i have a playlist especially for this chapter. listen to it now or save it for later! either way, find it in the comments 🎵🎶
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V - PLEA
Ah.
From the moment he'd kissed her, Mark had known he'd fucked it all up.
And he had, for the record, but Mark figured he'd go along with all of this for the hell of it anyway.
Why not give it a shot?
The thing was, it was so easy. Just one moment and then the next––
Fuck it.
He'd watched enough of these moments to know that his timing wasn't great.
You didn't kiss the girl when she was yelling at you, that was for sure. You didn't kiss the girl when she had a jaw full of spite, fingers clenched and tongue coated with venom.
You didn't kiss the girl when the music wasn't swelling, when the whole world was too fast and the air was full of the blasts of car horns and a distant ambulance.
If this were a movie, he'd gotten it all wrong.
There was nothing soft about this kiss. Nothing delicate, nothing cinematic, nothing amorous.
It was an act of murder, he was sure of it–– shaking fingers, a cheek that flushed, nostrils full of perfume, so strong it almost burned like napalm. She was cold, he was blue and wet and aching, and yet reaching for her with his fingertips felt like reaching into fire.
The sort of burn that would never heal. An action that would not end well, no matter how much hope he had in him.
It was a desperate kiss, a survival instinct, ferocious and starving, a pure impulse like a drowning man clutching to driftwood–– a fight or flight... the most violent move he'd ever made in a five-year stand-off that was beginning to feel like a cold war.
Kissing the girl when she was pissed off had never, historically, worked out well for him.
He'd braced in the silence he'd caused, tensing in the quiet like the pause between thunder and lightning, waiting for hellfire to rain and Beth to flinch–– it was inevitable, as inevitable as good things had to end. He kissed her, gave her his whole soul in a moment of morbid desperation, and waited for the retaliation. He waited for the pullback, for the fire, for his cheek to sting against her scorching palm––
