Page 110 of Where We Ended

My hand was soapy as I pulled his hand into mine. My heart ached as grief throbbed there at my core, threatening to push through my emotions and ruin this moment. I knew it was important to Silas. That he needed to say these words, and I clung to him, hoping they’d help heal me as he said them. But all I felt was a sorrow that seemed to sink bone deep.

Red.

Brooks.

Alec.

“You asked me to run with you…recently and I just—” He blew out a breath. “Part of it was that I couldn’t relax until I knew he was gone. I needed to keep you safe, but the other part was the assumption that you’d be happier there, with them.”

Gone.

Forever.

I realized it wasn’t just grief that was keeping my mind at bay, as if an invisible barrier was between what Silas was saying and what I was absorbing. It was that I didn’t want to go back.

Not to those nights when terror would crawl under my skin like a disease and fester. Dirk had me too afraid to sleep most nights that Silas was gone. He’d become a demon, hunting my dreams, my waking hours. Fear was the very air I breathed, and right now…in the tub with him, I didn’t want to go back.

But this was a piece of parched land I’d never given him access to. For all the light he always claimed to love of mine, he’d yet to see the deserts, the valleys and places inside me that had been scorched by all that forced sunshine. So I let him continue.

And I remembered there was a cage around my soul now made of titanium. It would not break so easily again.

It would hold.

Silas stroked up my stomach and over my breasts. “After hearing what happened to you…” His voice dipped as though he had to work to control his emotions. “That you were being hurt by him…that you covered it up just so that I wouldn’t get hurt…” If I were looking at him, I had no doubt his eyes would be full to the brim with pain and an agony that I wished to my bones I could remove.

“I’d die a thousand times over if it meant I could keep you safe. My life is not worth living without you in it, Caelum. You’ve been my forever since my life started. If you were to end, then I would too. The fact that you didn’t realize that…it kills me.”

His voice cracked, and I finally turned, making the bubbles shift and move. I got to my knees, letting the water drip, my slick breasts exposed and sopping wet. My hands went to his jaw, and I leveled him with a stare of my own.

“What of my love for you, Silas? Can I not also want to move the sky and crack the earth just to protect you? Loving you has been the greatest joy of my life, and if it meant that I lost a few pieces of myself along the way then it was worth it. Your mom did what she felt was best to keep us both safe.”

His hand covered mine over his jaw as he ground his molars together. I felt the muscle shift under my palm.

“She nearly ruined us.”

I shook my head. “She knew our love was made of the very same substance that makes the stars stay in the sky, and the currents that spread throughout the rivers. We’re an ocean wave: violent, turbulent and steadfast. No time apart would ever diminish that.”

A tear slipped down his cheek.

“How do I accept what was done to you?”

His hands came to my hips, stabilizing me against him. I stroked his dark, furrowed brow.

“The same way I accepted what was done to you. I offered you my light. You might need to extend some of your own. You have some in there, my darling husband. I know you do. It’s brilliant and beautiful and perhaps it was just waiting for a season of peace to come out.”

He laughed as more tears fell from his lashes. Then I stood, stepped out of the tub and wrapped myself in a white fluffy towel. Silas did the same, tying it around his waist. I was about to walk past him, but he put his hand out, gently tipping my chin up.

“I’m sorry you lost him, Caelum. I know you cared for him.”

That sorrow felt like a plucked string on an instrument, ready to play to the tune of grief.

“I did care for him; he was annoying and I hate what he did to me. Parts of me will never forgive what he did to me in that house. But there are other parts of me that remember him as a kid, a gangly teen…a friend who was just as much a shield to me as you always were.”

Silas pressed a kiss to my mouth, soft and gentle. I followed him into the room where he handed me one of his t-shirts. I slipped the soft fabric over my head and then slid under the covers, watching as Silas did the same.

“How long have you had this cottage?”

Silas pulled me into his arms, making me feel found in ways I hadn’t even realized I’d been lost. “I discovered this place by accident about a year and a half ago. I was up here, trying to clear my head after you were traded, not wanting to be too far from you. There was an older couple who would also be up here, so I started helping them. Every day I would pick lemons, help load them, and carry them back to their house. I got so used to being here that I started sleeping on the ground, under the trees. They found me, and the next day, the old man led me here. Said it used to be for their groundskeeper. I bought it off them before they retired and moved back to Texas.”

---