Super•Villainous

L

I heard his surprise in the sharp inhalation of breath when our mouths parted. I saw it when his eyes fluttered open wide to reveal pools of black overtaking his blue and gold ringed irises. I felt it when, after several moments, he seemed to remember himself. He went utterly rigid beneath my touch, and then, before I knew what was happening, my hands closed around nothing where his wrist should have been and I found myself alone inside the sleeping bag. Atticus simply fell away, like a shadow cast out by harsh light.

He folded back into existence halfway across the room, chest heaving and his metaphorical mask crumbled away to reveal a swiftly changing kaleidoscope of emotions, of which I only caught the last: horror.

Although I couldn't see my own expression, his horror didn't hold a candle to my own. What had I been thinking? I hadn't. Not really. I only wanted him to stop talking, to stop detailing how he was a danger to the world, because I had run out of words to convince him otherwise.

"I guess your shadows are back," I said numbly, just to break the painful silence. It was a feeble attempt to bulldoze past that disastrous kiss and pretend nothing happened.

Please! I begged mentally. Let's go back to how it was, before I went and ruined it.

"That was a mistake." In his agitation, Atticus began pacing the length of the dilapidated room, but instead of simply walking, he moved a few steps and then vanished mid stride, only to appear elsewhere, still moving, still pacing, until he'd vanish and repeat the process all over again. "It cannot happen again, do you understand? It isn't right. I'm sorry, I should have come to my senses before it got that far. I goaded you on."

Oh dear, the conversation was actually happening. I half-wished I was rotting in a Guild prison cell somewhere, just to give myself an easy escape.

Against my initial instinct to burrow deeper into the sleeping bag, where I wouldn't have to look at him or deal with the consequences of my own actions, I rose to my feet. The nylon fabric bunched around my ankles as I tried stepping out in search of my shoes.

"I get it." I shoved my foot into one boot without bothering with the laces, before stomping into the other. "I'm going to begin packing everything away so we can get moving. You can just..." after struggling to come up with a suggestion, I shrugged one shoulder, "I don't care. Do what you want."

"The last thing I want is for you to misunderstand—"

"I don't," I said shortly, trying my damndest to shut the line of conversation down on the spot, even as I took to rolling up the sleeping bag with more intense focus than the act strictly required. It gave me somewhere to look that wasn't him.

"—but I am the worst thing that has ever happened to you. Meeting me is the worst thing that ever will happen to you. Did you somehow forget that I once abducted you? I'm not good for anyone that knows me, but you especially."

The way he kept pacing, the disappearing and reappearing at all different vantage points around the room, worked at making me dizzy, and his insistence to continue the dreadful conversation, despite my many indicators that I preferred to move on, worked even better at scraping raw my last nerve. Fed up, I stuffed our sleeping arrangements into our backpack and shot to my feet.

"You aren't even the worst thing to happen to me in the last decade, so don't give yourself too much credit," I rebuked harshly. "And, by my math, I asked you - begged you, really - to abduct me only a few days ago, so I think the two events cancel each other out. Either way, it. Does. Not. Matter. You don't need to come up with an elaborate excuse when a simple 'no' works perfectly fine. I get it. I understand. You're not obligated to like me, and I'm mature enough to be okay with that, but, for my sanity's sake, can we STOP talking about it?"