GUN IN MY HAND

CHAPTER 35: DANCING SHADOWS

'And I don't want the world to see me

'Cause I don't think that they'd understand

When everything's made to be broken

I just want you to know who I am'

Now, it was my turn to answer, and in front of these two penetrating eyes, I couldn't say anything but the truth.

"I don't know," I breathed out the three words as if I'd confessed a billion, and I lifted the piece of cotton to the corner of his eyebrow, where its lift was accentuating the drop of dry blood there.

As his gaze was flickering between my hand and my face, he probably wondered if I was getting back at him for dodging my first question. I could have, but no; it was the truth.

I had no answer, and my hands were reaching instinctively for him, as if the touch of his warm skin could help me clear my thoughts, and maybe it did because the words came out with barely even a breath.

"I shouldn't be here. I have every reason not to."

Just a blink of my eyes, and behind my eyelids, I could see my parents, and Spencer. Another blink, and there was everything that had been added tonight to prove I wasn't part of this world.

I should have been grounded in my room, reading the letter I'd promised I would think about, safe and licitly in my room. These were just a few of all the arguments piling up on the same side of the scale.

Though when I reopened my eyes, my body was tilting towards him already, and all I saw was blue.

"But I want to." I nibbled on my lip as I searched how to explain to him like he'd done for me, make him understand in his words.

Yet how could I translate the spark that had led me to take his hand the first time? The strength with which I'd holden on to him at the bar? The craziness that had made me defy the dangerous bad boy he was? Or even the uneven beats of my heart at this instant?

"There's no plausible reason... I'm not doing it because I have to, because it's right or wrong..." I let my gaze run around as if something in this small bathroom could give me an answer, when nothing from the white tile to the now red-stained sink was made for this kind of confession.

Even the silence was too heavy with all our previous said and unsaid words. But when I came back to his eyes and their intense sharpness that pinned me until deep inside, I found the best way to describe it, which I knew he would understand.

"I guess it's like an instinct in my guts, guiding me to stay here... and I don't plan on going anywhere." My fingers slid briefly over his pulse on the side of his neck, just enough to feel the loud thumps matching mine. "Well, at least until I have to go back for my curfew." I offered him a small smile, trying to lighten the silence, and if it hadn't been for the faint twitch of his dimple, I would have believed I'd spoken in a foreign language to him.

The crease between his eyebrows was still as deep, his gaze piercing through me like I was a mystery of the universe, and with how sharp it was, I feared he would uncover things unknown even to myself.

I could feel everything stirring inside: my heartbeats, that spark in my guts, my fluttering stomach, and even my fingers as I uselessly tried to distract both of us, continuing to tend his smaller scratches. I was reaching for the bruise under his eye when he stood up abruptly, freezing all my movements outside and inside.