Page 68 of Melancholia

Amir stops and shifts to look at me, his expression one of actual surprise. “Oh?” he asks, like he can’t quite believe my words. “That’s a little extreme, don’t you think? I don’t need you to oversell, you know.”

“Not overselling.” I give him a look that he only raises a brow in response to. “But fine. Don’t take the compliment. See if I try it again.” That earns me a laugh, and he pulls me back against his chest.

“All right. Interrogate me. Let’s see what you’ve got, though I suspect I already know what your first question will be.”

“Oh, yeah?” I’m sure he does too. “Then answer it for me.” I look back at him, having to tip my head back to do it, and Amir holds my gaze with calculation and something else I can’t identify.

“I killed Andrew Elliot. You want to know why.” I don’t respond because he’s right. I do. “There was nothing extraordinary about him. Just a pathetic boy mooching off his sick mother.” He moves to thread his fingers through my hair again and slowly works to separate it into sections as he speaks. “I knew him because he was often outside the office I’ve been advising for in Philly. I saw him take advantage of people. Begging. Even dealing.” His nose scrunches, giving him a clear sneer of distaste. “He was nothing.”

“You must’ve kissed him, though. To bite through his tongue like that,” I point out. “It’s not like you just walked up and shot him in the back.”

He doesn’t answer for a few moments. But finally he gives me that grin once more, and a soft huff leaves him. “Too smart for your own good. Yes, I kissed him. I took him out to dinner. I listened to his sniveling, his whining. His bragging about how his mother gives him anything he wants. Then I took him home and pinned him down. Only, I didn’t give him the option of a safeword.” As if to show me what he means, he gently picks up my wrists in one hand, the other moving to my throat. “He never thought anything was off. He even liked it when I bit down. Once I told him he’d get off on it, he let me put the rope around his neck. He trusted me.” There’s a sigh in Amir’s words, like he’s almost disappointed at how easy it had been.

“I had a need, and he fulfilled it. There was nothing between us. He was only convenient, and unneeded by anyone he ever came in contact with.” The dismissal is clear, and he goes back to stroking my hair. “Golden Girls or Food Network?”

The question surprises me, and I glance up to see a small, dry smile on his lips. “Never underestimate what I know about you, sweet girl. Which would you prefer?”

“Food Network.” It’s better white noise, and easier to not get sucked into. Somehow he knows that will ease the pressure of this conversation, or maybe he also needs something else to focus on. At least for a little while.

I consider pulling out of his lap, but when I examine that thought, it’s easy to let go. This isn’t exactly new information for me. I’ve known since the beginning that he killed Andrew. It’s how this whole thing started, after all.

But I never really thought he’d tell me why. Even in my wildest dreams, he never told me the reason as easily as he did just now. And it’s never just been ‘because I have needs.’

“So he’s not the first person you’ve killed?” It takes me almost five minutes of Gordon Ramsay yelling at someone on the TV across from the foot of the bed before he answers.

“He is not.”

“And you’ll kill again.”

“Who can say?” But he strokes my cheek, almost in apology. “Probably yes. I’ve gone years without it before. Other times, I could only go for a few months.”

“Then—” Fuck, this is the hard part. My heart clenches and I sit up to face him, needing to look him in the eyes in the dark, stormy cocoon of my apartment. “Will you kill me if you ever need to kill again?”

The shock on his face is obvious. He doesn’t even try to hide it. “Kill you?” he repeats. “My little mortician, I have never, not even for a moment, considered killing you. That’s out of the question. You aren’t like him, or the others.” Gently he gathers me back into his arms, and even though I’m frozen in place for a few seconds, I relent.

Before I know it, he’s lying under my comforter with me, legs tangled with mine and arms holding me close. He kisses me, soft and sweet, like he worries his words aren’t enough to convince me I’m safe. “I won’t hurt you, Nell,” he promises. “But unless you tell me otherwise and make it convincing, I fear you may be stuck with me for a long, long time.”

Oh.

“Why? I mean, why me? You don’t even know me that well. You barely know⁠—”

He kisses me and rolls me onto my back on the bed, one hand bracing him above me as he very slowly and methodically takes me apart like he has a few times already. His hand runs up my side, slipping under the T-shirt I put on when he went to the bathroom. Amir murmurs into my mouth, soft and sweet and non-discernable, but it still has me melting against him.

“You’re my perfect little mortician. My gorgeous doll,” he purrs. “So beautifully broken for me, aren’t you, Nell?”

Broken?

“I’m—”

“It isn’t an insult,” he’s quick to clarify. “We’re all broken in our own ways. It just so happens that your cracks and sharp edges”—he leans up just enough to reach my face, drawing his fingers down my cheek and over the marks he left on my throat—“fit against mine perfectly. Your therapists tell you to change. To stop talking to your ghosts. I will never ask you for that. And I never want you to hide it from me.”

Something deep inside me, some long-buried survival instinct, screams at me that this isn’t healthy. Him liking how broken I am, and how fucked up my brain is, should not be a good thing. It feels like he could so easily drag me back down the road I’ve clawed my way up for whatever recovery I’ve managed.

I should want someone who wants me to be as normal and healthy as I can be.

But I don’t.

So I push that instinct right back down and twine my arms around Amir’s neck. “You’re probably pretty messed up if you think my brokenness is a good look,” I whisper in between kisses.