Page 107 of What You left in Me

“What question is that?”

“Where were you?” he says. “Who with? Who did you see? What did you find?” He tips his head as if listening for footsteps outside that aren’t there. “You’ve wondered all week, and here you are with a file you don’t want to believe and a body that already decided.”

“Stop,” I say, even as I don’t step away. “Don’t do that thing where you narrate my insides better than I can. I hate it.”

“Then tell me to stop and mean it.” He waits, close enough that I could bite if I wanted to turn this into blood.

I don’t tell him to stop.My pride writes the script and then rips it up.

He lets the silence sit between us, then takes my phone off the desk and sets it on the dresser, face down, like we’re putting a child to bed. When he returns to me, his hands bracket my hips with a care that undoes me more than any cruelty. I feel like an instrument and he knows all the strings.

“Finn,” I say, because saying his name feels like pulling a ripcord. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Bring it to me,” he says, and it’s infuriating how simply he solves things he broke. “Every question. Every doubt. Bring them to me. I’ll handle it.”

“I don’t want to be handled.”

“Liar,” he murmurs, and presses his mouth to my temple. “You want to be handled. By me.”

I close my eyes and wish I were stronger. Then I open them because wishing is for Sunday school. “Why would you do something like that?”

“Hm, I haven’t admitted to anything…”

“Well… if I find out you have, then…”

“You’ll what?” he asks, curious, almost gentle. “Leave me? Hate me? Stay and hate me? Choose one.”

“I’ll still choose you,” I say before I can stop it, and then I slap my hand over my mouth because apparently my mouth is done consulting management.

His expression breaks and reforms into a darker and softer smile. He doesn’t gloat. He doesn’t grin. He looks like a man who’s been thirsting in a desert and someone just pointed at a well. “Good girl,” he says so quietly I almost miss it.

I should kick him in the shin for that. Instead, I press my forehead to his chest and pretend I didn’t hear the way those words light up my spine.

“You’re an awful person,” I mumble.

“I’m yours,” he says. “Does that make it worse or better?”

“Don’t say things like that,” I whisper, because they go into the part of me that keeps souvenirs and won’t leave.

He laughs once, no humor, just heat. “Then, don’t look at me like that.” His hand slides to the small of my back. I arch like a traitor. “Ariane.”

“What?”

“Stop fighting the obvious.”

“Which is?”

He leans in, just enough. “You came here to let me take the rest of your excuses.”

“I came to ask you a yes-or-no question,” I say, even as my fingers curl in his shirt like I’m anchoring myself to a cliff I fully intend to jump from.

“Ask me again.” He lowers his forehead to mine. “This time, ask what you mean.”

I swallow. “Did you…” The word sticks, so I try again. “Did you do it just to make me yours?”

“Yes.” He answers, “And I’d do it again if it meant making you mine. You were mine the moment our lips collided. You’re the one who needed the out. You are already mine, you know that, don’t you?”

I open my mouth, hesitate, then replies, “No.”