David leaned back a bit, scoffing loudly. “You’re wrong.”
“Am I?” Jase said.
A soft breath from David’s nose fell over my face, cooling the skin enough that the tiny hairs stood on end. “Just because she’s happy to accept comfort, does not mean she can look at me the way she used to, Jason. She—”
“She loves you! Can you not see that?”
They went quiet for a minute, then David said, in a very mocking, almost mean tone, “That really bothers you, doesn't it?”
“It makes me sick,” Jason practically yelled. “It makes me sick to see you abuse that power. I wanted to love her, to teach her how she
deserves
to be treated, but I can’t make her want me.”
“But you did, didn’t you?” he muttered with the full weight of his spite behind the words.
“No. Not with all her heart,” Jason said, his voice sad and flat. “If you have even one decent bone in your body, you’ll admit what you want and bloody well stick to it—through thick and thin. Because as long as you live and breathe, as long her heart beats, she will never get over you.”
“So I’m just supposed to take her back—after everything?”
“After everything?” he scoffed. “She made a
mistake
. She came to bed with me and I can tell you now, I was the instigator. She was weak-minded then, David—young and scared and so alone she could hardly breathe. She only did it to save
you.
”
“And she fell in love with you in the process!”
“She got confused,” he said, clearly through his teeth. “I did that to her. I ruined her, David, can’t you see that? She’d never have done anything like that without my interference. Never. And had she been the girl she is now, she’d have had me arrested for even suggesting such an act. She’s struggled all her life to figure out who she is and where she fits in the world, and she was a different person before we slept together; you know that! She only just started to find her place in the world between the time she fell off that lighthouse and when she told you about what we’d done.”
“Look, I know, okay. She changed in that time, but I can’t ignore what she did.”
“I’m not asking you to ignore it. I’m asking you to forgive it. She’s lost again, David.” His voice broke. “She can’t find reason in all this madness because she knows she loves you even though the marriage is over. All she wants is to move on and stop feeling this pain all the time, but her heart won’t let her. And you don’t want her to either. But you won’t even say it.”
I opened one eye then and saw Jason sit heavily on the edge of the seat, his head in his hands.
“She’s the sweetest, most loving and forgiving little thing I’ve ever met, and I know you think there’s no going back after the things you said,” Jason added, not looking up from the ground. “I know you feel that what you did is far worse in your mind than what she did, but she
will
forgive you. You know that, too. You didn’t strike her. You didn’t do anything other than use words to make her cry. I did far worse to her, and she forgave
me
. I—”
“Why would you say this to me?” David cut in. “Why would you fight so hard to see her and I reunited, when that will mean you lose her?”
“Same reason you’re pushing her into my arms, bro.” His voice softened to a whisper. “I want better for her. And if I can’t be what she needs, then I will
fight
to get it for her.”
David exhaled the tension. “I’m not what she needs, Jason. She was never happy with me.”
“Then make her happy. It’s not hard. Step up to the plate, change your ways and just love her like she
deserves
to be loved.” He stood slowly, his hand dropping weakly to his side. “Because I would give anything.
Anything
to be in your position right now.”
“And that’s just it,” David said, defeated. “The fact that you can stand to be with her while she apparently loves me so much…” He sighed. “You’re better for her, man, because I just can’t do that.”
“That doesn't mean you’re not worthy of her.”
“No, perhaps not. But it means I can’t be with her.”
I closed my eye again as Jason’s shoulders dropped.
“Then stop touching her like you can,” he said. “All you’ll do is confuse her.”
“She was having a nightmare,” David reasoned.
Jason just sighed, and as his energy faded from the room, the fog in my mind took control. I felt it dribble in under something cool and airy in my head, and only as I closed myself off from the world and slipped into a dreamless state did I realise that Jason had counteracted David’s assault on my brain, keeping me awake long enough to hear that.
***
The darkness and a sudden emptiness beneath me sent my eyes shooting open, David’s smiling face reassuring me as the pillows rose like a fortress around my tired head, the mattress softly cradling the rest of my body.
“Shh,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”
“But, Pepper.” I forced my eyes open. “I wasn't expecting you back so soon. I haven’t got her room ready yet.”
“It’s okay,” he whispered, tucking my feet under the blanket. “We’ve put her in my room for the night.”
“But, where are you going to sleep? Oh.” I flopped down, turning my eyes toward the balcony. “Of course. With her.”
“No.” He half laughed, though it sounded more out of insult than amusement. “I’ll be fine on the Common Room couch.”
“Couch?” I tried to sit up but he pushed me down with a firm hand to my chest.
“I’ll be fine. I’m not that tired anyway.”
I looked carefully at his face through the dark then. It was hard to see by what little light the half-moon offered, but the shadows told in greater detail the lies the light hid. “You
look
tired.”
He brushed my hair off my face, his clammy hand staying on my brow after. “So do you. Now go to sleep.”
“David,” I called as he walked away.
“Mm?”
“I’m not so sure anymore that my dad’s really dead.”
He took another step away but stopped, turning back with a sigh. “It was just a dream, Ara.”
“I … Yeah. You’re right.” I nodded, wrapping my fingers over the rim of my blanket, pulling it up under my chin. I guess I just
wanted
it to be real—hadn’t truly faced the fact that he was gone. But the dream felt so real; even as I lay here with my eyes open, I was sure my dad would walk through that door any moment.
David glanced over at the sooty fireplace. “You cold?”
“A little.”
“Want me to light a fire?”
