"There's a lot wrong with me," he says. "Has been ever since your father aimed a shotgun at my chest and pulled the trigger."
"Why?" The word is barely audible as tears spill over from the corner of my eyes. "Why did he do it? Why would he?"
"Revenge."
"Why?" I ask again. "What did you do to him?"
"Nothing," he says. "It wasn't me he wanted vengeance against. He did it to get back at my wife's father."
"Her father?"
He nods. "Ray."
I blink rapidly. I can only stare at him in shock.
His wife was Raymond Angelo's daughter?
"I was caught in the middle, condemned to die at the hands of someone close to me, someone who was supposed to love me. God spared me, but you see, nobody would've spared you, not when I was done with you, so you're lucky... you're fucking lucky... I fell in love with you."
My voice is weak when I whisper, "You don't love me."
"Oh, but I do," he says. "Because if I didn't? You'd be dead already."
I let out an involuntary whimper at the sound of his voice, so matter of fact, with no sign of regret in his words. He would've killed me… he so easily could have, so many times. If it's love that kept me alive, what does it mean for now? What does it mean for my future?
"Nothing's changed," he says, as if he can read my mind. "I'm still the man I was two hours ago, the same man I was two weeks ago, two months ago… two years ago. I'm the same man you gave yourself to, the same man you fell in love with. Nothing's changed."
He says it like he means it, like he really believes it, but looking at him, I don't see that man anymore. I see a man who not only could end my life, but a man who I think someday might.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he says quietly, and I close my eyes, unable to take the expression on his face, the look that wants me to believe it, that almost makes me believe it.
I sit still, my breath hitching when I feel him touch my face, caressing my cheek, fingertips grazing my lips as I exhale shakily. I can tell he leans closer, his cologne stronger, his body heat wafting across my skin, warming me on the outside, but I'm so, so cold inside. He's turned my blood to ice, stopped my heart from pumping it from fear that if it does, it might still beat for him.
"Tell me what you're thinking," he says, his lips near mine. He kisses the corner of my mouth. "Say something."
His lips meet mine softly. I don't kiss him back, instead whispering a lone word. "Red."
Red.
His lips leave mine in the next breath, his hand dropping from my face. I open my eyes in enough time to see him stand up. He stares down at me for a moment in silence. He has the audacity to look upset, like I've wounded him, like the word hurt him more than he could ever possibly hurt me. It feels like an eternity passes around me as I stare up at him with watery eyes, trying to keep my tears from falling, before he looks away, turning his back to walk out of the room.
I sit there for a while, not having the energy to move, before forcing myself to my feet. My knees are weak, wanting to give out as I leave the kitchen. My gaze darts to the front door, and for a brief second I think about running out of it, but where can I go? Who can I turn to?
Who will believe me?
What would he do?
Instead, I head upstairs.
I climb into bed with my clothes on, not even bothering to take off my shoes. I'm on the verge of tears, but the shock of it all is keeping them at bay.
The city is dangerous, my mother repeatedly told me. There are people who will prey upon me, who will corrupt me, who will use me and abuse me. I have to be on guard, alert, always keeping my eyes open to the dangers of the world, because they're real, and they'll destroy me.
I heard it over and over.
So many times.
Who would've expected I'd fall in blindly with the biggest threat of all?
The world keeps turning.
I keep moving.
Life around me continues to go on.
Naz acts like nothing changed. He meant it when he said it, truly believed it, but it's different for me now. It's all different. The truth seeped into my bones, infused in my muscles, as much a part of me now as the blood in my veins.
Blood that still feels too heavy in my chest, making each beat of my heart painful.
The den is quiet. The television is on, but muted, reruns of Real Housewives playing on the screen. Naz isn't watching it, instead sitting at his desk with a book. He's reading. Reading. I don't think anything Raymond Angelo pays him to do requires him to look in a book.
I stand just outside the doorway, looking in. I know the TV is on for me. He does it every day, turns on something he's seen me watch before, like he's trying to coax me into the room with him.
I haven't gone in yet.
It's been a week.
He hasn't left the house. Every day the same thing, the same routine. He lies beside me at night, but I don't think either of us gets any sleep, staring into the darkness, lost in the bitter silence. He hasn't touched me… hasn't tried to touch me… since I spoke the safe word in the kitchen. Not so much as a brush of his arm against mine in seven days.
I'm grateful. I'm relieved.
But I ache.
I mourn the loss of his touch.
What's wrong with me?
He tore me in two—half of me still clinging to who I thought he was, while the other half is shattered by the man he turned out to be. I love him. I hate him.
If I never saw his face again, I would be better off.
But yet I stand in the doorway, not looking at the silent television, instead looking at him. I wonder what he's thinking, what he's reading, what he'd say to me if I talked to him. I wonder if he knows how I feel about him right now, if this is how he's felt about me all along.
He set out to destroy me, but he fell in love with me instead.
I fell in love with him, and that's what destroyed me in the end.
He says he would never hurt me, but he doesn't realize he already has.
He hurt me by loving me.
By being who he is.
Because I am who I am.
I stare at him like I used to stare at my philosophy book, like maybe all the answers will magically transfer into my brain so I know what I'm supposed to know, so I understand what so far has evaded me. My stomach knots, constricting the flight of the butterflies he gives me, until his gaze shifts my way. He doesn't move anything except his eyes as he regards me carefully. I feel like a child being watched, but he still looks at me like I'm a woman.
He looks at me like he needs me more than the air he breathes.
My lungs can't seem to work when he looks at me that way.