Page 8 of Ashen Souls

“Thank you.”

“So. What are you looking for?”

I hesitated. If I told the truth, it would sound insane.

I’m looking for something that feels like fate and ruin. I’m looking for the kind of love that tilts the axis of the world. I’m looking for someone who sees me without asking me to shrink.

“Something real,” I said instead.

He smiled, as if the word real translated neatly into his own expectations. “Me too.”

Then he moved in closer.

I could have stopped it. I could have turned my head or slipped my hand from his, but I didn’t.

His mouth was careful, measured in a staged way, as though performing a choreographed routine.

I kissed him back because I was tired of being the girl who never felt anything.

By the time we were halfway through the kiss, my mind had abandoned the stage. My body played out the rest of the scene.

When I finally broke away, he smiled like he’d accomplished something.

“There it is,” he murmured.

“There what is?”

“The chemistry.” His voice lowered, thick with confidence. “I knew it.”

I stared at him, and something cold aligned inside me. He hadn’t felt the fracture at all—the way my spine had gone rigid, the way my hands had withdrawn, the way the kiss had turned one-sided.

He had already decided how this evening was supposed to go, and he was laying that version over me.

“I should go,” I said, reaching blindly for my coat.

His smile faltered. “Already?”

“I have an early class,” I lied.

He reclined in his chair, studying me. The practiced warmth cooled rapidly. “You’re not really into this.” It wasn’t a question.

“No,” I admitted. For once, I didn’t want to soften the truth.

A flicker of irritation crossed his face. “Why’d you come then?”

It shouldn’t have bothered me, but the remark landed with a sickening precision, finding the exact wound I’d been trying to hide.

There were a dozen answers. That I was trying so hard to be normal. That loneliness had sharper teeth than I liked to admit. That I was waiting for something I didn’t even have a name for, and the waiting was slowly hollowing me out.

I stood and pulled my coat tightly around my shoulders. “I thought maybe I could be.”

His gaze narrowed. “Be what?”

“Someone who wants this.”

The silence between us thickened, stagnant and sour.

“Right,” he said, his voice flat. “Well. Don’t waste people’s time.”