“Let me help,” he offers, his face angled down, sweet and pliant, his lashes enviably long, his eyes so dark that someone less careful would go tumbling straight into their depths, never to resurface again.

I keep my feet rooted firmly to the ground. “That’s fine,” I try to say, but he’s already untying the delicate straps of my shoe with quick, nimble fingers, sliding it off slowly and bringing my ankle down to rest on his bent knee. He sucks in a quiet breath when he sees the angry red blisters marring my heel, the skin rubbed raw and a short walk away from bleeding. There’s hardly any inch of skin that isn’t damaged in some way, between the mottled purplish-yellow bruises and the dark lines from where the leather edges dug in too deep.

“I know you like your high heels, and I’m not here to get in the way of that,” he says, “but do you have to wear them everywhere you go? Don’t you own a single pair of comfortable walking shoes?”

“It’s a habit,” I tell him.

“But it’s hurting you,” he says.

As if you actually care. My pain has never meant anything to him before—it’s all just for show, it must be. But whatever his real motive is, he’s more committed to this act than I expected. I can only stare as Cyrus Sui peels the pink Band-Aid and presses it over my broken skin, smoothing it out with his thumb, his touch shockingly tender. And for just a few seconds, I remember him from the time before he ruined my life. When he was only a boy who’d picked up a wounded bird after it had slammed into our classroom window, cradling its tiny, shivering body in his palms, insisting on caring for it even when everyone else told him to let it go. I remember the look in his eyes, concern and fear and stubborn hope. I’d done my best to banish those memories, to destroy any evidence that suggested he might not be a wholly horrible person, because then it was too confusing. It made hating him too difficult.

My confusion only deepens alongside my suspicion when he helps me slide my shoe back on like it’s a glass slipper, chivalrous and fake as a fairy-tale prince. It’s ridiculous behavior. Borderline disturbing. Like a murderer stroking your hair after stabbing you in the back.

“What is this, Cyrus?” I demand, unable to take it anymore. “What are you trying to achieve here?”

He blinks up at me with perfect, pretend innocence. “Preventing you from limping the rest of the trip? You’re welcome, by the way.”

I grit my teeth. I have no idea how to talk to him when he’s like this.