“Yes! And that’s the other thing you lied to me about!” she said, pointing. “I asked you to send my old letters back. The ones I wrote to Forest. And you said you couldn’t.”
“I said I couldn’t, because I didn’t want to,” said Roman. “Did you finish reading my last letter? Although by the looks of it … I don’t think you can even begin to understand what your words mean to me. Even if they were addressed to Forest in the beginning. You were a sister writing to her missing older brother. And I felt that pain as a brother who had lost the only sibling he ever had.”
Iris didn’t know what to do. With her pain or with his and how they were suddenly fused. A warning flashed in her mind; she was dancing too close to the fire, about to get burned. Her armor had been stripped away, and she felt naked.
“Here,” she said, handing him the last of the letters. “I need to go.”
“Iris? Iris,” he whispered, but when he reached for her hand, she evaded him. “Please stay.”
She took a step back. “There are things … things I need to do so I need to … I need to leave.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you, but that was never my intention, Iris. Why do you think I’m here?”
She was almost to the door. She paused but avoided meeting his gaze. She stared at her letters, clutched fiercely in his hands.
“You’re here to outshine me again,” she said in a detached tone. “You’re here to prove your writing is far superior to mine, just like you did at the Gazette.”
She turned to flee but hadn’t made it two steps when she heard a clatter—the sound of a cot creaking and a grunt of pain. Iris glanced over her shoulder, eyes widening when she saw it was Roman, standing on one foot and ripping the intravenous needle from his hand.
“Get back in bed, Kitt,” she scolded.
“Don’t run from me, Iris,” Roman said as he began to hobble toward her. “Don’t run from me, not after what we’ve just lived through. Not without granting me one final request.”
Iris winced as he struggled to reach her on one foot. She moved forward, hands ready to catch him, but he took hold of the doorframe and found his balance, his blue eyes piercing hers. There was only a slender amount of space between their bodies, and Iris almost backed away, fighting the taunting pull she felt toward him.
“What is this request, then?” she asked coldly, but it was only to hide how her heart ached. “What is so important to you that you had to act like a fool and yank a needle from your vein, and possibly tear your stitches, and—”
“I never lied to you,” Roman said. His expression softened but his eyes remained keen, and he whispered, “You asked me this once, months ago, and I refused to answer. But I want you to ask me again, Iris. Ask me what my middle name is.”
She gritted her teeth, but she held his stare. Her memory began to roll like a phonograph, and she heard her past voice, snide and amused and full of curiosity.
Roman Cheeky Kitt. Roman Cantankerous Kitt. Roman Conceited Kitt …
Her breath caught.
“The C is for Carver,” Roman said, leaning closer to her. “My name is Roman Carver Kitt.”
He wove his fingers into her hair and brought his mouth down to hers. Iris felt the shock ripple through her the moment their lips met. His kiss was hungry, as if he had longed to taste her for some time, and at first she couldn’t breathe. But then the shock melted, and she felt a thrill warm her blood.
She opened her mouth against his, returning the kiss. She felt him shiver as her hands raced up his arms, clinging to him. When he shifted their bodies, Iris sensed they were falling and she was utterly helpless to it until she felt the wall at her back. Roman pressed against her, his lean body blazing as if he had caught fire. His heat seeped into her skin, settled into her bones, and she couldn’t stop the moan that escaped her.
Roman cradled her face in his hands. Yes, he had wanted her for a long time. She could feel it in the way he touched her, in the way his lips claimed hers. As if he had endlessly imagined this moment happening.
Iris hardly knew the hour or the day or where they stood. They were both caught in a storm of their own making and she didn’t know what would happen when it broke. She only knew that something ached within her chest. Something that Roman must need, because his mouth and his breath and his caresses were trying to draw it from her.
Someone cleared their throat.
Iris suddenly returned to herself, feeling the cool, astringent air of the infirmary. The lightbulbs, shining overhead. The metallic sounds of bedpans and lunch trays being moved.
She broke away from Roman, panting. She stared up at him and his swollen mouth, the way his eyes brimmed with dangerous light as he continued to stare at her.
“I’m going to have to restrict your visiting hours if snogging is bound to happen again, Mr. Kitt,” said a tired voice. Iris glanced around Roman to see a nurse was holding the intravenous needle and tube he had torn away from his hand. “You need to be in bed. Resting.”
“It won’t happen again,” Iris promised, face flaming.
The nurse only arched her brow. Roman, on the other hand, exhaled as if Iris had punched him.
What am I doing? Iris thought and slipped under Roman’s arm. This is foolish. This is …
She paused on the threshold, glancing back at him.
Roman continued to lean against the wall. But his gaze was wholly consumed by her, even as the nurse moved to help him.
Iris left him with the tingling memory of her kiss and her letters scattered across his bed.
Dear Iris,
What were you thinking?
How could you let your heart cloud your mind?
You should have known!!!
How did you miss this? How could you let him get the best of you? Roman “C.-is-for-Carver” Kitt has played you.
Kitt: 2 (1 point for columnist, 1 point for elaborate deception)
Winnow: 0
I just … I don’t even know what to think anymore. I’m embarrassed, I’m angry. I’m sad and strangely relieved. Attie and Marisol keep inviting me to the infirmary, but if I see Kitt right now I don’t know how I’d react to him. I made an idiot of myself this morning, so I think it’s best I stay away. I’m volunteering to dig graves in the field instead. I dig, hour after hour. I give all my anger and helplessness and sadness to the ground. And I help the people of Avalon Bluff take the names of soldiers before we bury them.
It’s backbreaking work. The blisters have burst on my hands, but I don’t even feel them. So many have died, and I’m just so tired and sad and angry, and I don’t know what to do about Kitt.