Nocticadia

by Keri Lake

I loathed this secret obsession I’d begun to develop with her.

The girl was a problem. An incredibly beautiful, but annoying, problem.

Calling her beautiful was like calling the sun lukewarm. She’d blazed like the hottest part of a flame in that dress. And fuck me, I’d felt the heat.

“You shouldn’t knock romance, Professor. It so happens that love is biologically important to human beings. It reduces blood pressure and depression, and improves sleep.”

“Under different circumstances …” The pause in his words carried a laborious heartbeat that smothered my own, as I watched the slightest smile play on his lips. A beat of hesitation. “I might’ve pursued you.”

“You’re a sickness inside of me that begs never to be cured. Infecting me with this unshakable craving for things I shouldn’t want.”

She was the warmth of the sun on a cold and rotting corpse. The first breath after a lifetime of death.

Over her shoulder, she shot me a smile–one so fucking beautiful, I wanted to frame it. Capture it. Study the alchemy of it. How wonderfully intoxicating one simple expression could be.