Page 65 of Emmett

“Taller one leads,” he croons, which doesn’t seem entirely fair; he can’t be more than an inch or so taller than I am. I feel like we could flip a coin and be fine.

He takes my hand in his with the other wrapping around my back, and I follow his lead, doing the same with my own hands.

We take a few clumsy steps until I get used to following someone else’s lead, and eventually we find a fluid rhythm, our pace matching that of the music playing around us as we step through the main room of the house.

“So, what kind of story is he telling?” I finally ask.

“A story about love and madness,” he tells me. “A confession from a desperate man.”

My stomach tightens, and his hands on my body feel like hot coals. “Nash…”

“Just listen to it.”

I do; I don’t need to understand the language to understand the emotion behind the performer’s words. It’s practically tangible, filling the room almost enough to drown me in it. As the angelic voice ricochets off of the walls, it slams back into me, making my eyes burn.

Nash is like his opera music; powerful, fluid, and haunting.

I’m more like my metal music; chaotic, volatile, and sometimes too hard to understand.

I’ve been here for hours and all I’ve been able to think about, even now, is the goddamn memory card sitting in my pocket, burning through to my skin like acid. The secret threatening to get out and ruin everything.

The fact that Logansawus.

Saw melikingit.

Panic rises in my gut again like bile, threatening to wrap its hands around my throat, but Nash beats it, trailing the hand that was holding mine up my chest until he has a gentle grip around my jaw. His mouth meets mine in a kiss so tender that it makes me think that maybe the song got to him, too.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” He asks me.

I close my eyes, focusing on the music instead of the darkness threatening everything inside of me. Nash’s lips meet mine again, slow and tender like the tempo of the song, and I melt into him. I’ve only ever felt this way about one other person in my life, and that was so long ago that I’m not even sure it could count. I wasn’t even an adult yet. Dad kept callingit ‘puppy love.’ He accidentally said the words in front of the girl once, and I almost elbowed him in the face for it.

There’s more to this, though, but I can’t exactly place it. Whatever it is, it’s almost enough to drown out everything else fighting for dominance in my mind, but…not quite.

“I have to talk to you,” I tell him.

“About?”

“I—” I stammer, trying to calm my thoughts long enough to get them out. “Shit, I don’t know how to do this.”

“Spit it out.”

A tsunami of emotion swirls inside of me; guilt and fear, shame and heartache. I care about him more than I ever expected to, and the last thing that I want to do is hurt him. My fear and my shame don’t belong to him. It isn’t fair of me to expect him to carry them in the hope that someday,maybe, I’ll be ready to really do this. It isn’t fair to make him wait on something that isn’t a sure thing.

I’m not worth it.

Looking at him, I can feel it coming. The same self-loathing that I drowned in months ago, alone on my couch. It’s right there, and I deserve it. I’m about to break his heart.

“I wish I was more like you,” I tell him. “You aren’t afraid of a lot of things, and I’m learning that I am. It’s—”

Nash’s features change in the blink of an eye, as if someone else’s face has slammed down in place of his own. All of the light behind his eyes goes dark and his body tenses, stopping me mid-sentence. The man sitting in front of me isn’t the Nash that I know anymore; he’s the Nash that everyone else knows. The Nash that Iusedto know.

“You should leave,” he tells me.

My brows pinch together. “What?”

“Don’t delude yourself here, we both know what this is,” he says. “I say a few nice things to you and you cling to me like a lost fucking puppy desperate to be loved. I fuck you a few times and you’re like putty in my hands. It would almost be laughable if it weren’t so fucking tragic.”

My eyes burn. My chest goes tight. My heart comes to a screeching halt and plummets into the pit of my stomach.