M
ax left his conversation so abruptly that it looked like he didn’t even say goodbye, turning to glide
through the crowd toward me. And even from this distance, when he stood, I was a bit stunned by his appearance. He wore a purple silk jacket that looked incredibly expensive, meticulously tailored to his shape, lined with gold buttons and thread that sparkled beneath the flickering blue lights of the party. His hair was unusually tamed, combed and parted.
He was, at first, so striking that he was almost unrecognizable as my disgruntled and vaguely disheveled friend. But as we approached each other, I noticed a smattering of little off-kilter elements — that his jacket was open a button too low, the collar curled on one side; that one rebellious strand of hair had already escaped the oils meant to keep it in place; that the white shirt beneath his coat that was slightly wrinkled.
I loved those little idiosyncrasies. I loved all of it.
“Thank you for providing a much-needed reason for escape,” he said to me, once we tucked ourselves into a quiet spot. We were relatively secluded, though stray glances still followed us. I wondered if they were intended for my scars or his reputation. Both, maybe.
“You are very late. I wasn’t sure if you would come.” “Of course I would.”
I watched the corner of his eyes crinkle, just barely. Watched his gaze hold on me for a moment before flicking away.
Oh, Sammerin had said, with that mysterious glint, He’ll
be here.
Then I ran my eyes again down his throat, over his shoulders, over sleeves crinkled as if they had been pushed up his forearms and then hurriedly straightened. And then I craned my neck, peering at his conversational companion, who now sat awkwardly alone.
“She was pretty.” “I didn’t notice.” I certainly did.
And I also noticed the way that his gaze dipped down my body. Ran back up.
“This was smart,” he said. Too-casually. “The dress.” I batted my eyelashes. “Oh? Is that all it is?”
“Don’t pretend that you need me to stroke your ego. You know you look good.” Then he glanced over my shoulder and raised his eyebrows. “Everyone knows it, apparently.”
I followed his gaze to a cluster of people who looked at us a little too long to be accidental before hurriedly turning away. “I think you’re making an impression,” Max said. His eyes flicked away, off towards the cluster of activity around Zeryth, and I wasn’t sure whether I imagined the change in his voice as he added, “The dance was smart, too. You two put on quite a show.”
“I do not know if it worked. If he’ll listen.”
“If nothing else, it got you plenty of attention. No one can count on Zeryth suddenly developing a sense of moral decency. But if your goal is awareness, you’re making progress.”
Progress. Was that enough? “I am not done yet,” I murmured, and a hint of smile twitched at the corner of
Max’s mouth.
“I’d expect nothing less.”
For a long moment, we just stood there, shoulder-to-shoulder, looking out into the party. The crowd was growing louder, the music more aggressive, the smell of perfume and skin more pungent.
I caught a glimpse of a familiar face on the outskirts of the dance floor and grinned, nudging Max’s shoulder. “Look.”
Across the room, Moth paced, hands awkwardly clasped behind his back, casting nervous glances towards a pretty Valtain girl in an atrocious pink dress.
“Ascended above,” Max groaned. “Don’t do it, Moth.
Valtain girls are trouble.” I laughed. “Even me?” “Especially you.”
We watched as Moth approached the girl and, after a brief conversation that looked so awkward I felt myself physically cringing, the two strode off together to the dance floor.
“One day,” Max stated, matter-of-factly, “he will look back at this as the beginning of his downfall.”
I scoffed. “You are only jealous because no one would dance with you when you were his age.”
“Only one poor soul,” he replied — and my eyes inadvertently found Nura, across the room. “But to be fair, I was a bit chubby then and not nearly as dashingly handsome as I am now.”
His lips curled around the words with the cloying coating of sarcasm. But when his gaze flicked to me, a lump that I didn’t quite understand grew in my throat. There was something about the way that he looked at me — heavy with an unspoken question, blue lights dancing across his face, heat radiating from his skin even from inches away — that made warmth pool at my core.
I lifted my chin towards the open doors leading out to the gardens and the cliffs. “It’s too loud,” I said. “Come outside with me.”
Together, we slipped through the crowd and out the doors. A heavy fog had rolled in with the sunset, and the wall of cool, moist air felt like stepping into a cloud. We walked in silence down the weaving pathways, encountering fewer and fewer other partygoers. Until finally, we were alone, standing on a stone patio that opened up to the cliffs and the sea.
The fog was so thick that it softened the moon to a thumbprint smear, blending the line between the sea and the sky. The Towers stood mournfully behind us, chiffon gliding in the slight sea breeze. Music warped through the mist in distant echoes.
We were still in the shadow of the Towers, but the party felt so far away.
And yet, even in this solemn solitude, even in this chilly night, that heat still remained.
I looked out over the sea and pointedly not at Max, even though I could feel his eyes on me.
“I’m a terrible dancer,” I said. “Did you know that?” “You were a dancer in Threll, weren’t you?”
“I was, but only by memory. I counted the steps. Simple, if I practiced enough. I did not even need music.”
