Page 83 of Falling in Love with A Tiny Bat

It gathers, collecting like mold, and I’m kicking my feet off my bed before I can help myself. I march toward the rising tide, my phone buzzing in my hand before it crashes.

One hand around my cell and the other on Zahra’s doorknob, I look down at the screen.

Snowflake: When I was nine, I was raped.

My heart collapses in a puddle at my feet. Static builds in my ears.

Without warning, I shove my way into her room, and everything inside me breaks.

Seated in a cloud of barely conceived unseelie fae, Zahra drags her attention off her phone and finds me. Emptiness consumes her brilliant green eyes.

My limbs ache with every step that forces me across the room to her. Once I’ve reached her, I fall on my knees at her feet, dropping my phone on the carpet as I wrestle with the agony sweeping across every one of my nerves like a blade.

The dark blots of unresolved emotions seep from her pores, whispering in her ears.

Unworthy. Dirty.Broken.

While they remain rooted in her flesh, I can’t hope to rip them free without hurting her.

Her head drops back to her phone, and she types.

Beside my thigh, my phone lights up.

Snowflake: I’ve never told anyone before.

Mouth devoid of moisture, I whisper, “No one?”

Snowflake: I didn’t want my mother to blame me.

Snowflake: Or condemn me further.

Snowflake: I grew up constantly scared that God didn’t love me and wouldn’t want me if I weren’t perfect.

Tears build and burn in my eyes, overflowing before I find anything at all to say.

Snowflake: I’m sorry about earlier. I lost my mind a little bit.

Snowflake: You’re pretty. And sanctioned by God because of the whole soulmate thing.

Snowflake: I deluded myself into thinking it might be something less than terrifying to take control of an intimate moment with someone.

Snowflake: I’ve been thinking a lot since then.

Snowflake: I decided it was wrong to keep this from you. Since you’re my soulmate, you should know that whole sacred covenant of marriage and commitment stuff you brought upyour first night here is a one-way street.

Snowflake: I didn’t get a choice on who I committed myself to.

Snowflake: Not only that, what happened messed something up inside me, so I can’t have kids.

My body lights like a fuse, tearing in two pieces. I can barely swallow past the rage sticking in my throat. Coupled with the pain and the overwhelming pound of Zahra’s emotions bleeding into the air, I can’t reach rational thought.

Someone touched my soulmate.

Stole from her.

And the people who were meant to love and protect her raised her in an environment that left her soscaredof damnationshe couldn’t even bring herself to tell anyone.

Snowflake: Please say something.

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