He could say nothing after she pushed him away. It felt like he had been standing on the very edge of the rooftop, so when she pushed him, he would not be able to stand up. He said there was nothing to risk, but now he knew he did risk something, and he lost it. The sliver of a chance there was that one day they would be alright, that they’d be assigned to be in a group together, and she’d laugh at a joke he said to someone else was gone. He no longer felt like an enemy, just a creep. Who she’d probably think to have never seen her as a friend anyway, and she had reason to believe that. Everyone knew he was an asshole, so he deserved the karma. There were no words left to say. He watched the words he poured out to her grow moss, get old until she would walk away.
Her eyes seemed to redden, as she stood still. Neither of them dared to speak, and the fuse of Vincenzo’s impulses had blown out. There was no stupid thing left to start, he would just let her walk away knowing the truth about how weak he was, and believe even more what everyone else did. He could not console her as he did when Azriel would mistreat her, or when he saw her struggles that she refused to talk about. It would be wrong to touch her again, so he let her go.
At least he knew how it ended now.
In a sunken voice, his mind asked her to do what he should have done.
Walk away Amani, let it be over.
“It’s not September twenty-eighth,” Amani whispered. He furrowed his brow. What was she going to say? He didn’t even think of possibilities, he did not think he wanted to know.
Thud. He felt her body hit his, and her slender arms wrapped around his back. She felt small, and warm, like something he could so easily hurt. But he wanted to protect her, and take the weight off her shoulders, so he put his arms around her as well. So he held her because he knew she needed it. And honestly, he had been waiting for a chance to since the day she left.
“I didn’t forget,” she blinked, and he let her keep going, listening as he smelled her shampoo.
“Well, happy… thing,” he whispered into her raven hair, grimly smiling.
Briefly, Vincenzo pulled away, and when she backed up, he cupped her cheek, wiping the tear of her chin with the stroke of a thumb. They met eyes again, and he remembered how she probably felt in that moment, likely the same way he saw her. Unarmed, like her petals could fall at any moment, praying he would handle her gently. She was probably embarassed that he had seen her naked. He never cared about that, because he liked showing off his body, but she had still seen something. Something private in him that existed… only for her. He thought she may have built it herself, because he had never known it before.
“What does this mean?” Vinnie sighed, grasping for something. “What are we doing here,”
He was supposed to hate her, and he did. Even with his fingertips on her cheek, admiring her beauty, he still did. He hated the way she ignored him, he hated the way she thought she won, but she did. She disarmed him, knocked down all his defenses and saw his shed core, as brittle as leaves, as pale as the moon. He hoped she would not shatter it. And the ache in his chest begged that she would not give him the necessity to shatter her.