Page 13 of Seeking Shadows

So he gave me way to another monster.

I still feel the phantom grip of James’s hand on the back of my neck. The way he would force me to kneel, to bow, to accept that my pain was just a lesson.

That I was weak. That he would make me stronger, better, more like One.

I was never supposed to survive him.

And yet, here I am. Running, hiding, lying.

Holding onto the fragile, fractured pieces of myself like they won’t slip through the cracks in my fingers.

Like they won’t disappear completely.

I look at my supposed fiancé, or rather, my husband with surprise in my eyes, my first instinct is to say his name but I realize he probably doesn't answer to that.

When Zane walked into the room, I was ready for a fight. I’d braced myself, prepared to push him away, to force myself to feel nothing at all. But as I looked down at the paper in front of me, all my efforts unraveled.

It was our divorce papers.

I should’ve expected them, but I didn’t expect this. Not the drawing.

It was us—captured in a way I thought only I would remember. The day we got married, the beach. Me, standing with a needle in my hand, carefully tattooing him like he was the canvas I never knew I needed.

Zane, sitting there with his sleeve rolled up, letting me do something I didn’t even realize was more than just a tattoo—it was us, opening up to each other in ways we couldn’t with words.

He had never asked for anything, never pushed me, and in that moment, I let myself be part of him, in a way no one else had been.

His lines are raw, but they’re so real. My eyes, his face, the ocean in the background—the kind of peace we found in each other, even without saying it. And beneath us, a dahlia—a flower of resilience, a flower that’s always been a symbol of us, our quiet strength.

Then, woven through the waves, the words:

Wherever you go, I will go.

He’s real. I can feel it in every line of the drawing, every curve of the ink. Paulina lied. All those doubts, all the things she tried to make me believe—none of it matters now. Everything that happened between us, every moment we shared, it was real.

I can see it in the way he captured me on that paper, the raw honesty of it.

The way he remembers the little details, the way he didn’t just walk away when it got hard—he stayed.

He’s real. There’s no more question. The love, the pain, the moments we thought we’d lost—everything.

It was real. And in a world full of lies and half-truths, that’s the one thing I can hold onto.

Zane didn’t give up on us. That’s something Paulina can never take away.

My heart skips a beat. My fingers trace the ink gently.

He didn’t give up. He didn’t give up.

He didn’t give up. He didn’t give up.

The words echo in my mind like shadows I seek in the dark, chasing after something I thought I lost. Despite everything, despite all my attempts to push him away, he stayed. He didn’t give up on me. On us.

And in that, I find something I didn’t expect to feel again: hope.

“I thought you didn’t remember much about that day.”

“I don’t remember, but I remember this.”

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