Page 41 of Redeem

“Oh no. You’ve told me nothing. But that’s going to change,” she said.

It would, as much as I hated the thought. “Yeah, it will,” I said.

She looked at me then, quiet, and shook her head. “I would have left you at the hardware store if I knew you were going to be this much trouble,” she said, grumbling.

I laughed, then leaned forward to kiss her.

“No, you wouldn’t have,” I said.

She smiled.

“No, I wouldn’t have.”

Eighteen

Dana

I stared at him, the smile that he had somehow managed to pull from me still on my lips, the desire to speak so strong I could barely stop it.

The idea of relieving myself of my burdens, telling someone things about me I had never told anyone else.

Letting someone know me.

That terrified me.

“Why are you pushing?”

I hated the tremor in my voice, but even more I hated how relieved I felt when he cupped my cheek.

He didn’t answer immediately, just held my face in his hand, stared down at me. There was a deep furrowed in his brow, one that told me of the earnestness of his thoughts.

“Because,” he finally said, his voice still that calm, patient, not-whisper that I had come to care for so much. “Because I don’t want you to be alone anymore. You don’t have to be,” he said.

I gave a laugh, the sound bitter, but one that broke with tears at the end. “You’re not the first person to tell me that, Ciprian.”

I broke away from him, looked down, trying to reestablish the distance that made me comfortable. Ciprian wasn’t dissuaded.

He stroked my cheek, moved his face so that he was again in my line of sight.

“I mean it,” he said.

I broke away, laughed again, anger burning inside me. Anger at him for being so presumptuous, anger at myself for how desperately I wanted it to be true.

“You’re not the first person who has said that either,” I said, spitting the words on an angry, scornful voice.

He didn’t appear affected at all, something that only intensified my anger.

“You want the truth?” I asked.

He didn’t respond, but at this point I didn’t really see him. Instead I was in the past, saw the foolish woman I had been, the woman that he wanted me to be again. That he made me want to be again.

“He was my husband. He died,” I said.

I hadn’t said those words in years, and I waited for the emotions to come, but they didn’t.

“You loved him,” Ciprian said.

“No. But he was mine,” I replied.

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