When A Sociopath Loves

.22.

The sunroom is my favorite room in the house. It’s almost all glass—glass roof and floor-to-ceiling glass windows that look out onto our perfectly manicured back lawn

The room’s decor is like a movie set of a tropical rain forest. It’s filled with realistic and lush-looking fake tropical plants. Banana and coconut trees laden with fake fruit and hibiscus plants with fake flowers are everywhere. There’s even a babbling stream that snakes its way through the room, but there are no fish—at least no real ones. The furniture is aged white wicker that looks like it’s been sitting in the sun.

Most days I love it because I can imagine that the glass has fallen away and I’m Outside. Other days I feel like a fish in an aquarium.

By the time I get there, Ray has managed to climb halfway up the rocky back wall, hands and feet wedged into crevices. He’s pinching one of the large banana leaves between his fingers when I walk in.

“It’s not real,” he says to me.
“It’s not real,” I say at the same time.

"Are you... Gonna come down?"

"Yoosung told me to keep away from you. You don't look like theady I would want to piss off."

"You can come down. I'm not as scary as I seem."

“OK.”

He slips effortlessly to the floor. He puts his hands into his pockets, crosses his feet at the ankles, and leans back against the wall. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so still. I think he’s trying not to spook me. Saeran...

“You’re different than I thought you’d be,” I blurt out.

He grins and a dimple forms just under his right eye. “I know. Sexier, right? It’s OK, you can say it.”

I guffaw. “How do you manage to carry around an ego that size and weight?”

“It’s the muscles,” he shoots back, flexing his biceps and raising a single comical eyebrow.

Some of my nervousness falls way but then comes right back when he watches me laugh without saying anything for a few seconds too long.

“Your hair really is so long,” he says.

He comes forward. Step by step. I go backward. A little hesitant in my own stride.

He is close enough to me. Close enough to feel his breath on my cheek. He takes a lock of  curly hair away from my eyes, and stares deeply with those enchanting blue greenish eyes into my ember ones.

"Yours eyes... Are a bane to my existence" I whisper as hoarsely and as quietly that the words merely leave my mouth and the softness of his lips brushes mine.

"You're funny." he says in voice as low as mine.

I smile faintly. I’ve never thought of myself as a funny girl, but I’m happy that he thinks so...

We are awkward together for a few moments unsure what to say. The silence would be much less noticeable over texts.

This could be the moment y/n. Don't be afraid. All your life you've kept your urges under check. Kept your heart. Your feelings in hiding for every boy you ever loved but that wasn't reality. Reality is now. This is reality.

"I can't really tell how beautiful your eyes are."

"I think that works."

And we close the gap, softly ,yet the moment has the fierceness of its own.

"You really are a fairy tale..."

"Which one?"

"When a Sociopath Loves."

We both chuckle.