"Yes," she whispered. "Don't give me time to doubt it."

She kissed him but he didn't kiss her back. She frowned, pulling back.

His expressions had shifted. The shadow was back. The look of destruction and pain. Her numbness began to melt away, leaving her with a chill in her bones.

He took a step back and she slid down from the counter.

"What's wrong?" she questioned.

"I want you to want this just as desperately as I want it. I can't touch you right now, not when you have that fucking look on your face. Like you're so far out of reach from me. Like this is just a distraction, a spur of a moment thing for you. I know you'll regret it once the night is over. You'll spiral and you'll regret it. I don't want that."

The numbness had melted completely now and she stared at him, mouth slightly agape. A tear rolled down her cheek.

He was so fucking pathetic.

"Leave." she said, turning her back to him.

"There's something else you need to know before I do. It's important that you know this. It'll make hating me easier."

Her heart sank to the bottom of her stomach. She turned around and she saw him so clearly. Saw his demons lurking in the darkness of his eyes. The fire from the previous arguments had extinguished, leaving a terrifying cold behind.

"I have..." He let out a sharp breath, running a hand through his hair. He looked absolutely crazy. Yet still so beautiful.

"Ethan, what?" she yelled. "Just say it."

"I have killed people before, Amelia. I have murdered someone."

She stopped breathing. Everything around her slowed to a vexing buzz. She swayed on her feet, her vision getting blurry. She held onto the countertop to steady herself. He tried to get to her but she took panicked steps back.

"Do not touch me, Ethan. Do not touch me," she warned.

The man whose hands were all over her a second ago was a murderer.

But she knew Ethan. At least she liked to believe that she did. He wasn't the most open person but she had never thought him capable of such a horrendous crime.

"Wha... who?" she managed to gasp out.

"The guy at the bar. Two years ago."

"No."

"He had it coming."

"I asked you. I asked what happened to him. You said you took care of him. That's what taking care meant?"

"I couldn't have told you back then. You were already scared and it would have made things worse."

"Why... How can you?"

"Why can't I? He was a rapist."

"You had no right. You could have handed him over to the cops." she said, shivering a little whenever she dared to look up at him.

"You've seen our legal system closer than anyone. You know they would have just let him walk."

"You didn't had to get your hands bloody for that, Ethan."

"So, would you rather he walked away and then do whatever he was going to do to you to some other innocent victim?"

She paused. Why was that starting to sound more and more okay to her?

"You could have prevented that some other way. How could you take a life so easily?"

"No other way was justice enough for what he had tried to do to you. And do not try to fucking fight me on this, Lia. I took a life to protect you, to keep you safe and I would gladly take a thousand more if it meant nobody would dare look at you the way he had."

She stared at him, unblinking and still. This was dangerous. His obsession for her was dangerous and she was scared. Because now she knew what he was capable of. His reasoning wasn't wrong but she couldn't shake the chill from her bones. Couldn't accept the image her brain kept conjuring. Of him standing over a dead body with a gun in his hands and an unfeeling, cold mask on his face.

The man in her head wasn't the same man who'd held her for hours while she cried, the man who had shared her grief beside her hospital bed. There were two different versions of Ethan now and she didn't know to accept both of them together.

The cold, dangerous version and the warm, loving version.

"Who's the other person?"

"What?"

"You said you've killed people. Who's the other person?"

He took in a deep breath, his eyes roving over her face. She tried to hide her emotions, put on a mask of indifference but she was too tired.

"I think it's been enough confessions for today. All you need to know right now is that that was also to protect someone, someone important to me. I know you're scared and you think I'm a monster and you're right. I wish I could tell you that you're not or tell you anymore lies to comfort you but this is my truth. The ugly truth I was too scared to tell anyone. It's in the open for you. If you can accept me with it, I'm all yours until my last breath but if not, I'll walk away and never look back. It's a promise."

Before she could even process his words, he had turned and walked away. Her heart struggled against the restraints of her mind, desperate to reach out for him and stop him but she felt like she was made of stone. She stood rooted to her spot until he closed the door behind him.

She dropped to her knees, her face in her hands as she cried the emotions of the night out, his flowers and cake sitting forgotten on the countertop.

A/N: The range of emotions I went through alongside Amelia these last three chapters is insane and now I'm completely drained