Page 180 of Sinful Desires
“Théo!” Her voice cracked. “Stop it.”
Her hand landed on my shoulder, firm and trembling.
“We forgave you a long time ago, baby.”
I blinked, the word hitting somewhere deep and bruised.
“You were stillsoyoung,” she whispered, kneeling beside me. “We saw it, we did. I know our expectations must’ve felt like chains around your throat. It breaks my heart to know you were in so much pain that you tried to end your life.”
She brushed my hair back, her fingers gentle, eyes wet.
“We would’ve given anything to carry it for you.”
Her voice cracked again, softer this time, barely louder than the pulse of the machines.
“Sometimes things happen in life?…?things we can’t plan, things we can’t undo. But there’s a French saying I always loved.”
She lifted her eyes to the ceiling, as if reciting it to the heavens.
“Nous idéalisons les étoiles, mais nous oublions que c’est l’obscurité qui les a rendues visibles.”
I swallowed hard, still folded over the edge of the bed, my mother’s hand warm on my back.
“It means,” she went on gently, “we worship the stars, but forget it’s the darkness that makes them shine. Without the darkest moments,mon coeur, we’d never know how to cherish the light. The beautiful things.”
I felt her words crawl inside me.
She had always believed in light. Even when I hadn’t. Even when I’d spit in its face.
I lifted my head slowly, eyes raw, throat a battlefield. “I didn’t want to be your darkness.”
She cupped my cheek and kissed my temple. “You weren’t. You were just lost in it.”
And for the first time in two decades, I let myself cry in her arms.
“You have to forgive yourself, Théo. Otherwise, you’re the one who’s really dying.”
Chapter
Forty-Four
“He is half of my soul, as the poets say.”
? Madeline Miller
Scarlett
“How’s the creative retreat? Has the South of France inspired any major chart-toppers yet?”
I pressed the phone closer to my ear. Alexsei’s voice came in soft and stretched, tangled with the sound of waves in the background. My knees were tucked to my chest, chin resting on top.
It had been three days since we visited Théo’s father. Almost two weeks since we’d arrived in France.
After the hospital, his mother had invited us over for breakfast.
On our way over there, Théo told me that over the years, the doctors would come once a year and ask if they could unplug his father. They came after five years. Then seven. Nine. Ten. Each time, the answer was the same.
Hope had vanished for everyone but his mother. She’d never let go.
