ALL THE WORDS WE COULDN'T SAY

I wished I focused more on the details, I thought as I watched Persy walk into my accom and hand me a draft essay to mark. We'd been so close to a point we didn't need to communicate through words. It was like our souls had morphed into one. Then I fucked it up. We never got around to the details.

She was wearing low-rise jeans that flared out from the knees, a pair of black loafers that awfully resembled the ones she wore when she came to my house that night, and a beige, crew-neck jumper. She looked good. Too good. So good and even better because she didn't try to look good. She only cared about comfort and maybe I'm biased because, in my eyes, she could never look bad in anything.

I knew so much about her, and also nothing at all. I knew the deepest of secrets that she hid from the world but I didn't know the surface things like... her favourite colour, or her preferred hairstyle. What did she like to eat? What was her favourite season?

There was so much I wanted to know about Persy but I couldn't ask. We had a rule, no talk outside the work, even though we'd already broken it.

I couldn't stop thinking about that kiss. I wanted to kiss her again but also didn't want to because I didn't want her to cry again. Had I hurt her that much? Of course, you did, you dickhead!

I knew she was thinking about it too. She was also looking around my room more as I went through her work with a red pen. I offered her a seat but she still hadn't sat down. Maybe because she couldn't bear sitting next to me in silence, and would rather sit when I had something to say about the work. Her eyes froze on the rolled-up twenty-pound notes on my nightstand. Great. I'm an arsehole and a crackhead to her now.

"Are you done?" She'd caught me staring at her. I looked back at the essay and still had half of it to go through. Her arms folded across her chest. She was pissed. Rightfully so. I had no right to stare at her body like I had a chance with her.

"No, sorry."

She huffed. That was when I noticed she wasn't just pissed that I was checking her out. She was frustrated. Like she wanted to give me a piece of her mind but couldn't... because of the rule.

I finished marking her paper. "You followed the plan which is great. But your wording seems off. This is an ethics paper but you hardly mention ethics."

"I made my cases."

"Yes but you're not applying them to ethics. What impact could this have on the legal system and the public? Think about that."

"Okay." She took the paper from me. I thought she'd leave straight away but she just stood there, waiting for her body to catch up with her brain and spill whatever she needed to say. "Listen, about the other day..."

"What about it?" More importantly, did it mean you still have feelings for me?

"In all honestly, Killian... since you're no longer important enough in my life to lie to... I've missed you."

She missed me. She fucking missed me. The way she said it had my heart and stomach doing summersaults.

"I can't believe that I miss you even though you did something so despicable. And it's fucked because it reminded me of Chris. You just flipped like a switch. I came to you to tell you how proud I was of you, and that I still wanted to be friends and... and you told me I was beyond fucking wrong." The hurt on her face killed me. It felt worse than the pits of hell.

"Please, don't compare me to him. Anything but him."

"You used my abuse to one-up me, Killian. If anything, you're worse."

"No!" I slammed my fists against my desk, unable to take it anymore. "No! No! No!" I screamed as if I could push out the venom she'd just injected into me.