Chapter Thirty-Seven: Hatred in the Rain
The inside of the car was a sealed crypt of tension, thick enough to choke on. Only the rhythmic thump of the wipers cutting through the downpour broke the silence. Rain streaked the windows like tears on a dark mirror.
"I hate you."
The words were a whisper, a prayer, a curse. I meant them with every shattered piece of me. They hung in the air, fragile and venomous.
He didn't speak. His profile was a granite cliff against the storm-lit night, jaw clenched, knuckles bone-white on the steering wheel. The silence was his answer, his defense, his crime.
The whisper became a snarl, then a raw scream torn from my throat. "I HATE YOU!"
The sound bounced off the glass, a desperate, furious thing. I slammed my fist against the dashboard, a hollow, impotent thud. "You think you can just… just take away whatever you want? You took them too!" My voice fractured, splintering into ragged sobs that stole my breath. "Leo… Toro… they were mine, too, you bastard! You didn't even have the decency to tell me!"
Tears were a hot, shameful flood, burning tracks through the grime and mascara on my cheeks. "You take everything! My family, my peace, my heart! Who the hell died and made you my god?!"
I hit the door next, the leather absorbing the blow without a sound. "ANSWER ME!"
A bitter, hysterical laugh escaped me. "Right. You're above it. The perfect, untouchable monster in a five-thousand-dollar suit. Congratulations. You fooled everyone. You even fooled me."
My voice dropped to a shattered whisper, aimed at the rain-streaked glass. "You knew. You knew I'd get attached. That's the worst part. You looked at me with them and you knew, and you still ripped them away." I turned my face fully to the window, my reflection a ghost of misery. "I always get left. I should be an expert by now. But my stupid, traitorous heart… it never learns to stop hoping."
Silence, heavier than the rain.
"Fuck fate," I breathed to my ghost. "Fuck love. Fuck you. And fuck this life that dangles something beautiful in front of me just so it can watch me break when it's snatched away."
The car swerved violently, tires screeching on the wet asphalt as he pulled over onto the muddy shoulder, engulfed in the storm's darkness. The engine died with a click.
His door opened. The storm roared in. Then mine.
He stood there, rain sluicing off his coat, plastering his dark hair to his forehead. His eyes were twin storms in the gloom.
"Don't touch me," I spat, curling tighter into the seat.
He didn't listen. He never did. He reached in, his hands closing around my waist. Not gentle. Not rough. Just inescapable. He pulled me out into the deluge.
The cold was a shock, the rain a million icy needles. I stumbled, my heels sinking into the mud. He held me upright, crouching slightly so our faces were level in the downpour. Water ran in rivulets down the sharp planes of his face.
"You think you're the only one bleeding?" His voice was a low, raw growl, frayed at the edges, barely audible over the rain. "You think it didn't tear me apart to see you cry over something I did?"
I shoved at his chest with all my strength. He didn't budge. "You should have TOLD ME!" I screamed into the wind. "You decide everything! My life, my pain, my joy! I'm not a doll, Taehyun! I feel! I break!"
A sob wracked me, my body trembling violently from cold and anguish. "Then why?" The word was a plea, a weapon. "Why do you keep making me hate you when all I ever wanted…" My voice broke completely. "…was to love someone without being terrified they'd vanish?"
He had no answer. Just the rain, and the devastating pain in his eyes that mirrored my own.
---
He'd bundled me back into the passenger seat, a soaked, shivering mess. We drove again, the silence now a living entity of shared devastation. The smell of wet wool, expensive cologne, and despair filled the car.
The numbness began to crack again, replaced by a fresh, white-hot wave of fury. I turned in my seat, my movements clumsy with cold and liquor and heartbreak.
"I hate you," I announced, my voice flat. Then I balled my fist and drove it into his shoulder.
He flinched, a slight tightening of his jaw, but his eyes stayed locked on the road.
I hit him again. "I fucking hate you!"
"Why?!" My voice rose to a scream, tears mingling with the rainwater on my face. "Why couldn't you just say something?! You knew what they meant to me! How could you just… erase them? Erase me?!"
Another punch, weaker this time, my strength bleeding out into the void. I was shaking uncontrollably. "I'm so tired, Taehyun," I gasped, wrapping my arms around myself. "I'm tired of being the strong one. The guarded one. The one who has to be okay. Do you have any idea what it's like? To be so scared of loving someone that you build a fortress, and then watch them become the only thing that can destroy it?"
