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His eyes narrowed, and he moved closer, his motions graceful as always. And I resented even that. He could be so beautiful and intelligent and powerful, but he could never be the one thing I longed for, emotional.
“You are too good at this. Too good at simulating affection, at pretending that you care for me. So good, sometimes, I almost believe you could really love me, Nino.” Tears welled in my eyes.
“Maybe I don’t have to simulate,” he said in that smooth voice. “Maybe I love you.”
“Don’t lie to me. I told you not to say those words to me if you didn’t mean them. So just don’t.”
A clear, low note rang out when I was halfway up the stairs, and I froze, listening to the melody unfolding. It was a beautiful melody, every note complementing the other. It was well-composed but lacked emotion. It was a melody a computer might have created because it was just a bunch of notes strung together to please the average ear. You could listen to it over casual dinner with strangers because it never got your pulse rate up, never tore at your heartstrings or filled your body with sweet longing. Never made you want to cry from the sheer force of emotion it carried.
The perfect composition battled with the unhinged notes, and then suddenly, inexplicably, they were no longer fighting for dominance. They wound around each other and it was more perfect together than any calculated symphony could ever be because it carried longing and hope, fear and resignation, love and hate. It carried it all, and I couldn’t protect myself from it.
And I knew then that if what I saw in Nino’s eyes, what I saw on his face, was simulated, then I could live with it because it filled my heart with so much warmth it burned me from the inside out.
“What is this?” he asked in a raw voice.
“Tell me,” he said as he rose. “What is this if not emotion?”
“The song … that’s what you feel?”
“Before you, there was calm. There was order and logic.”
I remembered the beginning of his song, that perfect composition. “And now?” I let out a hoarse exhale.
“Now,” he growled and his expression twisted, “no...
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“Because of her. She fought the demons of her past and made me realize that I, too, was shackled by memories, controlled by something I thought I had put past me.”
Fuck, it was painful, but it was the best pain I’d ever felt. I wrapped my arms around Kiara, bringing our bodies even closer, needing her fucking closer because only she filled the hole in my chest. Only she could look down into the black abyss that was my soul and find something lovable in it.
“I do, with my fucking dead heart. With every fucking fiber of my being.”
“You love me,” she whispered. “For real?”
“I love you. For real. No simulated affection or love ever again, because with you, I don’t need to simulate. You dragged that dead part of me out of the past and revived it. I didn’t die fifteen years ago, but I didn’t live either … until you.”
“I love you, Nino. A part of me died six years ago, but you helped me live again.”
We had both been scarred by our past, but together we fought our demons and came out as the champions. Never had a victory felt better.
