Cherish Me, Daddy
And he just claimed his territory on Lucen’s face, while I stood here holding a flute of flat champagne, wondering how I’m supposed to breathe in air that has just been proven to belong to someone else.
I couldn’t move. The music swelled. Someone clinked a glass for a toast. And I stood, frozen, in my wrong-colored skin, under the weight of a kiss I hadn’t earned and could never erase. The cold wasn’t in the air anymore. It was in my veins, in my marrow, a perfect, silent, all-consuming frost.
I approached Lucen slowly.
“You didn’t stop him,” I said quietly.
Lucen didn’t look at me immediately. “It would have caused a scene,” he replied.