own misery.
In our love.
In everything he’d ever meant to me.
Uncontrollable tears streamed down the sides of my face. My chest heaved, rising and falling with each rigid breath, with each beat of my heart, with each word that escaped my lips. I stood there, trying to hold onto our lives, to our memories, to the future that we may never have.
Had we been damned from the start?
In one swift motion, he chucked his empty glass to the wall beside me. It shattered instantly, sending shards of glass in all directions.
I jolted out of my skin.
He looked at me.
But it was no longer him.
I didn’t know the man staring back at me.
And I was beginning to think I never had.
Even though he was intently glaring right at me, he didn’t say a word. He just stood there in the shadows, once again lost in his own purgatory in a way I’d never witnessed before. I took him in, his unruly hair draped over his face, obstructing his view, only being able to see through the slits in the strands.
It didn’t matter. I could still see his dark, cold, beady eyes penetrating deep into mine, igniting a profound reaction within my heart. The fury he’d been drowning in only fueled the way he was seething at me. It was then I realized he wasn’t looking at me.
He was looking through me.
I don’t know why, but I found myself wanting to stay lost in his eyes, enraptured in the blaze that was searing into my skin. As much as I was terrified by what might happen, I couldn’t look away; I was trapped by his catastrophic hate.
He was luring me in with his dominating stare, pulling every emotion from my body like it belonged to him as if we were the only two people in the world. Every passing second between us was another thought, another emotion, another memory for both of us. We were physically there with one another; our minds were somewhere else entirely.
Making me question what or who he was truly seeing in front of him.
Were we back in his office?
Had we ever left that room?
“Tristian—”
“Come here,” he ordered in a stern tone. Overpoweringly struggling with whatever was taking his whole world captive in his mind.
I wanted to move, to walk away, and never look back, but I couldn’t get my feet to step in any direction. My heart screamed for me to go to him, although my body declared war, determined to ultimately win the internal battle erupting inside of us and all around us. Awakening every last demon that had laid dormant for so many years.
Him.
Me.
Romeo.
I clenched.
Locking up.
Staying firmly rooted to the place I stood.
I surrendered to my hesitation for however long I could, seeking refuge within myself. Still, I stayed put. Willingly held hostage in his haunted composure.
In his tormented gaze.
In his seedy demeanor.
And he knew it too.
He was getting off on it.
The power.
Over me.
He cocked his head to the side, reading me like the back of his hand. “You scared of me, Red?”
I stood taller, angling my chin up. Challenging him. A hint of amusement passed through his eyes, but he blinked it away, and it was gone. Making me think I’d possibly imagined it, needing to cling onto some sort of connection with him.
My heart was lying out in front of us as I started to walk toward him. Each step precise and calculated, each stride more unsettling than the last. I felt like I was making my way over to a stranger, unable to run away.
Wanting.
Needing.
Waiting.
Holding my breath with every last fiber in my being. I couldn’t breathe the entire fifteen steps it took to get to him.
I knew because I counted them.
It was the only way to keep myself from passing out over the sensations I couldn’t control for the life of me.
Cautiously, he eyed me, taking in every last curve of my body and inch of my skin. Almost as if he was trying to memorize me, engrain me into his heart and soul.
Where was I before this?
There wasn’t one nook of my figure he hadn’t taken in. Anxiously, I waited for his eyes to stop and look deep into my gaze. All it would take was for him to sincerely look at me for one second, to see how I felt inside. To put an end to this.
The way he was treating me.
Talking to me.
Looking at me.
Making me feel abandoned and frightened.
Triggering shivers to course down my spine and back up