Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 148397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
He needs to know.
It might help.
Or it might destroy him.
I couldn’t tell how he’d react if he knew what he said each and every time he called me Ily.
Would he find it funny or get mad?
Would he scream at me?
Hurt me?
With eyes far too heavy, I caught his stare.
He still didn’t look like him.
He’d transformed into a colder, crueller, dead-eyed version of the man I’d fallen hopelessly in lust with. The puddle of golden light from the bedside lamp avoided him, allowing all the shadows in the room to cling to his body.
Darkness beneath his eyes. Blackness along his jaw. Shadows swirled over his skin like moving tattoos.
Licking my lips, I tried to pull my chin out of his tight hold.
When he didn’t let me go, I slurred, “Do you prefer calling me Ily or Little Nightmare?”
He didn’t answer the question, but he did let me go.
Sitting heavily on the bed, he rubbed his hand on the sheets as if his fingers stung from holding me.
I felt his anguish.
I patted his knuckles with commiseration.
“You know…Ily isn’t really a name.” I sighed with all the love I had for my brother. “Krish misread the note my birth mother left pinned on my baby blanket.” Hot tears prickled before fading beneath love again. “It was just a short note. A scribble really.”
Henri didn’t speak but he did go achingly still.
His palm suddenly tipped up and captured my fingers, fisting me in a painful handhold.
I didn’t know if he squeezed me to make me stop or squeezed me because he needed to know. Either way, this story would probably shatter him.
I’m sorry…
I recited the words scribed on my heart. “You’re perfect. But I’m not. And you deserve perfection. I.L.Y.”
Henri choked.
For a second, it looked as if he believed that sentence was about him—not the final parting phrase of my birth mother—but then his forehead creased, and he licked his lips. He whispered ever so quietly, “I.L.Y?”
“Krish read the note and in his six-year-old brain, he smushed the acronym together.”
Shadows gathered tighter around him. “Acronym?”
“It gives away my mother’s age. Shows she was probably a teenager stuck in a very bad place.”
He swallowed hard. His voice scratchy and raw. “What does it stand for?”
The fact that he didn’t know.
That he’d probably never been given those three little words even as a child.
Tragic really.
Terrible definitely.
But in the end, I’d been right.
Love was his greatest weakness.
Not me.
He thought it was me because each time he used my name, he mentioned the very thing that petrified him.
A surge of sleepiness.
A cloak of foggy night.
I snuggled deeper into the bed as I yawned. “I.L.Y.…it means I Love You.”
Henri leapt to his feet. “Quoi?” (What?)
“I love you…” I struggled to stay awake, a heavy anchor on my mind.
“You mean every time I use your name, I’m saying I fucking love you?”
“Yep.” I nodded, the room swimming.
Yep.
What a strange word.
What are words anyway?
How did someone come up with letters and then squish them into a language?
Do we even need language?
I knew what Henri was feeling most of the time without it. I sensed him. Some people said they even saw auras. Perhaps our ability to speak got in the way of our truth because the truth was there for all to see if we just opened our eyes instead of our ears.
I skipped out of time.
I fought the undertow of rest and forced my gaze open.
Aww, poor guy.
He looked rather freaked.
I giggled at the way he strangled the tub of cream, eyes wild, legs braced. “It’s okay, Hen.”
Now he looked really freaked.
It was kind of adorable.
“Hen?” he coughed.
“You know…like the chicken.”
I pictured him with feathers, scratching around in the dirt.
Oh God.
New laughter built. Pressure bubbled in my belly, desperate to release.
“My name is Henri,” he said slowly, scarily.
“Hen.” I nodded.
“No. Not Hen—”
“Cluck. Cluck.” I couldn’t contain the mirth much longer. “Aww, don’t be mad. You’d make such a cute chicken. Wait…” I split into laughter. “A male chicken is a cock.” I lost control over my giggles. “You’re a cock.”
He made a whimpering sort of noise as if I’d well and truly ruined him.
“Cock-a-doodle-doooooo!” I lost it.
He groaned so deep and low, my entire body reacted.
Need roared.
Desire poured.
My laughter threaded with reckless, ruthless lust, and I shattered.
I either needed him to kiss me or go far, far away so I could break.
I didn’t know why I laughed anymore.
Everything was ridiculous.
Everything was hilarious.
If I didn’t laugh, I’d cry, and I really didn’t want to cry.
But oops, there went the tears.
People had died today.
Blood had been shed.
Pain had been given.
Peter might not wake up.
Rachel is pregnant.
And I’m in love with a broken beast.
I laughed.
And laughed.
I laughed until I cried.
I sobbed until I couldn’t breathe.
And then…I passed out.
Chapter Twelve
………………………….
Henri
SHE’D KILLED ME.
Stopped my heart and torn it bleeding from my chest.
Slaughtered me with mere words, then passed out and left me alone.