He chuckled. “Brute force. I should have known.” Then, after a moment, “I think that may be the first time I’ve ever heard you admit weakness aloud.”
Gods. It probably was. I lifted my eyes to him and placed a finger over my lips. “Only for you to know. And I only tell you this because I don’t want to embarrass myself when I ask you to dance with me.”
Silence. Such deep silence that the vestiges of distant music mixed with the suddenly-deafening pound of my heartbeat. Max stood there, back straight, hands clasped behind his back. For once, I could not read his expression.
“Or,” I said, lightly, “will you look back at this as the beginning of your downfall?”
“I…” He let out a breath, a chuckle, tucked his hands into his pockets. Then removed them. “My answer hinges upon one condition.”
“What?”
He took a step forward, and then another. I did, too, until our bodies were directly in front of each other, until I felt his warm hand slip into mine.
“No counting,” he said. “Only this once.”
“Only this once.”
And his arm was already around my waist, my hands at his shoulders, by the time I whispered, “Deal.”
We swayed together, somewhat awkwardly, to distant music. My cheek just barely skimmed his. He smelled like ash and lilacs and the faint hint of the faraway sea.
“I did not think you would say yes,” I murmured. “I thought you weren’t made for social graces.”
His chuckle was silent, but we were so close that I felt it reverberate through his muscles. “Firstly,” he retorted, “we are alone. So ‘social’ does not apply.”
True.
“Secondly.” He attempted to launch me into a gentle twirl. We mistimed and stumbled, fracturing his next word with scuffed laughter. “There is nothing graceful about what we’re doing here.”
Very true.
He looked at me and raised his eyebrows, asking silent permission for a second attempt. I nodded, and we almost
— almost — managed an actual twirl.
Except, I slid on the damp ground and, in my distraction, hurled myself against his chest. We both let out oofs of impact and my awkward laugh was still dying on my lips when I suddenly became so acutely aware of the warmth of
his body pressed against mine. Of how much I liked it. How much I wanted to envelop myself in it.
My arms slid around his neck. He lowered me into something slightly resembling a dip, and I curled against him. Every nerve in my body was on fire, set aflame at the brush of his mouth against my cheek, the barest whisper against my skin as it traveled to my ear.
“So maybe,” he whispered, “I could be made for this.”
Maybe I could, too. Made, or unmade. In that moment, I didn’t care which.
 |
WE DID, eventually — reluctantly, though neither of us admitted it aloud — return to the party. And I resumed my performance, collecting startled glances and horrified stares the same way that I once collected little silver coins. I told the truth to anyone who was bold enough to ask me, sparing no brutality, no ugliness, no responsibility.
Not enough. Never enough.
Those words still throbbed inside of me as Max and I finally left the party, long after the lights had begun to flicker out, long after Sammerin and Moth and most other guests had retreated. Since our one dreamlike dance, we had hardly spoken at all, right up until we stepped back into the familiar warmth of that cluttered living room.
In this setting, I suddenly felt ridiculous in my finery. Max must have too, because he immediately pushed his sleeves up to his elbows, releasing a sigh and another button of his collar.
“I have to say, Tisaanah, it was worth it to brave my first Order event in the better part of a decade just to see the looks on their faces when you were done with them.”
“I’m not done with them. I have barely begun.”
I had spent the night cutting myself up into little pieces for consumption, forcing people to acknowledge me, thrusting my pain into their faces. And now I felt like something in me was just… depleted. And for what? For their horrified stares? Was that enough?
Not enough. Never enough.
“The first step is to force them to confront the reality,” Max said, as if he heard my unspoken doubts. “People don’t like to do that, but I saw it happen tonight. Even in Zeryth, and normally his head is too far up his own ass to see much of anything.”
“But I must decide what is next.”
“You will. And you know I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t believe it.”
He did believe it. I knew he did. And I didn’t let our gazes hold long enough to see all of it — the depths of it — for reasons I couldn’t quite understand.
Instead, I gave him a weak smile. “Right now, I just need to get out of this dress.”
As soon as the words left her lips, I swallowed an odd buzz that rose to skin at my choice of phrasing. And I wondered if I was imagining the timing of Max’s extra blink, the slight shift in his stance.
But he just said, “Understandable. Get some rest.” “Goodnight.”
I went back to my room and closed the door. Slipped out of my deeply uncomfortable shoes. Then I reached to my back to unfasten the clasp at the back of my dress —
And let out a grunt of pain. Strands of my hair had loosened over the course of the night and tangled themselves around clasps that held my dress around my neck. I fought with it for a few minutes longer, then, when I finally feared I might draw blood, I gave with a flail of frustration and marched back out into the living room. “I am stuck.”
Max put down his book. “You’re stuck.”
“Yes. My hair, and my dress—” I gestured to my neck. “Can you… uh… help?”
He stood there, still, for a second too long. And in that moment, an image flashed through my mind. Hands and skin. Red silk on the ground.
I shook it away. Gods, Tisaanah. Control yourself.
