His Stoic Mask, Her Bleeding Heart

Chapter 8: Necessary Cruelty

"That was incredibly mean," Elyria murmured as she shifted on the couch, rolling onto her side so that she could better see me.

I looked at her over the glass-topped table without a hint of remorse in my eyes. "But it was true," I said stoically.

She put a hand to the biggest gash on her throat, touching it tenderly. "She's not annoying," she argued, wincing as she hit a sore spot a bit too hard. "At least, not to me."

"Do you love her, then?" I asked, my eyes following her every move as she sat up on the couch and continued to inspect her wounds.

"Not in the way you mean," she answered, and I found myself oddly relieved to hear it.

"Then why are you defending her?" I questioned, making my way around the table to sit beside her on the couch. The scent of her blood wafted to my nose almost instantly, and I felt the void in my stomach deepen, the craving begging for attention. I pushed past the uncomfortable feeling and asked, "Why do you keep her around?"

Her fingers began to prod at the other side of her neck, and though her face shifted in a grimace, her voice remained even. "Because even though I don't love her romantically, I do love her." She frowned thoughtfully to herself, her fingers slowing in their investigation. "At least, I think I do." She turned her eyes to me, searching my face as if it would give her the answer. "I mean, there's something there that makes me want to take care of her, that makes me like having her around, that makes her company so comforting to me. What could that be but love?"

"Why would you have sex with her if you don't love her romantically?" I asked, finding her confusion to be quite confusing.

"I don't have sex for love," she told me simply, and took to poking and prodding her gnawed-on wrists. "You know that."

"But you also don't have sex with girls," I pointed out, "and she didn't pay you to sleep with her."

Her brow furrowed, her eyes becoming unfocused and her fingers slowing in their work as she lost herself in thought. "I must love her, then," she concluded at length, turning her attention to me as she resumed the inspection of her various injuries. "What could it be but love?" she repeated in a murmur, more to herself than to me.

I sighed, watching her as she so casually irritated her own wounds. "Is that what you feel for me, then? Some form of non-romantic feeling that must be love?" I asked, expecting some cryptic or confused response.

Instead, she looked right into my eyes, her work ceasing once again. She appeared to be alarmed by the question, her expression mirroring that of a deer caught in the headlights of an approaching car, unsure of what to do but wait. "I'm going to go take a bath," she said suddenly, quickly getting to her feet. "The water should help my wounds to heal." She left me, then, with no answer to my question but whatever fear and avoidance could give me.

I frowned. Did this mean that she did love me, or that she didn't love me and that she was just too afraid to say it? I almost wished she was more like Kyrianna at that moment. At least she was willing to admit her feelings, no matter how insane and misplaced they really were.

"Why won't you answer the question?" I asked, deciding suddenly to follow the avoidant woman into the bathroom. She'd left the door open, and I heard the water running as I approached, slow at first, then faster as she turned the tap.

"What question?" she asked innocently, and I walked in to find her stripping beside the gradually filling tub, her shirt and pants already on the floor. Her back to me, I watched her bra go, then her underwear. The scent of blood wafted to my nostrils once again, and I felt a shudder ripple through me. I leaned heavily against the door frame and averted my eyes.