Sweet Agony by Charlotte Stein Read Free Book Online Page B

thinking more because you just gave me all of these books,’ I say, but I can tell he still doesn’t see it. Either that, or he believes he is extremely convincing in his cruelty. So convincing that I would carry on believing in it no matter how desperate he sounds – and he does sound desperate. He buries it deep beneath ten layers of sneering contempt, but I can still hear it. Somehow, I think I always could.
    ‘Ah, so that is the issue – you have selective hearing. I just confined you to the library that time forgot and told you to somehow tidy it up, did I not?’
    ‘Oh, yes, absolutely you did. But the real reason is to give me the books,’ I insist, and barely even balk at his answer. ‘That seems at best like wishful thinking,’ he says, but to my joy my confidence is undimmed. He is lying. I know he is lying. And as his edifice crumbles, so mine grows stronger.

    I can even feel a smile beginning to bloom on my lips.
    A teasing smile, followed by teasing words.
    ‘So were you going to stop me reading then?’
    ‘I might have done. I just might.’
    ‘You were going to force me not to.’
    ‘Yes, absolutely, I was. No question.’
    ‘Yank the books from my desperate hands and –’ I start, but I get no further than the gesture of clutching imaginary stories to my chest. He holds up one hand like a man about to hear that his wife has been murdered. He even closes his eyes, as though the rest is too unbearable to hear.
    And his words back up that insane assessment.
    They back it up , they back it up, oh, my God, they back it up.
    ‘Stop there. Damn you, stop. That is quite enough. No, I was not about to do such a despicable act. I would sooner pull out my own heart and put it on a pike. There, are you satisfied, you unbearable creature?’ he says, and all I can think is: how could I be anything but? He just confirmed what I only suspected. He confirmed it so hard that all I can say is ‘I am’, after which he just digs himself in deeper.
    ‘I have no idea why. It still does not explain why you remained here when I laughed as you struggled to climb a gate, and refused to show you my face, and said all manner of cruel things,’ he says, and after that it is all I can do to contain the bright burst of unmitigated joy and amusement and wonder that explodes inside me. I have to bite back a grin, because oh, my God.
    Oh, my God. Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God , I was right .
    ‘Yes, but you do all those things to deliberately drive people away, don’t you?’ I ask, then watch with a great and glorious glee as he fights to say no. He wants to so badly that he is practically drooling at the thought. He gropes for it blindly in the dark, and when he comes up short it maddens him. His jaw tightens until I think I hear the bones squeak. He has to squeeze out his words.

    But he does, and it is marvellous .
    ‘Even if I do, you should have left long before now.’
    I mean, he did just admit it, didn’t he?
    And if he did, is it all right that I sound breathless when I reply?
    ‘If that was really what you wanted you’re going about it all the wrong way. You should be dumb as a rock and sneer at me whenever I am the least bit smart. Never play the piano because you hear me singing or write letters to me like we live in the nineteenth century or give me a library, and always make sure you are utterly predictable in every way. Then all of this would be just like my life up till now, and I could leave without a second glance,’ I say, and oh, my God, his expression when I do. It shifts from baffled and irritated to dawning comprehension to something like resignation, all in the flicker of an eyebrow.
    And I know I’m reading it right.
    I know I am, because he admits it.
    ‘I suppose I was doomed from the start. The very idea of trying to scare you off in such a manner is utterly abhorrent to me in every way.’
    ‘Then it seems you are stuck with me.’
    ‘Much to my regret and horror,’ he says,