on his bloodied cheeks, wiping the blood, trying to see the damage. “I’m not pulling away, I’m just...” I took a deep breath, tilting my head toward the ceiling. “I’m terrified.”
“Sunshine—”
“I’m terrified you’ll see inside my soul.” I looked at him, trying to coax a smile to my face. “I’m terrified you’ll see where all the monsters hide, and you’ll hate me. You’ll hate me because that’s what everybody does. They either hate me, or they abandon me.”
“No, hey.” His bloodied knuckles ran a trail from my cheekbone to my lips, no doubt leaving a red trail behind. “Your monsters don’t scare me. You know what scares me?”
I didn’t want to know, and yet I did. “What?”
“Not having you with me. Not seeing you, not being able to touch you, to smell you, to kiss you.” He turned his head and kissed the inside of my wrist. “Not being able to see this pale skin of yours.” He then turned his head to the other side, kissing the other wrist. “Those monsters you’re talking about, those petty little demons, they aren’t scary, baby. We just need to learn how to live with them, because even the darkness needs someone to love them, to care for them. Even the broken ones deserve to be wanted. We deserve to be happy.”
I wasn’t a crier because it had been drilled into me never to show any kind of emotion. It was drilled into me just like a lot of other things, but I was done being the prisoner of my own mind. I was done allowing these shackles to control me, to make decisions for me. I was just fucking done.
“I don’t think I do, Storm.” I felt it when the first tear fell down my cheek. “I don’t think I deserve to be happy, because of the things I’ve done...” I trailed off, choking on my own words. “I did terrible things, okay?”
“We all did,” he murmured as he stroked my cheek once again, wiping away the tears. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be happy.”
The hand on the nape of my neck pulled me closer, until our foreheads touched, and our breaths mixed, lips inches from each other. “I think you’re the best thing that has ever happened to me, Ophelia.” I closed my eyes, unable to take any more of the emotions shining from his own. “I think you somehow brought me back to life, even when you weren’t here.”
“No, I—”
“I was a corpse, Sunshine. I was a walking corpse, just waiting for death to come and pick me up. I had a purpose, and it was to kill, to avenge, to get my revenge, until I saw you. Until you marched toward me like there was nothing else you wanted to do more. Like the only thing you could see was me, and I felt the same. I felt as if I was struck by lightning when you smiled at me, when you called me Hades. I didn’t even know I was looking for you until I found you. People are terrified of us because they know what danger is when they see it, yet you...” He laughed. “You just stood there, brave, defiant, and you asked me about my bike. About my fucking bike.”
I slowly opened my eyes, mimicking his moves and entwining my hands around his neck.
“It was a hot bike.” I snorted.
He started playing with my hair, as he murmured, “It really was.” I felt at peace, and I knew it because I knew what real torment felt like.
