Arms wrapped around me and my knees buckled. “No.” Sam’s cheek grazed mine, fresh-shaved stubble. “Don’t go. I need you.”
I jerked out of his arms. “You asked if I wanted to move out. You can’t take back a question like that. Words don’t just go away.”
His voice came from behind me, soft and stricken. “I didn’t say you had to go.” But his tone sounded like he was figuring it out, how there had been no right answer to his question. Did I want to leave? Live somewhere else?
No, I wanted to be here. I wanted him, the music. “I don’t want you to worry about what’s appropriate or not, or feel like you need to make those decisions without me.” The words barely fit in my mouth. “I know I must seem very young to you, and why would anyone trust me to make choices about anything important? But I’ve been deciding things on my own my whole life, because no one else ever cared enough to help. Not until you.”
Behind me, there was only silence.
How could my heart hurt this much? It shouldn’t be possible that it ached more than my sylph-burned hands. “I don’t feel young,” I whispered, “and I don’t feel like anything we had was inappropriate. I still don’t care what others think. I still don’t think it’s inappropriate for us to touch or kiss. Maybe strange, but strange and inappropriate are different things.”
And maybe I was talking to empty air. Should I turn around?
“I am an idiot.” He said it like tumbling, like if he didn’t get it out quickly enough, we’d both fall apart. But weren’t we doing that already? “I asked if you wanted to leave because I wanted you to know you could. I don’t want you to feel trapped here.”
I stared at my socked feet and focused on breathing, suddenly aware of the entire house around us. Rooms filled with books and instruments, bedrooms with personal things, the parlor that used to be a haven, and the white shell around everything. Snow and wind beating on that shell.
He held his hand near mine, not touching. “I hate what people say about you. Everyone knows we live together, and everyone knows how I feel.” His words rustled hair across the back of my neck, making me shiver. “The assumptions about us aren’t kind.”
I knew.
“I don’t need that kind of protection, Sam. I’ve lived with gossip my entire life. I can deal with what other people think or assume. Whatever is appropriate for them—they made those rules for them. Not for me.
“While I am”—I snorted—“lucky to have the benefit of everyone’s experience and wisdom, the truth is it’s been so long since any of you were truly my age that you can’t fathom what it’s like. Even if you do remember, the world is different now. You’ve made the world different. That leaves me with the responsibility of deciding what is or isn’t appropriate. If they want, other newsouls might be able to use my experience to decide when they’re ready, but who knows how the world will have changed by then?” According to Meuric, nothing would matter after Soul Night, anyway.
“So does that mean you’re staying with me?”
“Is that what you want?” Hope blossomed in my heart, but what happened the next time someone suggested a five-thousand-year-old teenager and a real teenager shouldn’t be together?
“More than anything, I want you.”
What happened the next time he saw Stef?
But he’d followed me out here to apologize. He’d danced with me at the masquerade, maybe even attended because of me. He’d been ready to go into the temple so I wouldn’t have to be alone.
I slid my heel back and let my weight follow until I pressed against his chest. His arms closed around me. Warmth filled me everywhere he touched.
“Ana,” he whispered. “I only wanted to do right by you, but I should have talked to you about it, too. Better than I did the other morning.”
“You and your stupid sense of honor.” My words held no bite. I was too drained, and he’d already apologized. Asking him to do it again would diminish the words.
“I agree.” He kissed the tip of my ear, sending prickles of heat all down my right side. His arms stayed around me, and when I tilted my head and he kissed my neck, it was as though we’d never left the masquerade. Only the music of our heartbeats and wind outside, surrounded only by silk and wood and cool air.
“Try not to be so dumb again.” I faced him, took his hand, and tried not to think about what I was admitting. “I’m not that strong, Sam. I can’t forget the past as easily as you. For me, it’s all right here, smushed together. Not stretched over thousands of years.”
He cupped my cheek and nodded, his jaw clenched tight.
“I’ve never been able to trust anyone before.” And the things I didn’t say out loud, but hoped he understood: please don’t hurt me again; be the person I need you to be; show me what it means to be in love so I can decide whether that’s what I feel.
Fingertips traced lines over my cheek, down my jaw. “I’ll do my best to deserve your trust.”