“Well,” he replied. “You would have to get in line behind all of the other women who want me to undress them.”
I rolled my eyes, turning around and lifting my hair. “Have I not earned first place?”
A soft chuckle. “I suppose that is undeniable.”
I heard every step. And then his hands were at the back of my neck. My scalp tingled as he gently — so gently — pushed my hair away, smoothing loose strands against my throat.
My eyelids fluttered.
“Hold your hair further back.” His voice just a little too rough.
I obeyed, and he set to work, tension lapsing into complete focus.
“Ascended, what did you do? This is all wound up—” “Ow!”
“Sorry, sorry, I just need to get it off of this part and… fucking hell. You’ve got a loose thread all tangled up in here, too. Who made this thing?”
“I had to make some changes!” I said, defensively. “And I am not a… a…sewing person.”
“Seamstress. The word is seamstress. Hang on… I have to…”
And I was not prepared for everything that shot through me, all at once, as I felt his breath against the back of my neck. His mouth so close to my skin that I could feel the barest brushes of his lips.
I drew in a sharp inhale.
The panful tension in my hair released.
He had been using his teeth, I realized — to break the tangled threads.
“Sorry,” he murmured, “I had to cut it.”
I let my hair fall, my hands moving to hold up my dress.
I choked out, “Get the lower one too?”
His fingers moved down my back, falling to the delicate gold clasp that rested between my shoulder blades. “This one?”
“Yes.”
He obeyed. But his hands stayed there, his thumb swirling one gentle circle that set a shock from my toes all the way up the insides of my legs. “It pinched you. You have a red mark here.”
My laugh was weak, breathy. “It will fit perfectly with all of my other battle scars.”
He smoothed his thumb over it again. Then let out a low, rough chuckle. “If tonight was a battle, Tisaanah, you conquered.”
My breath caught.
“You were merciless.” It was almost a whisper, heavy with a certain reverence, as if he didn’t know he was speaking aloud. And he just stayed there, his knuckles brushing my back, as if we were both caught in some strange suspension of time.
Of their own volition, my eyes closed. I hoped he couldn’t feel the shallowness of my breathing, the rise of my goosebumps.
I was no stranger to touch. It was a professional tool, one of the few weapons I could wield to keep myself alive. Before, it had always been a demand, an instruction, a means to an end.
But not this. This was a whispering caress that reached past the scars on my back, past all of those ugly hurts, something that was only about the here and now. One that asked for nothing.
How long had it been, since someone touched me that way? With purposeless affection?
My body didn’t know what to do with it, except to fall against it, call for more. And gods, I wanted more.
I felt him begin to pull away.
“Don’t,” I whispered, before I could stop myself.
A pause. I could feel his breath again, against the back of my neck, the curve of my ear. “Don’t what?”
Don’t stop. Never stop.
I turned my face. His was so close that his nose nearly brushed my cheek, the space between us vibrating in a way that made my entire world narrow to those few inches where our breaths mingled. He looked at me with sharp, heavy-lidded eyes, utterly focused, and yet…
… And yet, I knew him well enough to see it. That he was just as terrified as I was.
I had spent my life begging to be looked at. Look at me, I cooed at the men I danced for. Look at me, I demanded of Esmaris in my killing breath. Look at me, I commanded to every person who gazed upon my tattered back.
And I showed each of them pieces that were as Fragmented as I was, little carefully chosen parts of a whole.
But it was here, in this gaze, that I was seen — seen for every incongruous part of me. And nothing had ever flooded me with such sweet, agonizing terror.
I looked at his mouth and wondered what it would feel like to show him another vulnerability, another truth. To let myself want.
Don’t what?
Don’t stop touching me, seeing me, needing me.
But I forced a light smile back onto my face. “Don’t flatter me,” I choked out. “It’s unlike you.”
And then, all at once, he was gone. He pulled away so quickly I was left standing there before a sudden, gaping absence.
“You should get some sleep,” he said, too quickly. And as I nodded my response, I clasped my hands together so he wouldn’t see that they were shaking.
“Goodnight, Max,” I murmured. “Goodnight, Tisaanah.”
And I felt his eyes follow me as I padded down the hallway. He was still standing there, unmoving, as I closed the door.
|
THAT NIGHT, I dreamed of a knock on the door. I dreamed of the searing warmth of skin — of lips against my throat and my breasts and my inner thighs, of an overwhelming ache between my legs, of the frenzied tear of clothing. I dreamed of a pair of familiar blue eyes heavy-lidded with want, of a voice that I knew so well rendered ragged and desperate in a moan against my mouth.
I dreamed of slick desire that consumed me, unmade me, destroyed me. Of the taste of his sweat, salty and iron and—
And iron and—
And in a moment, it was all gone.
I dreamed of a world suddenly cold, save for the burn of the blood that covered me — the fire of those goodbye kisses, crimson smears left by everyone I had abandoned. My forehead, my cheek, and a dozen more, a hundred more, where Max’s lips had traced across my body.
Desire tore into terrible dread. I screamed his name.
But he was already gone.
