She didn’t want to hide it from him - no….she did. She wanted to hide everything from him. Everything she’d done since she’d left, every single inch of skin on her body, every buried emotion that he unknowingly roused in her.
Love.
The word was sickening, now; nauseating. Hard to swallow, tasting like the bitter and acidic bile that touched her tongue too many times a day. She couldn’t remember the last time she said it - but she felt it, now. She felt it for the first time in years.
"Do you like it?" She asks, pushing aside his question, letting the word ‘dancer’ slip free from her tongue. He didn’t have to know that, either. She kept her hands tucked behind her back, collarbones and scapulae protruding from the thinness of her light, almost sheer blouse.
He understood it now. He understood why people settled, why love was overrated. It wasn't about it being weakness. It was about love being a sick fascination, an itch not to be scratched. Scratching it always led to more pain, pain that would never heal.
Just be civil. She's just someone you knew. Someone you once knew, nothing else.
He repeated those words to himself over and over again as he stared back at her.
He hated the way she had such power over him. She always had. It wasn't even magic. It was the way she could smirk and he would do anything for her. It was the way they took enjoyment in irritating each other, and it was the way she could be cruel one moment and all his the next. All she had to do was say it, and he would go with her. It was sick. It was unhealthy. It wasn't going to happen again.
I don't love you.
"Of course," he muttered under his breath, rolling his eyes slightly– not answering his question. How typical.
–"It's fine. It pays the rent– y'know?"