“Thay is my… architect,” I ground out through a fake smile, giving Finn a wink.
“Fuck you,” Thay growled, and I loved that he hated it. “Now tell him the fucking truth!”
I narrowed my eyes, unwilling to be handcaged from three thousand miles away.
“The truth. Okay. Thay is my soulmate,” I shrugged up at Finn, “who never kisses me back and refuses to become anything more.”
Thay’s jaw ticked, his lip folding under as he inched closer.
“Goddammit, Daphne.Say the words!”
Finn swallowed, countless red flags twirling between us, and all I could do was swat them away.
“I’ll see you tonight, Finn,” I dropped my voice just enough to hear the car door shut.
Now would come the lecture from a golden boy on all the ways this man was wrong for me, and suddenly, I was exhausted.
“You’re a coward,” Thay said, leaning back on his bed.
“Yeah, well, you are an asshole,” I huffed, barreling into the cabin so hard I smashed my knee into the table. “What did you expect me to say?”
“I don’t know, Daph.” He stared at the wall. “That you’re mine. That you want the letters of my last name. That there’s no fucking way that dickless piece of shit has any chance with you. But no,” he filled his lungs, “I’m your architect. The bit of your soul that won’t fuck you. Super great answer. I’ve got to go.”
“No,” I winced, and he stopped short of hanging up. “Wait. Did you just offer me the letters of your last name?”
“Why? Do you want them?”
Did I what?If I could throw the goddamn sky at him right now, I would have.
“What is going on over there?” I asked because there was no way in hell I’d heard him correctly. Something was wrong. Twisted. Violently disrupted, and I had no fucking means to fix it.
“Answer the question, or I’m hanging up,” he promised.
“Yes, I want them, Thay. But since when was this allowed?”
“You realize sealing yourself to me doesn’t come with a hatch. You have all these doors right now, Daph, with Maine and your job! But with me, all that disappears.”
“I am not trying to escape you.”
“Goddammit,” he growled. “You are such a pain in the ass!”
“What? Why?” I clicked my teeth.
“Because pretending that the reality of me is not true helps fucking no one. And if you are harboring some romantic idea that I can leave everything I am behind and live some semblance of a normal life with you, you’re up your ass, Daphne. Because I’m never getting out, this is the only existence I’ll ever have. And you don’t escape it unless you are dead.”
So what if I’d hoped our story might end with him sitting at a folding table, drawing, with a baby girl sleeping on his chest. We didn’t have to be perfect. We just had to be together.
“Thay, why are you saying this now?”
“Because with me, you close your eyes, and I want them open. I need you to look! To see that my last name is an anchor that drags all your stars straight to the bottom. Why do you desire that?”
“Because I want you!”
“For fuck’s sake, Daph. I am not a good enough reason.”
My mind melted, pounding its fists against all logic. “Then neither am I.”
Thay growled, “We are not the same. So, do me a favor and stop pretending we are. You got out, Daph, and the reality is you shouldn’t come back here. In fact, don’t.”