clone-after the hunt
Who cares? He asked, but she ignored him to continue. Why could he not understand? What was so hard for him to understand? It was not like she was speaking a different language nor was she being overall complex, it was simple and it was a fact; they were done. “My life is real enough,” She argues, “You’re what’s not real,” She doesn’t explain, she simply sighs. She was tired, it was night, and at this time, she could be sleeping, getting her beauty sleep in, but instead she was arguing, and involving herself with a fantasy. Since she was 16, she had known what her reality was–how her life was going to be and she was okay with it, it was not new information and she had still hold on to Vincenzo as a friend a close friend and though she knew the dangers of having someone like him so close to her, that it would never last, she ignored it, and thought that she could hide him forever but she could not. That was the real fantasy–him, her belief that they could be a forever thing, the rest was her reality and he was foolish for thinking he was her reality.
She was worn out, extremely, from fighting with him. A part of her or maybe all of her didn’t truly want to fight with him, but she had to make him understand. Thus, hazel met blue, and it was intense-- She had never truly known the meaning of the word ‘intense’ till now but now she knew it, it was like a hurricane-- wild, terrible and restless. When she started at his eyes, all she could truly see was not his blue eyes that sometimes during the hurl of insult she would throw at him, she would compare to fish eyes, she did think he had fish eyes, but more in the way that it reminded her of the sea–take it as you want to take it. But now, she did not see any sea, instead she saw a hurricane and she was trying hard not to get tangled with it.
So she spoke, she told him, that he knew this doesn’t last, her voice was soft but her words were harsh–but truth none of the less. She told him, she would go back to hating him, which was true–she would, after all he gave her this dress that he claims he gave to another person already, the things he said about her father who she holds dear and the words they threw back and forth to each other. After this, after she takes another shower, Vincenzo would go back to being a fiend in her mind, You can’t love a friend, and she did not want to love him. She let the silence settle between them, feeling its weight pressing down on her shoulders as she took a deep breath, steadying herself. She knew this wasn’t easy for him, that he was wrestling with everything she was saying, trying to make sense of the shifting ground beneath him. But it had to be done.
“Yes, I will,” In fact she already hated him, she hated how hard it seemed for him to simply become a memory. She ignored the rest of his words, and spoke again, and then he asked how long has this thoughts–the thoughts that Azriel was her future and him simply her past had been part of her mind. She fidget with her fingers, because the answer was also part to the last thing he asked, and she could not tell him. She could not tell him why she left because he would make a big deal out of it, and make rough decisions, as he was prone to doing. “Does it matter?” She knew it did, as much as she knew she was not going to tell him the true reason why she left, how Azriel had…
Instead of telling, she could distract him, she could blur the lines of their relationship, so he could become someone entirely different from her Vinnie, and that’s what she did, stepping closer to him, she pressed her lips to his neck, placing a hand on his chest, like how sometimes she would do to tease him during their friendship, but there was no teasing in this.
He called her name, but she ignored him, biting his neck slightly, as she continued to kiss him up and down, she was going to forget this was her Vinnie. But he did something unexpected, something that made a little gasp escape from her lips as he shoved his arm around her chest and gripped her by her throat, and pulled her into a harsh kiss–kissing Vinnie, the last thing she wanted to do.
Her breath hitched as his grip tightened just slightly, his kiss harsh, demanding, a stark contrast to the familiar warmth she’d known before. This wasn’t the Vinnie she’d grown up with—the Vinnie who could make her laugh until her sides hurt, who she trusted enough to hold her secrets, her fears. This was someone darker, someone whose touch felt like a wildfire, a searing force that left her dizzy and grounded all at once.
She pushed him away with one hand, or at least tried to, but his grip was quite strong, but finally, she managed to pull back,
truggling for breath, her hand still on his chest, feeling his heart hammer beneath her fingertips. His eyes, sharp and filled with that familiar fire, searched her face as if looking for an answer she wouldn’t give him.
"“Vincenzo,” he murmured, her voice almost a plea, trying to grasp something to ground herself. This wasn’t what she had wanted; she needed space, needed to draw the lines of her life back in order. But he wouldn’t let go. His grip softened on her throat, but his gaze held her with the same intensity. She touched her lips, when he finally let go, her eyes innocently wide as If she couldn’t believe they had actually kissed, that their lips had connected. Sure, they had shared a quick kiss back in the masquarade ball, but she did not know his identity at that time, so it was different–at least that’s what she told herself. But here, they were bare to each other, they knew who each was, they could feel and hear each other’s heartbeat, and they had kissed, something that was not supposed to happen.