He nods.
“Will you tell me where they came from?” I whisper, unable to meet his eyes.
He’s silent for so long I’m finally forced to look up.
His eyes are dead of emotion, his face set to neutral. He clears his throat. “They were my birthday presents,” he says. “Every year from the time I was five. Until I turned eighteen,” he says. “He didn’t come back for my nineteenth birthday.”
I’m frozen in horror.
“Right.” Warner looks into his hands. “So—”
“He cut you?” My voice is so hoarse.
“Whip.”
“Oh my God,” I gasp, covering my mouth. I have to look toward the wall to pull myself together. I blink several times, struggle to swallow back the pain and rage building inside of me. “I’m so sorry,” I choke out. “Aaron. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t want you to be repulsed by me,” he says quietly.
I spin around, stunned. Mildly horrified. “You’re not serious.”
His eyes say that he is.
“Have you never looked in a mirror?” I ask, angry now.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re perfect,” I tell him, so overcome I forget myself. “All of you. Your entire body. Proportionally. Symmetrically. You’re absurdly, mathematically perfect. It doesn’t even make sense that a person could look like you,” I say, shaking my head. “I can’t believe you would ever say something like that—”
“Juliette, please. Don’t talk to me like that.”
“What? Why?”
“Because it’s cruel,” he says, losing his composure. “It’s cruel and it’s heartless and you don’t even realize—”
“Aaron—”
“I take it back,” he says. “I don’t want you to call me Aaron anymore—”
“Aaron,” I say again, more firmly this time. “Please—you can’t really think you repulse me? You can’t really think I would care—that I would be put off by your scars—”
“I don’t know,” he says. He’s pacing in front of his desk, his eyes fixed on the ground.
“I thought you could sense feelings,” I say to him. “I thought mine would be so obvious to you.”
“I can’t always think clearly,” he says, frustrated, rubbing his face, his forehead. “Especially when my emotions are involved. I can’t always be objective—and sometimes I make assumptions,” he says, “that aren’t true—and I don’t—I just don’t trust my own judgment anymore. Because I’ve done that,” he says, “and it’s backfired. So terribly.”
He looks up, finally. Looks me in the eye.
“You’re right,” I whisper.
He looks away.
“You’ve made a lot of mistakes,” I say to him. “You did everything wrong.”
He runs a hand down the length of his face.
“But it’s not too late to fix things—you can make it right—”
“Please—”
“It’s not too late—”
“Stop saying that to me!” he explodes. “You don’t know me—you don’t know what I’ve done or what I’d need to do to make things right—”
“Don’t you understand? It doesn’t matter—you can choose to be different now—”
“I thought you weren’t going to try and change me!”
“I’m not trying to change you,” I say, lowering my voice. “I’m just trying to get you to understand that your life isn’t over. You don’t have to be who you’ve been. You can make different choices now. You can be happy—”
“Juliette.” One sharp word. His green eyes so intense.
I stop.
I glance at his trembling hands; he clenches them into fists.
“Go,” he says quietly. “I don’t want you to be here right now.”
“Then why did you bring me back with you?” I ask, angry. “If you don’t even want to see me—”
“Why don’t you understand?” He looks up at me and his eyes are so full of pain and devastation it actually takes my breath away.
My hands are shaking. “Understand what—?”
“I love you.”
He breaks.
His voice. His back. His knees. His face.
He breaks.
He has to hold on to the side of his desk. He can’t meet my eyes. “I love you,” he says, his words harsh and soft all at once. “I love you and it isn’t enough. I thought it would be enough and I was wrong. I thought I could fight for you and I was wrong. Because I can’t. I can’t even face you anymore—”
“Aaron—”
“Tell me it isn’t true,” he says. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m blind. Tell me you love me.”
My heart won’t stop screaming as it breaks in half.
I can’t lie to him.
“I don’t—I don’t know how to understand what I feel,” I try to explain.
“Please,” he whispers. “Please just go—”
“Aaron, please understand—I thought I knew what love was before and I was wrong—I don’t want to make that mistake again—”
“Please”—he’s begging now—“for the love of God, Juliette, I have lost my dignity—”
“Okay.” I nod. “Okay. I’m sorry. Okay.”
I back away.
I turn around.
And I don’t look back.