It's a fact that you can't help who you fall in love with. And for Rosaline Davenport and him, it definitely shouldn't have been each other.
Because, sometimes, love stories have blood on them.
[warning: this is the mother of all slow-burns]
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【 18.
Eighteen
Shafaq 】
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[ Shafaq • twilight ]
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ZACHARY FOLLOWS HER through the dark, dragging his feet through the twelve inches of snow that has accumulated around the hotel despite the maintenance staff having cleared the entrance and driveway only a little while ago. The glow from the lampposts looming tall and steady above them cast shadows across the white-dusted ground, like someone has spilt a barrel of liquid gold into the snow and stained the white flakes in some places.
He doesn’t call after Rosaline, not just yet. They’re still within the hotel’s perimeters, and it is only after she walks past the edge of the building’s outer wall and turns around the corner, disappearing into a dimly-lit path that doesn’t fall into the vicinity of the hotel that Zachary picks up his pace, shortening the distance between them.
His legs brush against the shrubs of red camellias that border the unfamiliar path, the movement causing snowflakes to fall off the petals and leaves, sending waves of a soft rustling sound into the winter air.
Rosaline’s footsteps begin to slow down and she comes to a gradual stop next to a lamppost. The spill of light from the bulb above captures her in its beam and illuminates her figure against the black sky and white earth. It creates a hauntingly beautiful sight—a floating halo of gold rising up around her, emphasising the snowflakes drifting in the air as they latch onto her dark locks flowing down her back before melting into the strands and glistening like silver dust on her reddish-gold hair.
Zachary stops for a minute, his chest twisting at the melancholic view, before he exhales softly and resumes making his way towards her.
The more closer he gets, the more visible it becomes how much she’s trembling. Her hand reaches out in what’s definitely an attempt to support her shaking body, her palm firmly pressing itself against the pole of the streetlamp as her fingers struggle and then fail to wrap themselves around the rather large surface.
That must make her angry—because suddenly, she lets out a broken growl of frustration, sounding like it comes from the very depth of her heart, and she pulls her arm back before letting her fist collide with the pole. A sickening noise splits the hushed air into two, and Zachary watches with bated breath as her elbow juts out backwards again, her balled-up fist clenching as she aims another painful punch at the hard surface.
Zachary crosses the remaining distance between them, sticking his arm out from behind her just as she throws her fist forward. His palm catches the blow of the punch and the force of it slams the back of his hand into the pole. Ignoring the sudden flare of pain across his knuckles, Zachary is quick to let his fingers wrap around her fist and tug her away from the streetlamp.
