“What school?” he asks.
“Harley Institute.”
“What are their names?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s the name of their gang?”
“I don’t know…” I repeat.
He finishes his food and I lean across the table and take his plate, not wanting to get too close. Now that I am finally understanding why I’ve needed Shay these past few weeks, now that I understand the difference between how he makes me feel, compared to how Keenan makes me feel, I am unsure of how to tread around him. It feels awkward and uncomfortable.
For a while, neither of us speak as I wash, dry, and put away his dishes. It feels like I’m an unwilling subject under a microscope with the way he watches me the entire time I clean, and I fight hard to act as natural as possible. When I’m done and there’s nothing left to do, I find myself twisting my fingers together, wishing I had more of a mess to occupy myself with. I want to tell him that I want to sleep alone tonight, but I was terrified of his reaction. What if he loses it because he thinks I’m shutting him out? Or maybe he’ll come up with some far-fetched assumption, like I’m hiding a secret boyfriend of my own, and come storming in.
Keenan… the voice at the back of my mind whispers to me. Quickly, I shake that thought away.
“Well, I’m going to bed. Goodnight,” I tell him, deciding to just go rather than give him some long-winded explanation or even an opportunity to fight me on it. I don’t even bother looking his way as I hurry down the hall on my crutch, somehow managing to keep myself from stumbling. After closing the bedroom door, I collapse on my bed. I’m not tired at all, but I couldn’t be out there for another minute. The tension in the air was suffocating and I’m struggling to act normal around him, but after my revelation, I just don’t know how to act anymore.
I roll over onto my stomach and pull my laptop towards me, hoping to distract my anxious mind with a movie or some music, when my door opens with a loud bang. My whole body jumps in surprise and I look over my shoulder to see Shay come storming in.
“What’s up?” I ask, watching nervously as he slams the door behind himself. Alarm bells go off in my head as I take in the look on his face. His eyes are shadowed, his face determined and set, and he stalks over to me with purpose. I sit up on my bed and move back towards the wall, startled by his aggressive entrance, and dread pools in my stomach.
“Shay?” I whisper, my voice cracking.
He strides over to the bed, kneels on the edge and grips my shoulders. Before I can say anything, his mouth smashes to mine in a searing kiss. I gasp in surprise and raise my hands to shove against his chest. Shay lets out an angry sort of growl, and wraps his arms tight around my back, pressing me against his muscled frame. I twist my face to the side and try to say something, to tell him to stop, but he raises a hand and grips the back of my neck hard, holding me still. His mouth is soft, surrounded by his coarse, dark stubble, and his lips move over mine with a sort of fiery passion.
“Shay!” I squeal as I try to twist out of his grasp, but he refuses to let me budge. The hand on my nape releases its hold, only to snap forward and seize my chin, holding me still so he can continue his assault on my mouth. I reach up and shove again, trying to push him back, but instead, he grabs my waist, turns us, and forces me onto my back on the bed.
“Shay, stop!” I cry out as he crushes me beneath him, his weight holding me down.
“Mina,” he pants, holding my wrists on either side of my head against the blankets. “I love you. I’ve always loved you.” His voice is shaking and his eyes are practically glowing. “I protected you for years. Treated you better than I’ve treated anyone. It wasn’t until that night you shut me out, remember? It wasn’t until then, when I thought I lost you, that I realized…” His eyes were moving over my face as though he was trying desperately to read my reaction to his proclamation. “I’m sick of waiting. I want you to be officially mine. I love you more than anything, Mina.”
“Shay,” I whisper and my voice breaks with a small sob.
“Just-just hear me out, okay?” he says, wildly, cutting me off as if sensing that I’m trying to voice a refusal. “I’ll be forever faithful to you… I’ll protect you and give you everything you could ever want. I’ll love you like this for the rest of our lives. Just say you’ll be mine.” He sounds like he’s begging. “The only thing I’ve ever wanted was you… only you.”
I blink hard and feel several tears slide back into my hair. Slowly, I reach up and cup the side of his face, my thumb gently stroking the skin. His eyes close for a moment and he leans into my touch, but he’s shaking, as though terrified of what I might say.
“Shay,” my voice but a whisper. “I do love you… but as my brother. You’ve been amazing these past few weeks, helping me, being there for me… and I am so grateful for it. But, I can’t. I’m so, so sorry that I-I led you on… I didn’t mean to-”
His eyes become shiny as he fights back angry tears, and his cheeks flush. “No! No, Mina, stop blocking! You feel this connection between us, I know you do. This past week, it’s been… amazing! We have something that no one else has-”
“Shay, don’t,” I close my eyes, unable to bear seeing the hurt on his face. “Please, don’t…”
He’s still on top of me, his weight settles between my legs, and he buries his face into the side of my neck. “You’re just so fucking stubborn and so worried about what people will think that you’re fighting this.”
“No, Shay. It’s not that. I just don’t see you like I see-”
His head snaps up, his eyes wide and furious, and I can feel the change in him. The shaking stops. His body becomes stone as he fixes me with a malicious glare. “What did you just say?”
Oh. My. Fucking. God… No! “I-I…”
“What the fuck did you just say?” He speaks slowly and softly, and it only makes the words sound more threatening than if he had shouted them.
Keenan! What the hell did I just do? I shake my head and squeeze my eyes shut. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
“Who is he?” He seizes my face tight and gives me a small shake. “Who? Who the fuck is he?”
“There isn’t anyone!” I cry desperately. “That’s not what I meant-”
“Then what did you mean, huh, Mina? What else is it supposed to fucking mean?” He lurches up from the bed and punches a hole in the wall over my dresser. I shrink back into my pillows and recoil at the sight of his bloodied knuckles when he retracts his fist from the drywall. He shakes his hand out, and droplets of blood splatter on the floor. I’m immediately hit with a wave of nausea.
The blood oozed off the edge of the table to the floor. The sound of it dripping, the small splat… splat… splat… the blood hitting the floor seems so loud, it was deafening. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not, but she lay so still that...
Shay runs back to me, kneeling on the mattress again as he grabs my shoulders and forces me to look up and meet his cold glare. “You love me, I know you do! You belong to me, Mina! You always have.”