Page 19 of Hell Hath No Fury

His apology echoes in my ear, and we remain like that, wrapped tightly around each other as we each let go of the torment of our past, frozen in that timeless space where hope and grief collide.

Knowing that now, in this moment, we have the choice of an unwritten future.

10

A Heartfelt Declaration

Antonio

I’mnotsurehowmuch time has gone by, but after a while, we slowly pull apart until we’re standing there staring at each other rather sheepishly. I gently wipe the remnant of tears from her cheeks as she whispers, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I truly had no idea you were carrying this blame for all this time. It was selfish of me to assume you had all the facts, given how easily you always made yourself available to help us when we called on you.”

“I would have been there regardless, but there was no way for you to know,” I reply softly, my hands moving from her cheeks down over her shoulders and then down her arms until I’m gripping her hands loosely. “You wouldn’t have known that they would use it to torment me. Or that it would have worked so effectively for so long.”

“But I should have,” she replies angrily. “Maybe not at first, but it should have occurred to me at some point.”

I squeeze her hands and shake my head. “Well, it doesn’t matter now. It’s all out in the open where it’s less likely to hurt us.”

She squints at me but then nods. Her gaze drops from mine, and she looks around the room briefly before turning back to me and asking, “What do we do now?”

I sigh heavily, giving her hand one last squeeze before releasing her and turning away. “I guess we get to figure that out as we go.”

I’ve only taken a few steps away when she gasps. “What the fuck happened to your back?”

Fuck.

I turn to face her slowly, my hands coming up in front of me as I reply, “It doesn’t fucking matter.”

She closes the distance between us swiftly, moving around me and gripping both of my arms so I can’t attempt to face her again. I feel her eyes on my back, almost as painful as the old wounds that she’s currently staring at. “What the fuck is this, Antonio?”

“You’ll need to be a little more specific than that,” I finally manage to respond. Her fingertips brush my damaged skin lightly, and still, I flinch. Not because it causes any physical discomfort at this point. If anything, it’s a constant visual reminder of everything I’ve endured.

“Tell me.”

I turn away and walk toward the bed on the other side of the room. “I’m tired, Lilith. I don’t have anything left for more explanations tonight.”

I crawl into the middle of the bed, sprawling on the mattress and closing my eyes, silently hoping she’ll get the hint and leave me be. But I should know better because leaving things be is not the Lilith way. Once she sets her mind to something, once she decides on how to proceed, she’s like a fucking tsunami.

Sure enough, the mattress sinks as she climbs onto the bed beside me, crawling up until her hands are pushing on my shoulder. I give her a dirty look, but after a few good pushes, I relent, rolling over onto my side and facing away from her. She stretches out behind me, at first just lying there silently, but again, I feel her eyes scouring the timeline from my early adulthood almost into middle age. Her fingers press delicately against the middle of my spine, and she quietly asks, “This one?”

I swallow a painful lump in my throat, not wanting to explain but seeing no way out of it. “That was the first time I went looking for you.”

She freezes behind me, her fingertips suddenly pressing into that spot rather forcefully, her voice barely a whisper as she responds, “You went looking for me?”

I nod yet say nothing, knowing no further explanation is really needed, but then she adds, “The first time? You looked for me more than once?”

I nod again and then answer, “Relentlessly. Until the last time when it almost killed me, and my father told me if I ever did it again, he would kill you—slowly.”

Her fingertips touch that spot again, tracing over the numbers as she asks, “When was the first time?”

“It was quite a few years later. Someone finally let it slip that I had a child out in the world, so I sought you out, looking for answers. And to beg for your forgiveness.”

“And what happened?”

“I got caught pretty quickly. And immediately shipped off to a facility. That’s where the brand came in.”

“And how did you escape?”

“Once I’d been there for a suitable amount of time to hopefully teach me a lesson, my father came to retrieve me.”

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