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“Something that’s fresh and beautiful. Something that’s perfect. But then, what about the things that are imperfect? Things that might not be as pretty or as conventional. Things that might be weird, outdated or outcast? They’re not in much demand, are they? They’re not wanted. But I do. I want them. So they don’t feel rejected.”
I’m not sure of anything except this man in front of me. This man who just defended me to the entire world. And he’s staring at me with a burning gaze as he rasps, “Something made of moon and magic.”
“You don’t know,” he concludes finally, whatever he was trying to conclude. “Yeah, it makes sense. It’s the highway all over again. You don’t notice anything. How could you? You with your giant headphones and your nose stuck in a book. You’d sit under that tree, the one by the chemistry lab window and you’d write whatever the fuck you write in those goddamn journals. Of course, you don’t have a clue.”
“No, Violet, I’m not saying that you’re visible. I’m saying that you’re the only thing that a man sees. I’m saying that you’re a thing that drives a man to distraction. You make him forget what’s right and what’s wrong. You’re a thing so terrible and beautiful and fucking breathtaking that he can’t escape you. He can’t think of anything else, not about his job, his responsibilities, his promises, his family, nothing but you. You undo him. You make him helpless. You turn him into an animal who wants to rut. You’re a girl who makes a man go bad.”
He never said anything. Not one thing. Why didn’t he say anything? Why didn’t he tell me after he did the nicest thing anyone’d ever done for me? A thing that I never even dreamed of someone doing for me. Let alone a man who hates me. He does, doesn’t he? Why am I getting more and more convinced that he doesn’t?
“Because you’re my Jailbait.” He presses the pads of his fingers on the apple of my cheek as he continues, “And I’ll destroy anyone who dares to hurt you. All the people who made you feel less and called you names for that kiss. Everyone. You’re not a slut, all right? I won’t let you think you are.”
“You know why my favorite color is red?” I shake my head. “It’s because it’s the color of your lips. It’s the color of your smile.” The said lips part and I breathe out, “No way.” “I didn’t have a favorite color before you.” My mouth falls open. “Seriously?” His nostrils flare. “I didn’t notice colors before I met you.”
He looks over my entire face, soaks in my features, and I love that. I love so, so much that he’s seeing me. Not only that but he’s been seeing me, watching me for ages. I thought I was invisible but I wasn’t. I was visible to him. To my Graham.
“First of all, you’re not a loser. You’re not weak or defective. You have an illness. You’re struggling, Vi. You’ve been struggling ever since you got out of Heartstone. Like the rest of us, and that’s okay. But you’re struggling more because you keep insisting everything is fine. You keep denying it. You keep pretending.”
And not only that, Graham is touching me in front of him. It could be dangerous, right? He could even get fired because Richard knows about the scandal. Richard knows what happened back in Connecticut and I’m pretty sure he might’ve put two and two together by now. He could take away my Graham’s job. He could, because Graham attacked him and there’s this girl here, from Graham’s past, because of whom he left his old job. But Graham shakes his head once, at me. As if he could read my anxious thoughts. He even jerks me closer to him, making me go flush against his hard and heated body.
