seul’s Reviews > Nightshade > Status Update

"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.

I wasn't always close to them—geographically, that is, thanks to their jobs at Sorrowsong—but they were always on the other end of a string. If I tugged it hard enough, they'd be there. If I tied a paper cup to each end, they'd be listening on the other side. When it felt like the world was crumbling, they'd stick it back together again with homemade apple pies and weekend camping trips.