He drove faster, his breathing a sharp, controlled counterpoint to my ragged gasps. I could see the tension in him, a bowstring pulled to its limit.
"I hate you," I whispered, leaning my head back, utterly spent. "But I hate myself more… for letting you matter this much." A hollow laugh. "I wish I'd never let them in. I wish I'd never let you in."
---
SCREECH.
The car lurched to a violent halt on the empty, rain-lashed road. He threw it into park, the sound harsh in the sudden stillness.
"Enough," he growled, the word vibrating with a fury he'd been containing. He turned to me, his eyes blazing in the dark cab. "You are drunk, reckless, and out of your goddamn mind."
The final thread of my control snapped.
"YOU DON'T GET TO TELL ME HOW TO FEEL!" I shrieked, launching myself at him across the console. My hands fisted in his sodden shirt. "You don't get to act like you care when you're the architect of every crack in me!"
He reached for me, maybe to restrain, maybe to comfort. It didn't matter.
I moved with feral desperation. My mouth found the hard curve of his shoulder where it met his neck, and I bit down. Hard. The taste of rain, wool, and salt filled my mouth.
A sharp hiss escaped him, but he didn't throw me off. His hands came up to grip my wrists, but I was a wild thing, all teeth and nails and broken sounds. I bit the heel of his hand, feeling the ridge of bone.
"I hate you! I hate you! I HATE YOU!" The screams were guttural, animal, each one a piece of my soul tearing loose.
"Stop it! What is wrong with you?!" His voice was raised now, laced with a panic I'd never heard.
I reared back, chest heaving, my face a mask of rain, tears, and utter devastation. "You want to know what's wrong with me? You!" I shoved at him with all my weight. He didn't move an inch. "You forced this life on me! You whispered promises in the dark and then left me in the light! You humiliated me! Made me invisible in a room full of people who wanted you! And when I finally… finally found something pure, something that was just mine to love…" My voice dissolved into wet, choking sobs. "…you took it. Without a word. Like I was nothing. Like my heart was nothing."
I slumped back, the fight draining out of me, leaving only a hollow, trembling shell. "You left me alone," I whispered, the sound swallowed by the storm. "You always leave me alone when it hurts the most." I pressed my forehead to the cold window. "Why does everything that loves me have to leave?"
Before he could form a reply—before he could offer another empty word—my hand shot out. CLICK.
I shoved the door open and tumbled out into the torrential night.
"I'm done."
"WAIT—!" His shout was ripped away by the wind.
But I was already running. Or stumbling. My heels skidded in the mud and I kicked them off, bare feet slapping the cold, wet asphalt. The rain was a furious baptism, soaking me to the skin in seconds, plastering my hair, my clothes, to my body. I didn't know where I was going. I just had to get away from the source of the pain.
I heard his car door slam, heard his footsteps pounding behind me.
"____! Stop!"
I didn't. I walked faster, arms wrapped around my shaking frame, the world blurring into a watercolor of misery.
He caught up easily, his long stride swallowing the distance. A large hand closed around my upper arm, spinning me around.
"Let GO of me!"
In that moment, under the wrathful sky, something in me broke clean through. As he tried to pull me to him, his face a portrait of anger and fear, I surged up on my toes. My five-foot frame was dwarfed by his six-foot presence, but fury made me tall. I didn't kiss him. I attacked.
My mouth crashed against his, not in passion, but in a final, desperate transfer of all my poison, all my hurt. And when his lips met mine, shock stilling him for a second, I bit down. Hard. The metallic tang of blood bloomed between us, vivid and real against the taste of rain.
He didn't flinch. He didn't push me away.
A ragged sound tore from his throat—part pain, part something infinitely darker. His hands came up, not to my wrists, but to cradle my face, his thumbs rough against my wet cheeks. He held me there, letting me bite, letting me pour my hatred into him. Then, slowly, he took control. He leaned down, bending to my height, and pulled my mouth more firmly against his, swallowing my violence, my sobs, my broken breaths. He kissed me back, not with tenderness, but with a devastating, consuming intensity that mirrored the storm around us—a clash of fury, possession, and a love so twisted it felt like hate.
I went limp in his arms, the last of my strength gone, my body wracked with tremors that had nothing to do with the cold. The world tilted dangerously.
My knees buckled. The edges of my vision swam with dark spots, the roar of the rain fading to a distant hum.
The last thing I saw was his face, bleeding and anguished, hovering above me. The last thing I heard was my name on his lips, not a command, but a shattered plea, as the blackness rushed up to claim me.
He caught me before I hit the ground.