Page 60 of Madness Becomes Her

“Was what awful?”

“Wonderland. After me?”

“After you,” he breathes as if mulling over the overwhelming thought of what his world became after shoving me through a portal. “After you, were some of the worst times in Wonderland. Things were…” He sighs, and I’m so eager to hear the end to his statement that I scarcely breathe. “Dark,” he finishes.

“Fin.” I roll into him, my hand landing on his bare chest.

His eyes remain fixed on the ceiling, his brows pinched together. There’s a much more dominating energy about him since our moment in the tent, and I don’t want to claim that I’mthe reason for the shift, but my center convulses anyhow, like a greedy little fiend.

“It was the right thing to do. You didn’t belong here. I’m still unsure that you do, even if it feels…” This time, he doesn’t finish his sentence because there aren’t enough words to summarize how things feel between us.

I fear there never will be.

The words haven’t been invented yet.

One can onlyfeel.

“Will you tell me the end of the story? The end of before?” I realize I sound as mad as the rest of them, but I know he understands what I’m saying.

“I cannot.”

“Damn your eyes,” I growl, poking him in the side.

It’s a futile attempt to lighten the mood.

Finlo rolls onto his side. “About what happened in the tent,” he starts, and the lump of fear I felt downstairs earlier returns to my throat tenfold. A tactile, icy feeling rakes down my spine as my heart races with anxious beats.

“What about what happened in the tent?” I prod when he doesn’t go on.

The chemistry between us only tugs him closer to me, but I’m reeling internally, worried he will tell me it can never happen again. Even when I don’t know if I belong here or want to stay, I know I want what happened in the tent to happen again.

I want more than what happened in the tent.

“I just wanted to… You’re alright, after… Well, you know.” His stammering breaks me out of my spiral in my big, beautiful head, and I heave a sigh of relief.

“Of course, I’m alright. Are you alright? I assume it was your first… experience.”

“It was,” he admits.

The sad idea of being a four-hundred-year-old virgin settles in my brain, and it makes me want to show him how much more he’s been missing out on before we leave this room, but I don’t want to scare him off or overwhelm him.

“It was good for you?” I ask, trying to be accommodating as he was by asking if I was alright.

He laughs as if my question is absurd, but then clears his throat. “It was amazing.”

Pride twirls in my stomach, but I quickly staunch it.

“I know we knew one another before, Eleanor, but…” He stops, locking eyes with me as I anxiously bite my bottom lip. I’m hanging on every word. Typically, I’d hate that for me, but he’s Finlo. He’s different. “I need you to know that things are different now. You and I now are different, and I don’t want to go back to being…”

“Friends,” I insert when it seems he’s struggling to find the words to finish.

He nods. “Yes.”

The implication of his wanting more from me should make me hesitate. It should make me worry that I’m getting too tied to this world. A sane person would want to get home.

A sane person would run from this room and find the nearest portal back to humanity.

I realize as I lean forward and press my forehead to Finlo’s that maybe I’m not so sane after all.