Page 91 of Love Him Like Water

That silly, fanciful girl with hearts in her eyes.

No idea what it was actually like to love a man like him.

“Tell me he hasn’t been hurting you,” Nico demanded as I finally pulled my legs off of his lap, drawing them up to my chest instead, wrapping my arms around them, and squeezing. Like maybe that would make me feel less broken.

“No,” I said, voice low, eyes squeezed shut because I felt the telltale stinging in them again, and I’d embarrassed myself enough for one day.

“Lore, you can’t cry like that to me and not tell me what happened. My mind is going to think the worst.”

“He doesn’t… he doesn’t care about me,” I decided, his face and voice flashing back into my mind, yelling at me, sending me away.

Someone who cared didn’t talk to you like that.

Someone who cared didn’t use your body then ignore you.

But I couldn’t tell Nico that.

He would charge over to Brooklyn and murder Renzo on the spot if he knew.

“What makes you say that?” Nico asked, trying really hard to be a neutral party, even though I knew he wanted to pummel Renzo since the day I agreed to marry him.

“He just… he’s never around. He never… talks to me. He just… he doesn’t care.”

My memory flashed back then, thinking of him coming into the room with a heating pad, with chocolate, with pain patches. Of him holding me gently.

Of him coming into the guest room I’d shut myself up in, gathering me in his arms, and bringing me downstairs to serve me dinner.

There were times when it felt like he…

No.

No.

I wasn’t going to keep making excuses for him. I wasn’t going to pretend that the breadcrumbs he tossed to me were enough to sustain me.

The edge between grief and hope was razor thin.

I was tired of getting sliced open teetering on it.

“Okay,” Nico said, reaching out to pat my wrist. “You can stay here,” he said.

“No, I can’t,” I said, suddenly realizing that there was no escape. I was married. There was an alliance.

He may have been a man made of bombs.

And I may have been sick of being his rubble.

But there was no escaping this.

“Yes, you can. If there’s an issue, we will handle it. You don’t have to think about anything but yourself right now,” he said.

I wanted to believe him.

I wanted… a lot of things.

But I was just so damn tired.

“Can I take a nap in your guest room?” I asked.

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