then immediately opens it a second time, eerily resembling a fish out of the ocean, gasping for water and flopping about. “You might’ve been thinking about it, but you’ve never actually apologized to me before.”
His shock quickly transforms into something I can only describe as determination. Immediately, he slides off the bench and drops to his knees before me, taking my hands in both of his.
A jogger passing nearby begins to ooh and aww at what she no doubt thinks is a marriage proposal.
“Elias!” I hiss, flames heating my cheeks.
“Peony,” he says seriously, his lips compressed in a grim, unrelenting line, “I’m so fucking sorry for everything I did to you. I know you don’t forgive me—I know you can’t forgive me—but the apology is sincere. If I could go back in time and undo all of it, I would.”
“Then why did you do it?” I question, feeling bereft and broken. Empty. It’s like his soft hands turned into talons and shredded my heart.
“Because I’m an asshole?” The words come out more as a question than a statement, as if he isn’t quite sure of the answer himself. “Because I’m a monster?”
“Elias…”
“I was born in the dead of night, Peony. And I think that’s why I targeted you.” He purses his lips, seemingly lost in thought. Almost absently, his thumb traces my knuckles, causing goosebumps to ripple across my skin. “You were this beautiful, happy, smiling girl who represented everything I wasn’t. I think a part of me felt the need to blow out your flame for fear that I’d get burned.”
“I don’t understand,” I whisper.
“I don’t understand it either,” he admits. “There’s no logical explanation for any of it, except for the fact that I’m a fucked-up creature who does fucked-up things to the people he actually gives a fuck about. I’m rotten straight to the core. All of us are…even now.” His grip tightens almost imperceptibly around my hands, squeezing to the point of pain. “Nothing I say will ever excuse what I did, and I don’t want it to. I own who I am, every fucked-up facet, but I can only pray that you’ll forgive me.”
And…
And I believe him.
Staring into his violet-tinted eyes, I know innately that he’s telling the truth. I can hear the sincerity in every word he says, see it in his eyes. They say that eyes are a window into a person’s soul, and I’m beginning to believe they’re right. Because in Elias’s, intermixed with regret and guilt, is something dark and tainted. Something that resembles beasts prowling through the forest late at night, searching for their next prey.
“I believe you’re telling the truth,” I confess at last, my voice no louder than a hushed murmur. “But I also don’t know if I can forgive you…if I can ever forgive you. The scars you gave me weren’t physical, Elias, but they destroyed something inside of me. When I see you, I see the person who made my life hell for many, many years. I see the man who taunted and terrorized and laughed at me. Who kissed me and then broke my fucking heart, all in the name of a vicious prank.”
“I meant every word I said that night,” he protests adamantly, no doubt thinking back to the middle school dance we attended together. When he told me he had feelings for me and wanted to start a relationship. When he kissed my lips so tenderly that errant fireworks exploded in my belly.
And when he led me to the stage, humiliating me in front of all of my classmates.
“I see the darkness inside of you, Elias,” I confess, pulling my hands free of his and moving to my feet. With him still kneeling, his head comes to just below my breasts, and I have the irrational urge to run my fingers through his purple-streaked hair. “Even if you are truly sorry, I can never trust you again.”
“Then I’ll have to prove myself to you,” Elias vows resolutely. “I’ll have to prove to you that I can be worthy of your forgiveness. That even if I haven’t changed, I’ll never hurt you again. I might be a monster, but I can be yours…if you want me to.”
His words are the equivalent of a proverbial whip slicing open my chest.
Instead of gracing him with a response, I stumble past him, my stomach churning like maggots are feasting on my insides.
I can’t help but glance behind me just before I turn the corner at the next