a proposal, of sorts. ✔️

twenty

The smell of liquor hangs off of us as we lurch into the parlor room, doors swinging shut ungracefully behind our entrance. He twirls me to an unbidden melody, laughs spinning through the air as we reach the couch.

I collapse with a sigh. "I can't understand how you drink that stuff." My nose crinkles with disapproval as he takes a seat next to me.

"Plum liquor is delicious for people with evolved taste buds," he explains haughtily. An arm falls back to cradle my neck.

"You must've burned all of them off to enjoy the bitter taste of plum liquor." I shove him in the stomach gently, but he keels over, his body leaning against the armrest.

His hand, now unemployed, clutches his heart. "Such aggression from someone who prefers cherry whiskey. It tastes like candied medicine."

"Only cheap cherry whiskey tastes like that. I drink my alcohol expensive."

His smile is arrogant. "And you call me pretentious."

"My label of you has no reflection on myself." My head falls against his thigh, too tired to stay upright.

His hand finds my hair idly. I don't push it away. "I suppose that's true. Still slightly hypocritical." His words beckon me to find his eyes with the tilt of my neck.

His finger wraps my curl around it tightly, the sharp pull tugging a breath from my lips. His eyes drift from mine to my mouth, cheeks rosy and eyes darkened with dilation. I close my parted lips, wary of the tension I had hung between us.

"If hypocrisy was the worst you could accuse me of, I think I'd be happy with myself," I mumble, grasping for any distraction from his gaze. His hold shackles me in place, hand wound in my hair and expression paralyzing.

"Hypocrisy can have lasting impacts." The words are whispers competing with the beating of my heart. His finger relaxes and I jerk upright, foreign soberness clearing my head.

My back is to him and the dryness choking me refuses to let me turn towards his body. "I should go. I'm tired."

I manage to reach the door without much clumsiness, my hand on the knob when I hear his salutation, low and solemn.

"Good night, Seryn."

•

I run to my room, cheeks flushed with some unimaginable heat. Chest heaving against the freshly closed bedroom door, I sink to the ground.

It's been years since I've felt how I did laying my head across Trystan's leg. The palpable current of lust and something lethal poisoning it. It felt like a rose blooming in my chest, pressing into my heart and my lungs. I was afraid if I tore my body open I would find the impressions of its petals in the shape of his hands on my flesh.

The last I had felt of it was when I had seen Rylan the second time, in daylight finally, muscles pulling at a barrel for storage. She had caught my gaze after a few minutes, a laugh bubbling up her throat. The most gorgeous melody, I had thought to myself. Sweat shone across her forehead and grime struck across her cheek, and every portion of my strength was focused on keeping me from falling into her embrace. The feeling of a paralytic love, blossoming into an unwelcoming place.

Hands weave through my hair, parroting Trystan's clutch in a pitiable attempt to slow my breathing. Flashes of his mistresses' faces haunt me, laughing at my ignorance and eyes hooded with lust, the images tainted with a hopeless sort of jealousy. I wanted to tear the feelings he had beckoned away from my body, as if it were some separate being that I may conquer. I hated that his face was painted on the back of my eyelids, and that his voice thronged the silence between my heartbeats.

I reached for my chest but found his necklace instead.