A Timeless Place

Chapter 47

Selfish kisses and second chances

His kiss was soft but fierce. My body screamed at the warmness and familiarity of it all. It was as though I had been starved my whole life and the kiss tasted sweeter than it ever had. All my feelings came rushing back and I fell back at the sheer force of raw emotion and plain vulnerability. I looked back into his eyes and could only see what he had done. The hurt and betrayal those grey eyes had inflicted stared right back at me. They had no right to look at me that way.

There were a few whistles from the class and Mr. Coulter cleared his throat, "Mr. Bane, that certainly was not in the script."

"Well, Aegeus and Medea have a child later on. I was just moving the plot line along," Wes shrugged at him.

I was still in shock. Did he seriously just kiss me so casually in front of the whole class? After all that had happened that drove me to avoid him for the past few days?

My hand snapped out, slapping Wes hard across his face. The loud smack resounded through every corner and crevice of the classroom and the class suddenly fell silent. Wes was taken aback, slowly placing a hand over his now-reddening cheek as he looked at me in shock.

"May Hermes, protector of travellers, bring you
Safe to your home, Aegeus; may you accomplish
All that you so earnestly desire;
For your noble heart wins our goodwill," Eli broke the pregnant silence to finish our part. She then shouted, "Said no one ever, Bane!"

I didn't hear the reaction to that since I had already sprinted for the door, slamming it shut behind me as I ran for the exit. Luckily, the hallways were empty and no one stopped me for running in the corridors. But that didn't stop Wes from pulling me back just outside the main doors.

"Kitty, wait!" he pleaded. "Just-"

"Don't call me Kitty," I hissed at him, wriggling my arm free from his grasp.

"Mason and Renee broke up," he told me. "I-"

"Good for you," I spat at him, still trying to get away. "Now you can have her all to yourself."

"That's not what I mean-."

"Good riddance, Wes," I cut him off before he tried to even justify himself.

"Would you just shut up and listen to me for one bloody second!" Wes burst out. Anger and frustration was written all over his face. It was the first time I had actually heard Wes shouting in a rage, let alone at me. My arm went limp in his grasp and I was shocked into place.

He looked just as shocked as I was at his outburst. But instead of telling me what he had wanted to say, he shook his head and said instead, "You know what, just forget it. Forget me and forget all of this. I'm giving up, Kitty. I tried, I really did. But you refuse to see past your own damn stubbornness all the effing time. I was always there for you and always- always believed in you no matter what and stood by you. But you never did the same for me. At the first sign of uncertainty, you just ran away. You want to know why or are you too stubborn to even admit to that?" He raised an eyebrow at me and continued.

I angrily pursed my lips. So he was blaming all this on me?! The nerve...

But he continued on regardless.

"It's because you're too scared to put your walls down and let your heart get too involved. You're scared of letting yourself go and taking the jump to the next level with me. You know what? I am too. Bloody scared! Because I've been there before and I've been badly hurt just like you. But the difference between you and I is that at least I'm willing to continue with my life and take risks with my heart again. All for you. But you're not. You've been stuck in the same place this whole time. And you'll always be stuck in that phase where losing your mother is the only thing that defines you. You need to get past that phase. If not for me, at least do it for yourself, Kitty. And even for your mom. You owe her that much, at least."

His grey eyes pierced mine and I suddenly felt very transparent and vulnerable through his scrutinising look, as though everything inside of me was exposed in the daylight. And it pushed me off the edge. He cheated on me and here he was telling me to move on from my own problems!

"You're talking to me about putting down my walls?" I raised my eyebrows incredulously. My voice was low, cool and more distant than I had ever imagined it would be with anyone, let alone Wes. "Me? The one who always opened up my heart to you." I laughed bitterly. "I laid my heart on my sleeve for you, Wes. It was all yours. I always told you everything. Yet you never opened up to me. What happened between you and Renee in the past?"

It was now Wes' turn to purse his lips together into a stubborn line.

"That was why you told me to stay away from her, isn't it? So I wouldn't know?" I laughed derisively this time. "I actually believed you when you said she wasn't a good person. But it wasn't her that was 'sneaky and manipulative'- It was you. She's engaged to your brother and you had to get in the way of that, didn't you? You just had to go and ruin their lives and mine!"

"You don't know what you're talking about," Wes' voice was dangerously quiet.

"I didn't when I fell for you, but I know better now. You're nothing but a selfish jerk," my words seemed to have an instant effect on him. My arm slipped through his hand and I could see that the resolute that was in his eyes at the beginning of this conversation had instantly faded.

"Goodbye, Kitty," with that he turned his back on me and walked away without looking back. I opened my mouth and closed it. What could I say? I couldn't even will my mouth to form a goodbye. My lips were as frozen as my heart. And Wes' words were like a million ice picks hammered into it. I didn't know just how many more blows my heart could handle before it shattered completely and irreparably.

So I did what I always did best. I ran. I ran past the school gates and through the winding streets past Chance café until I reached a park and sat a bench, gasping for breath.

Just what had happened? He was in the wrong, not me! He was the one who broke off his brother's engagement. He was the one who made me believe he had fallen for me. He was the one who cheated me.

I threw my scarf off from around my shoulders and scrunched it up in frustration and anger.

He was the one who broke my heart.

I trusted him. And he hurt me.

I buried my face into the scarf and crumbled.

I remembered my mother's funeral clearly. It was a large gathering. After all, she was loved by many. But what I remembered most vividly was a boy I had met after my mother's funeral. I had never seen him before and he sat right outside the cemetery, watching the proceeding until it was over. He was an odd boy. He thought that one shouldn't cry unless the person deserved to be cried over. He refused to cry over what had hurt him. He was envious that I could shed my tears over a deserving mother when he could only suffer in silence. But I cried now, hoping that every tear shed away with it some of the unbearable pain and loneliness that I felt.

"A selfish act."

Crying was indeed a selfish act. But it was Wes who had been selfish. Wes...

Just then. a set of footsteps stopped right in front of me.