seul > Recent Status Updates

His eyes drop to my lips for the smallest of moments. "That backless dress from last night, for a start."

"Smoking raises your blood pressure," I whisper, my voice more hoarse than it should be. It's a stupid comment, a feeble attempt at dissolving the tension between us, at getting back into the familiar hatred and out of whatever this is.

His grip on my waist doesn't loosen, the heat of his large hand scorching through my hoodie. "You raise my blood pressure."

"How?"

My next step falters, heel catching in the mud behind me. I fall, but I don't hit the ground. One tattooed arm wraps around my waist, strong and warm.

Alex gazes down at me, the cherry of the cigarette glowing as he takes another drag.

Everything about him makes my heart run faster. Pacing toward me, he rolls up the sleeves of his shirt, like he's burning up even in the autumn chill. "What did you want in his office?" I'd never tell you. "It doesn't matter."

"Matters to me."

"Shame."

He takes a step forward. "Don't make me chase you."

I take a step back. "I have stamina."

"I'd rather find that out a different way."

Stupid, ginger pigeon.

It's the worst way a man has ever described me, and yet I've never felt so seen.

The devastating curves of his lips form a smile of their own, but beneath his black lashes his eyes are clouded with that omnipresent darkness that seems to follow him around.

"I'd leave that stupid, ginger pigeon on the rainy path outside the university gates."

I don't know if it's the video, the cocktails, or the fact that don't feel so insecure in his company, but my lips press into a reluctant smile as I look back over my shoulder. We're almost nose to nose. "What about the pigeon that would pee in your cup holder?"

"Meaning?"

"Meaning your standards are on the foor. If he asked you to split the bill fifty-fifty you'd thank him for paying his half."

"No, I wouldn’t." I frown at him, eyes flicking up to the bleeding gash above his eyebrow.

He sticks out his bottom lip, tone dripping in dry humor Th that it's endearing. "It hurts."

"Not more than the silver spoon stuck up your ass, surely."

"Maybe even a little bit more."

"What the fuck, Ophelia?" snaps Alex the second he's out of earshot.

"He's nice to me. He asks me about my day."

"Jesus fucking Christ, you're worse than my sister," he mutters under his breath. His exasperated sigh contracts the broad chest muscles beneath his wet rugby shirt.

Not that I notice.

A gray workout top hugs the contours of his torso, his hair damp from a shower.

I don't think I've ever seen someone quite so striking.

Even through my blurry screen, I get the same odd feeling about him as I did that first day in the car. On the surface, he looks dangerously attractive. But he seems boring. A man without feelings, goals, direction, or passion.

I am joining the call; my laptop is just having a moment.

Ophelia

No problem.

It always helps to lift the lid and turn the laptop on.
-ACG

"Fuck you," I mutter, finally logging on. I panic-clean my greasy webcam, dusting the shortbread crumbs from the keyboard.

"I know. I get it. I just...I miss them."

"He... he was excited, that day. For the burgers."

A sob rips through my throat. A memory as mundane as burger buns on a chopping board, and it's enough to bring me to my knees on the damp earth beneath my feet. "So was I," I manage, my vice hoarse.

"And Ophelia," he says, stopping me as I reach the door. "You are never alone. Your parents are in your heart."

I stare down at my feet until the burning behind my eyes fades. I hate it when people say that. "I just wish they were outside of it too."

I press my lips together, a flicker of regret slithering up my spine. I've hit a nerve, but I don't apologize. Hating him is easier when he hates me too.

Something hot and unfamiliar unfurls in my lower stomach. "Leave me alone, hopefully."

A gravelly hum sounds in his throat. "No longer an option."

His thumb presses against the spot where my pulse hammers below my ear. My breathing betrays me, but his does to. He shifts in his seat. I press my thighs together. The ping of his phone injects some common sense into me, shattering the strange atmosphere around us.

"How was it?"

I give her a shy smile. It was great. The big ones hurt, so... Alex is perfect."

He laughs in disbelief beside me, leaning forward to be closer to our curious neighbor. "Best two inches of her life."

She turns back around, face laden with disappointment. A warm breath tickles my ear, a hard thigh pressing against my own. "Ophelia, Ophelia, Ophelia. What am I going to do with you."

"You vastly, vastly, overestimate my interest in you. You're just a sad girl with a made-up backstory. I don't know what your obsession with me is, Winter, but it is not reciprocated. I swear, if even a whisper of an accusation of Vincenzo leaves your lips, I'll make you disappear."

The second sentence is salt in my already broken heart, and the last sends my blood temperature plummeting.

His focused expression relaxes and he stills a moment, breaking eye conract to look at my mouth. The pad of his thumb skates along my lower lip ever so slightly. "If you weren't so unbearable, I'd make you look freshly kissed," he whispers.

His words snatch my retort away. If he was anyone else, anywhere else, perhaps I'd agree. I roll my head away from his hand in time for a sharp knock to rap on the door.

Copper strands wind between his index finger and thumb, neither one of us willing to shatter the silence. I'm so starved of connection, so hungry for intimacy that I don't stop him. Even a fabricated moment with the wrong person feels better than loneliness.

He looks down at me in the dim light, and with careful, steady fingers, he undoes the top two buttons of my sleep shirt without ever grazing my skin. I'm paralyzed, forced to watch his hands as they drop the fabric and gently tousle the lengths of my hair.

His leg brushes mine, the contact enough to make us both take a sharp inhale. I jolt back, reminding myself once more of Why I hate him. "Are you giving me an alibi, Alex, or using me
as one?"

He sits up beside me, lighting a candle on the side table with a Zippo. "Now is really not the time, Ophelia."

"Wear your hair down."

"Why?"

He turns back to the bed. "Wear your hair down, Twist, because that's how I would've wanted it."

What? Butterflies do odd things in my stomach. Not for him, though. They'd do it for anyone.

His hands find my shoulders and gently but firmly push me to the mattress, his face hovering above mine. I focus on the scar through his eyebrow. The five o'clock shadow that kisses his jaw. The way the rain clings to his lashes. Anywhere that isn't the pools of green beneath them. His voice comes out a hoarse whisper. "Because for some reason, I'm willing to be your alibi."

"Get in the bed."

"What?"

He's so close I can feel the heat of his bare chest through my pajama shirt. "Get. Into. My. Bed."

My next breath is heavy, riddled with loathing and something unfamiliar. "And why would I do that?"

A birdcage curves around the side of his ribs, and out of the open door flies a raven that spreads its wings over his abs. Anothe raven soars over his left shoulder, and another over his broad chest They dance down rippling arms, over his muscular back as he chucks his muddy running shoes into the bathroom and shuts to door.

Alex Corbeau-Green is an evil, depraved work of art.

His eyes coast over me once more, distant and disinterested. "You look disheveled, as ever."

His black shirt looks like it was ironed by Giorgio Armani himself, molded to his athletic frame in a way he does not deserve. "And you're comically overdressed. What's new?"

"Huh?" he shouts, turning his mangled ear to me over the music. I shake my head at him and shove my way to the back of the room, where Alex sits on a corner desk by the window, typing on his laptop in a pair of fucking reading glasses. He pulls out an earbud, green gaze connecting with mine before it drops down to my midsection. "You wish."

I'm in the library. Look for the charming gentleman in the black shirt.
-ACG

I'm on my way down now. Are you sitting to the left or the right of the charming gentleman?

Signing your emails with your initials is obnoxious.
-Ophelia

I won't replace the people on the other end of my string, but I can ruin the people who cut it in half.

I never considered I might lose it. Now my summers are quiet, my Christmases are silent, and when I tug on my piece of string, the other end slithers along the ground at my feet.