“You’re insane,” I told him, and stood up to dress.He hugged me from behind, pressing hard against me, rubbing his smooth chest along my back. He spoke into my ear, “Insane for you, my love.”

“He lay down beside me, pulling me back to his chest and throwing his arm over me. “Mine,” he whispered in my ear.”

“I loved your eyes first,” I told him , repeating his words from a few weeks ago back to him, because it was true, and because we were two halves of a whole—we had been all along, and he’d been so clever to know it right away. I used to think it was insanity, but now I was beginning to think that it was pure brilliance. “I see it, too, James. I see the other half of my soul in you.”

“Do you…love me?” I asked him, my chesthurting.“That’s a silly question,” he said, stroking my cheek. “An unnecessary question. I’ve never made a secret of my feelings, Bianca. I know you’re a skeptic, but you must have realized that I fell for you right away.”

“…I processed that. Stephan was gay. He had told me as much. And she had told me that they were purely platonic. I believed them both. Why does she seek him out in her sleep? Were they really so close? A part of me was insanely jealous at the thought that he was that important to her, but I knew instinctively that I couldn’t indulge that jealousy. The two of them were too close to tolerate anyone coming between them, and I wouldn’t be making that mistake.”

“I love you. I know I said I needed time, but that was a big fat lie. I fell in love with you more than a year ago, and those feelings never went away, not for me. I was just trying to protect my heart when I told you that I needed more time to fall for you. I've been here all along.”

“Yes, you scare me,” I told him, after a very long silence, while I processed his answer. “But I’m irrevocably fucked up, so you excite me in equal measures. I find it liberating, to let someone control me…”