“Really?”
“What do you mean,
really
? Why wouldn’t I?”
Because he didn’t get cold. Because he didn’t care if I did. So many reasons, really. “Thanks,” I said instead. “That’d be nice.”
He cleared his throat and walked stiffly across the room, his fists tight by his sides, his arms dead straight, legs barely bending to take a step. He was either trying really hard to pretend he cared, or had sat on a steel rod and got it wedged halfway up his asshole.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” he said in a very strained grunt.
I winced at the obvious sound of pain in his voice, reasoning then that he was clearly hungry, and the pulse and flow of my human-like blood must’ve been driving him half mad. “Do you need blood?”
His head whipped up, eyes meeting mine from across the room. “No. And even if I did, I certainly wouldn't take yours.”
“Who says I was offering?” I snapped, pulling the covers all the way over my head. I
was
offering, but clearly I was just too repulsive for him to even think about drinking from. Instead of crying, though, I listened intently to the quiet night outside, the calm broken only by the intermittent clunk of wood on a metal grate, followed by the stroke of match and that smoky scent as the flame receded, passing on to the paper in the fireplace. The roar as David poured some lighter fluid on top brought a light so bright it snuck in under a gap in my covers and made my hands a browny-orange.
“It’ll be warmer in a sec,” he said, landing on top of the covers beside me—in the place where he used to sleep.
I poked my head out. “Thanks.”
“Go to sleep.” He folded his arms and faced forward as if he meant to stay and guard me, against his own will.
So I just laid there and watched him while he pretended not to notice. His nose and chin looked more pointed with the orange glow tapering the shadows down his face, and his eyes appeared almost black. Then again, maybe they were black. He was pretty thin and pale, and cold, for that matter. I wasn’t sure when he last had blood. Or if maybe he was sick and wasn’t digesting it properly. I was certain beyond doubt that he hadn’t slept. His cheeks were sunken and he’d clearly stopped shaving daily, a dark shadow of stubble having taken up residence from below his nose down to his throat. It looked good, though—sexy, but the sunken cheeks and hollow sadness in his eyes would be enough to turn anyone off. Even me.
“How come you’re not sleeping in the room with Pepper?” I asked.
David looked sideways at me. “Jason will stay with her.”
“Why not put her in
his
room then?” I snuggled down and rolled onto my back so I could keep my eyes off him for five seconds.
“I didn’t want her sleeping in a room beside you.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t trust her yet,” he said flatly, factually, as though he no longer had the ability to emit emotion.
“Why not?” I probed, knowing it’d piss him off.
“She’s a mental case, Ara,” he snapped, and I smiled, having drawn some kind of emotion from him. “She could attack at random.”
“Are you worried she’ll hurt me?” I asked mockingly.
“No.” He folded his arms.
“Then you’re worried she’ll … what? Steal a pot-plant and—”
“Okay, fine. It’s not
just
that.” He crossed his ankles the other way. “Or, maybe it is. But … just drop it, would you?”
I didn’t know what I was supposed to be dropping, but since he was clearly very heated about Pepper, I decided to shut up. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t amused.
“We’ve erased as far back as when her and I first started dating,” he added begrudgingly. “As far as she’s concerned—”
“You’re still together?”
He nodded once. “And that’s why I’m not sleeping in the room with her.”
“You think she’ll want you to bind her hands and do naughty things to her?” I teased.
His lips tightened and formed a very small smile, but he didn’t look at me. “Are you going to use that against me for the rest of our lives now?”
I laughed. “If it makes you pull that face every time, then … yep.”
That playful kitten look I hadn’t seen in so long gleamed at the inner corners of his eyes, his jaw shifting forward then back as a few different words danced on his tongue. “I have something against you, too, you know? So you might wanna watch what you say to me.”
“Oh really?” I challenged, setting my shoulders straight across the pillow. “And what might that be?”
One eye turned to scan my body, his hands breaking free of their fold a second later. “Your ticklish spot.”
“No! Ah!” I jerked the blanket up to cover my ribs, but he tore it back, mounting my hips so I couldn’t move, pinning both my wrists above my head in one of his monstrous hands.
“That’s not fair,” I squealed, tossing from side to side. “Ah!”
He laughed so loudly I couldn’t hear myself protest, and were it not for the fact that his assault on my ribs was making me want to pee, I’d have stopped giggling altogether just to hear the sound of his voice as it rolled from the back of his throat that way. The wide smile made him seem so young and so human, reminding me painfully of what it was I’d loved about him back when we first met.
He showed me no mercy either, my being pregnant and having a giant belly in the way not a deterrent at all. He did keep well clear of the bump, though, as if touching it might spike him with fever.
His grip eased off my wrists then, so they shot to my sides to protect, and as my giggles simmered he fell down on his elbow beside me, keeping one hand against my ribs.
“That was so mean.” I panted heavily, my chest sinking and rising like I’d run up a hill, both of us smiling like little kids at Disneyland.
“Well, you’re the one that implied I have a fetish for incapacitating helpless girls and torturing them.”
“Hey.” I pointed in his face, huffing and puffing through my overly wide smile. “I implied you liked them that way
sexually
.”
He laughed, dropping his face to hide it for a second, but when he emerged again, the smile slowly faded from his lips then his eyes. He studied me for a moment, breathing out long through his nose. “I’ve no interest in Pepper,” he said. “What we had faded a
long
time ago when I met this pretty little girl at school. Okay? I just want to be clear on that.”