Monster in His Eyes (Monster in His Eyes, #1)

by J.M. Darhower

"Why not you?" His response doesn't answer my question, but it quells some of my anxiety, like maybe he can't see the flaws I see. Maybe what I see in the mirror, the girl my mother raised in little houses, isolated and overprotected, isn't the same woman he's looking at. Maybe one of us isn't seeing me clearly here, and maybe it's him... Or maybe it's me.

His head turns my way as he sets the frame back down on the dresser. "You're awake." "You are, too," I say. "What are you doing?" "What I shouldn't." "What's that?" "Thinking." I laugh lightly, wrapping the blanket tighter around me as I survey his face in the darkness. "What are you thinking?" "I'm thinking that I like you, and that's a problem for me."

His serious tone startles me. "Why's it a problem?" "Because I don't like people," he says bluntly. "I deal with people. That's what I do. But rarely do I particularly like anyone... like them enough to want to deal with them in ways that aren't work to me." "I don't get why that's a problem." "Because I wasn't supposed to like you, Karissa." I'm baffled, unsure what to make of that. "When you say you like me, you mean...?

Change doesn't happen overnight. There's no button that's pushed to magically alter everything. Change happens little by little.

Love means seeing the beauty in the ugly, the light in the

He set out to destroy me, but he fell in love with me instead. I fell in love with him, and that's what destroyed me in the end. He says he would never hurt me, but he doesn't realize he already has.

He hurt me by loving me. By being who he is. Because I am who I am.

I know I should let you go, should let you walk away from me right now, but I can't do it. I can