21. Nico

21

NICO

I couldn’t do this anymore. I was lying to myself if I thought we could make this last much longer, and it was never clearer to me than when Cyrus picked me up and set me gently on the couch before draping a blanket over me and tucking it between the cushions and the backrest. If he weren’t as caring, it might have been easier. But this – this was too much.

“You’re too good to me,” I mumbled.

Cyrus scoffed. “Nonsense. There is no such thing as being too good to someone you care about.”

“Or love ?” I prodded.

Cyrus’ lips trembled. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “Yes, I believe that applies to love as well.”

I pulled my arms out from underneath the blanket. I reached out to grab Cyrus’ arm and pull him back down to me level. “It’s not fair,” I said.

Cyrus knelt on the floor next to the couch, scooting a little closer to me. He still towered over me, but at least he wasn’t so far away from my face that I could barely see his expression. The problem was, even closer to my face, I still couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“What do you mean?” he asked, smiling and cocking his head curiously.

“What I mean is that we can’t keep pretending we’ve got something substantial here,” I told him. “It’s not fair to either of us. I’m keeping you from living the life you deserve and you, well, you love me too much to make this decision yourself.”

“But I thought we’ve been having fun.”

“We have been – at least, we were. It’s gone past fun now, though. You’ve caught feelings for me and when my infatuation dies out, there won’t be anything left for us to hold onto.”

Cyrus nodded slowly. I knew I didn’t love him. I’d always been honest about that. But at this point, he was blinded by his feelings and wouldn’t see things any other way unless I made him. I hated doing that to him and as his dark eyes turned dull and sad, I couldn’t help but wonder if there had been some better way to let him down.

“I understand.” He stood up, looming over me like the monster that he was – the monster I’d been so intrigued by a few weeks ago.

I still held a fascination with him, but the longer I spent with him, the more I realized that he was just like anyone else. His body looked different than mine, or, say, an incubus’, but he had the same desires as any human would.

He wanted to love and to be loved, to have someone to come home to after a long day of work, to wake up next to that person in the morning and plant a kiss on his cheek. It was so little to ask for, but I was never going to be that person for him. I’d spent too long building my life around a different set of ideals and it was too late to change them now.

“I guess I should go,” I said quietly, lifting the blanket off of myself so I could get up.

“No, it’s too late for you to leave tonight,” Cyrus insisted. “You should sleep here. I’ll bring you another blanket for the couch if you’d like, or you can sleep in my bed and I’ll stay out here.”

“Oh, Cyrus, I can’t do that.” I blinked a few times, fighting back the tears I hadn’t prepared for. “But thank you for your generosity. You’ve always been so generous with me.”

He smiled sadly. “Not always. In the very beginning, you asked for something that I didn’t give you. It’s too late now, and I apologize for making you wait. I simply wasn’t ready, and neither were you.”

“It’s okay,” I replied. “It doesn’t really matter. I had a lot of fun with you, and you’ve opened up a whole new world to me. Someday maybe I’ll have my fantasies fulfilled, but I kind of asked to be put in my place after matching with someone who was looking for something else entirely. I never should have tried to force it.”

I sat up and Cyrus handed me my clothing folded neatly into a pile that looked more like doll clothes in his hands. I hurried to put everything back on, the awkwardness seeping into the room with each second that dragged by.

“I shall see you again someday, I’m sure,” Cyrus said as he walked me to the door. “At the library, perhaps?”

I turned around to take one last look at him and smiled. He was unbearably handsome in this lighting, even with a deep sadness dulling his eyes. “Perhaps.”