Page 83 of Edged
“You’re not listening to me.”
Owen slowly untangled my arms from around his legs and put space between us. I shook my head, biting my lips between my teeth until they ached.
“Don’t do this,” I begged.
He swallowed and looked up at the playroom window, then back down at me as he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.
“My best friend is threatening to come by my house because it’s so unlike me to isolate the way he thinks I am. Every time I get sick, he brings me soup, he always…” He snapped his mouth closed and held his phone in the air before letting his hand fall down to his side.
“Always has,” I finished for him, finding myself sick with jealousy over the man who’d had so many years to take care of Owen when it should have always been me.
“I’m lying to my sister.”
“You’ve been lying to her for years.” I finally stood and took a step toward him, hands raised again in surrender. “Aren’t you ready to stop? Don’t you want to tell her the truth, Owen?”
He shook his head, a tear tracking down his cheek. I took another step toward him.
“I’ll tell her,” I offered. “I’ll tell her the truth of the whole thing. From then to now, because if she knows how long I’ve loved you, she has to—”
“Archie, stop.” He closed the space between us and shoved both of his hands against my chest. I curled my fingers around his wrists so he couldn’t pull away and tugged him closer. He lost his balance and stumbled into me.
“If she knew you loved me and that I loved you too, she’d want us to be together,” I rasped.
“You don’t know a single thing about her.”
“I know I was going to you that night. She knew your feelings mattered to me.”
“She didn’t know how much,” he whispered.
“She didn’t know a lot of things back then. Neither of us did. But we know now. I know now, Owen, that I don’t want to live this life without you anymore.”
“Please don’t do this.”
Another tear fell from the corner of his eye, then another and another. He shook his head, bleached curls flying the faster he moved. Like if he disagreed with me enough, I’d stop. But that just proved he didn’t know a thing about the man I’d become. I’d gotten through school, gotten rich, built my whole life around the relentless pursuit of the things I wanted. Owen was the only thing I’d never chased, the only thing I’d ever willingly let go. But now that I had him back, even if only for a handful of days…
Well, I was a different man than I’d been before.
“I love you, and I know you love me. Iknowyou do, Owen.” Even to my own ears, my voice sounded tight and urgent, nearly desperate.
“The last few days have been great.”
I dug my nails into his wrists to shut him up. I knew where he was going and I hated it. I didn’t want any part of it. I wanted a ball gag from Rob’s playroom that I could shove into his mouth and strap around the back of his head so he wouldn’t say all of the things I knew were coming.
“But I have a life, Archie. And you’re not in it. You haven’t been in it for years. You can’t just…”
I tapped my finger against his temple. “I’m right here.”
I pressed against his heart. “I’m here.”
He grimaced and looked at the way my fingers splayed out across his sternum.
“I wouldn’t trade this weekend for anything in the world,” he whispered.
“But you are. You’re trading it for another ten years of nothing.”
“More than ten years,” he corrected.
No.
