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His touch is like ice spreading through me. His touch used to burn. I did that. I extinguished his fire. His sunshine.
I choke on a sob. I shouldn’t have lashed out. I shouldn’t have hurt him. He didn’t deserve it.
“Don’t touch me, Zie.” I wrench myself out of his hold. “I can’t.”
“Odi. This doesn’t have to change anything.” I hate the desperation and pain in his voice. I hate that it sparks hope inside of me.
“Of course it does. Nothing is the same, Zie. You’ll never look at me in the same way again.”
“I will.”
“You say that now. But what about when we kiss? Are you telling me you won’t be thinking of your dad? You think you can fuck me without thinking of him? He was there first, Zie. He’ll always be branded in my flesh. You can’t erase him.”
“Odi. Stop.”
“No, Zie. We don’t get to do ugly things to people, to hurt them, and get to live a beautiful life. We don’t deserve it.I don’t deserve it.”
“You haven’t done ugly things, Odi.”
“I killed a man.”
“He deserved it.”
“You couldn’t look at me after.”
“I was wrong. I apologised.”
“I’m not done, Zie.”
“Done with what?”
“Killing.”
He blanches. Of course. For all his desperate pleas of acceptance, Zie will never be okay with who I really am. Who I’m destined to become.
“W-who are you going to kill?”
“Everyone who hurt me.”
I stun him into silence as he considers what that means, what I’m telling him with the things I’m not saying.
“Odi, my mum?—”
“Zie, don’t,” I warn.
“Please. She loves Rose. She’s her mum.”
“I’mher mum!” I scream into the night sky with a ferocity that leaves my throat raw. It feels good to scream, but I’m fearful that now I’ve started, I won’t be able to stop.
I’m left breathless and broken, panting hard and staring at the boy who owns one quarter of my heart. I have to let him go. I have to let them all go. Play along to get Rose back, and then disappear with her once and for all.
Zie’s phone ringing breaks the pained silence, and he sighs when he checks the caller display. “I have to go.”
I shrug.
“Will you come with me?”
I shake my head. I’m not done here. My gaze flicks to Zie’s house.
