My instinct should have been to run away, but that impulse was smothered by another feeling that flourished whenever I looked at him. That, and a belief that even if the body wasn't his to start with, it didn't mean that it wasn't meant to be. It seemed to me that he was exactly who and what he was meant to be, in the same way the lion is meant to kill the gazelle, or the cuckoo is meant to steal a blackbird's nest. Nature was full of vicious acts, but they weren't designed that way. They were just how the world survived. Maybe the Watchers were no different.
But just because it was natural, did that make it any less unfair?
It would be so easy to forget what the Watchers were and how they came to look the way they did, but if I did, would that make me no better than them? If I forgot how they got their bodies, was it as bad as being the one to take them in the first place?
"So how does this relate to the constant eating?" I asked.
"Are you sure you want to talk about this now?"
"I'd rather know now than find out later."
He paused, gathering his words. "When a person goes, sometimes they leave a part of them behind."
"Like a bit of their soul?"
"No, nothing like that. It's more like an imprint of their humanity."
A shiver ran down my spine. "Like their memories?"
"More desires, basic primal needs."
"Cravings?" I asked.
"Yes, it's like a hunger"
"Just for food, or like when I really need coffee in the morning?"
"Sometimes food, it's the easiest way to sate it." He indicated the bowl of sweets. "But sometimes it's not enough. Sometimes the body wants other things." He paused as he watched me briefly. The words caught on his tongue.
"Sex?" I gaped and a wicked smile flashed on his face. My throat ran dry as I battled with the flurry of fantasies his smile had triggered.
"Sometimes," he murmured, his eyes glancing towards me. My heart thud in my chest.
"Do your kind even have sex?"
"Yes, sometimes. Some more than others."
I cleared my throat, trying to push away the explicit images playing in my head. "Have you?"
"No." He shifted. "I was posted in ancient Rome once and that was... uncomfortable. Denying that kind of impulse."
"Why bother fighting it?"
"I'm more than an animal. More than..."
"Than human?" I jeered as I leapt on the brief pause. Anything to divert my attention from the way the light played in his eyes.
"That's not what I meant."
"But it's what you said."
"No, it's what you said," he fired back.
"Fine, it was implied," I said haughtily with a raised eyebrow.
"I meant if I ever do that it will be because of more than some imprinted desire."
"Do you think you ever will?"
He fiddled with edges of his black book. "I don't know."
"But others like you have, like you said, why them and not you?"
"Why do you eat meat and others don't?"
"That is two very different things, Atticus," I chuckled.
"Is it?"
"Yes."
His head tilted slightly as he replied, "Both are moral choices, aren't they?"
"Not always, some vegetarians just don't like meat. Do you not like sex?" I teased but part of me was genuinely curious. "Has anyone ever piqued your interest?"
"Yes." His eyes watched me darkly. Another shiver rocketed down my spine as I tried to figure out which of my questions he'd chosen to answer.
"Why resist? If it isn't the tastes, it must be the morals."
"To do that with a human is seen as impure in my world. Those who choose to can only do so because they remove the memories afterwards. I don't think I could let myself use someone that way."
The sentence hung in the air between us as the reality of his words sunk in, and with them my heart sank too.
I waited with bated breath, and I hated myself for it. Who was this giddy girl I was turning into? Some sycophant just hanging on every word of a boy. Just because he had hair I wanted to run my hands through, and the kind of eyes that could turn even the coldest ice to a puddle of slush.
I'd fallen for those things before. A different wrapper maybe, but the same man at the heart of it. The one who was out of reach, above me somehow. Last time it was Mr R, the naughty teacher with a penchant for short skirts and white knee socks. This time it was an unearthly being with a proclivity for sweets and battles of life and death. Same shit, different realm. Both were unattainable and utterly wrong for me. And both would never see me the way I wanted them to. To Mr R I was only ever going to be a girl: a silly, insignificant girl. And to Atticus I would always just be human: a pawn in whatever game of chess was being manoeuvred around us. Any fleeting interest he had in me was always just going to be a way to pass the time. After millennia of the mundane, could I really blame him?
The irritation at my own weakness and his part in it clawed to the surface. Or maybe, like some beaten dog, I just couldn't help myself from lashing out.
"But you have no issue with using me to pass the time?" I bitterly snapped.
"It's not like that, Anna." His voice wrapped around my name, and my insides writhed in response. How would it sound to hear him whisper it against my ear, his stubble tickling the sensitive skin there?
Stop!
"Oh really?" I sneered. The darkness in me taking charge.
Atticus sighed, that long weary sigh that I could only imagine was synonymous with me. "I thought you were finally starting to understand. Clearly I was wrong."
He got up from the stool and pulled on his coat.
His abrupt exit made my ire faulter.
"Where are you going?" I asked while I tried to forget how his t-shirt rose to show a slice of toned stomach as he eased into his coat.
"Back to the flat."
My snide reply caught in my throat. The itch was gasping for a fight, but here he was throwing in the towel before it had the chance.
He looked at me as he stuffed his phone into his pocket. "It's like every time I take one step forward, you take two steps back."
"Fine. Leave," I hissed, turning my back on him as I polished a pint glass to sparkling perfection. Clean would have been enough, but I needed something to keep my hands busy while I felt the tell-tale prickle of tears.
Softly his voice pierced the silence. "Do me a favour and get a taxi home. Just this once."
I heard the crisp crinkle of a five-pound note, but I didn't reply.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I waited for the creak of the door or the ring of the bell as it closed. I knew if I looked up, I'd see him reflected in the mottled mirror behind the bar; but I also knew that if I let myself give in now (even just a little bit) I'd be done for. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach, just like with Mr R. That slow burn, like flame eating at the edge of the paper. Not enough to fully ignite but given the chance it would consume it whole.
The bell chimed through the empty bar, and I slumped against the back counter; the glass clinking as it lightly hit the solid wood top. I glanced up at the mirror and watched as Atticus hunched his shoulders against the cool night air, hiding his face in the tall funnel collar. He was all hair and eyes and darkness.
I almost felt jealous of the people he'd walk past, getting to see him in all his glory. All dark and brooding; wide shoulders rolling as steady steps carved his path. To most he'd just be a fleeting distraction. A memory stashed away for those moments when your mind wanders and all you want to think about is a handsome stranger with piercing eyes and a firm body.
To a few he'd be the itch they couldn't scratch. The reminder that out there was a person beyond anything you could conjure up or ever hope to find. A constant comparator to which all future relationships would be measured and found wanting.
To me, he could be all those things and more, but only if I let him.