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“My older brother, Tomek.”
“Is… he…” I know I shouldn’t ask, but the words slowly sputter out.
“No… he’s dead… in more ways than one.” Reaching over my shoulder, Leonid turns the page, like he can’t stand to look at the picture any longer. “My mom didn’t just paint the pictures,” he says, tracing the outlines of a beautiful foreword header. “She also wrote the words you’ll find inside. She had a knack for calligraphy and storytelling.”
Suddenly, I remember that Leonid was with his mother when she died. It was how he got his limp. The limp that I still hardly ever notice, because I’m too distracted by his beauty. A beauty he got from his mother.
It’s heartbreaking.
They were obviously very close, and he obviously still loves her very much.
Love.
Just like that, I can see that Leonid is capable of such a thing. Deep and intense love.
My heart shivers. But this shiver is deep and warm.
“Why are you showing me this?” I ask, trying to distract myself from the implications I’ve thought up on my own.
“When you saw that I was leaving… you looked… cold,” he responds, pulling back from the page.
“And this is supposed to warm me up?”
“… It has always warmed me up.”
My cracking, shaking heart threatens to shatter. So much for him not being good with his words.
My knees threaten to go weak from the kindness of his gesture.
But before we can share anything else, I hear Leonid’s phone buzz—he doesn’t hesitate to break the tender spell that we’re wrapped up in to pull it out of his pocket.
“You can read the book down here or you can read it upstairs, it doesn’t matter,” he says, reading a message on his screen. “But I have to go.”
With great care, I close the book and tuck it under my arm. By the time I’ve turned around, though, Leonid is already on his way back upstairs.
“Wait!” I call after him.
He stops, looking back over his shoulder at me.
“What is it?”
“… Promise me that you’ll come back.”
Time seems to freeze as Leonid carefully considers my plea. I can see the stubborn demon in him not wanting to make such a promise. I’ll come and go as I please!
But that demon doesn’t win out. Something else does.
With a savage grace, Leonid turns from the bottom of the steps and marches straight for me.
Before I know what’s happening, my jaw is cupped in his hand and his lips are pressed against mine.
His kiss is intense and filled with a brutal truth.
We shouldn’t care for each other like this. It’s wrong. We’re enemies. Opposites. Our worlds have been set on fire because we dared to reach through the darkness and touch. People will suffer.
But it doesn’t matter.
We belong to each other now.
