Page 39 of Creatures Like Us

“Did you regret it?”

“What is there to regret?”

“The first time you’re intimate with someone like that?…?It’s a lot to ask of yourself to just forget about it and think nothing of it.”

“When you do it, you’ll see what I mean. Whoever’s the lucky guy.” I send him a deliberate glance—hint, hint—but I don’t expect him to understand, as he rarely understands my innuendos, so when he says what he does, I nearly choke on my own spit.

“I don’t want to force you into anything, Asher.”

I sit up halfway, supporting myself on my elbows. Noah looks away from me, fidgeting with his hands.

“Except to stay with you,” I say, the accusation loud and clear.

“Except to stay with me.”

“Don’t you think that’s forceful enough?”

“It’s for your own—”

“Shut up about that,” I snap, a surge of annoyance overriding everything else. “You know it’s not true.”

“Itistrue,” Noah protests.

“It’s fucking not. You’re keeping me here because you?…?because you want someone to punish or something.”

Noah shakes his head. “I already told you—I want to take care of you.”

“Punish, take care of me against my will, same shit.”

“Goldilocks?…” Noah reaches for my hair, but I bat his hand away.

“Shut up. Shut the fuck up, Noah, and let me go.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Do I have to kill you to get out of here?”

“Maybe,” he says with a shrug, which is a fucking insane reaction to a question like that.

“You’re a weirdo, you know that?”

His gaze falls. “I know. People used to tell me all the time in school.”

“Did my brother tell you that?”

“Yes.”

I lie back down, suddenly hungry for information about my brother. “What was he like?”

“He just went along with what his classmates did to me. He seemed more focused on schoolwork than anything else.”

“Yeah. Sounds like Ethan.” My parents’ perfect Goody Two-Shoes. Pouring all his attention into making them proud. And hesucceeded in ways I never could?…?He stood on the other side of all his accomplishments, while I had nothing.

No accomplishments. No expectations. No love.

“He was there that day though,” Noah says.

“What day?”