desiderium | m. o'hara

eighteen

  I stare at the lake from the window seat in the living room. Miguel showers, scrubbing the sand from his hair and probably taking care of other matters, too.

  I pull my legs up to my chest and rest my forehead on my knees. Rosalina sleeps in the room over. I've showered and washed my hair. Miguel isn't upset with me. We even said 'I love you' to each other, and he hasn't been able to wipe the soft smile from his face since.

  Everything should be fine. It's not.

  I had stared at the marks on my neck in the bathroom mirror apathetically. The bandage over the other side is big and ugly.

  I love Miguel. I do. I love him so much that it consumes me entirely - and I want to share that with him, body and soul, like how he clearly wants to do with me. I just can't seem to bring myself to. And the marks, the bite - it's all proof of what I had agreed to before it all went downhill.

  It was so easy with him before; the dancing, the flirting, the teasing. It was natural, it was fun and comfortable. Then this road block popped up out of thin air and halted me completely. It shackles me. I fear that I'm all the way back in square one.

  Miguel's being so patient. I don't deserve it. Not after I flirted with him the way I did the day before. Not after I initiated what happened on the beach and then reacted so fearfully towards him. He doesn't deserve that.

  He's so good. He's so good to me that it's agony.

  The shower stops. Footsteps walk down the hall moments later, and then Miguel enters with a towel over his hair. His shirt hangs loose on his broad frame, dipping over his collarbone. He wears the silly little rabbit slippers that Rosalina bought for him as a joke. He's not like me, riled and anxious - he's calm. He's content.

  Miguel falters at my stare and smiles. Soft. For a scary-looking guy, he's always so soft.

  "Hey," he hums. He stops before me on my window seat. "Scooch forward."

  I shuffle across the cushion. He slips into the space behind me and drapes his arms around my stomach. His lips rest in my hair, still drying. I hesitate, before leaning back into his chest, and then my body relaxes on instinct.

  "¿Como estás?" he murmurs into the back of my head.

  I can't answer right away. My hands lift up and hold his instead. They're so firm, so strong and stable. There's a subtle bump of his spinnerets at the tops of his wrists. His palms are rough and calloused. I close my eyes and stifle a shiver at the reminder of how they felt on my body, of the way they traced my curves like connecting the dots between stars.

  Of the way they felt like heaven, and then hell.

  "Y/n?" he prompts.

  "I'm fine," I mumble. I look out at the lake and watch the reflection of the moon roll across its swells. I lift one of his hands up and press a kiss to a thin, white scar on his knuckle. "Are you okay?"

  Miguel exhales. The dried strands of my hair flutter. "I'm worried about you."

  My eyes drop to our entwined hands. "Sorry," I whisper.

  "Stop apologising," he murmurs, and kisses my hair. "You apologise too much."

  I go to apologise again for apologising before stopping myself. Miguel smiles against my head, quietly amused.

  "What can I do to get you to stop worrying?" I ask.

  "Nothing," he answers. "There's nothing you can do to stop me from worrying. For you or Rosa."