Page 117 of Antiletum
He was right. He is a romantic.
I wait for him to acknowledge my presence, to greet me. As he always does. Hearing the unique cadence of my heartbeat with his amplified shifter hearing and knowing that I’m near.
But he’s oblivious tonight. And I’m able to just stand here and stare at the back of his head unfettered, watch the way the muscles of his shoulders shift as he rolls them out. Soak in his quiet sigh as he does so. Absorb his inky black hair that had me so entranced the first time we met. I’m overtaken by the urge to wordlessly walk behind him andthread my fingers through that thick, dark hair. Pull his head back to look at me.
I imagine myself running that ebony wood comb through his strands in our shared room every morning, smoothing it back.
Val brings something to his mouth, a crystal tumbler filled halfway with amber liquid, and I know why he hasn’t sensed me; my heart sinks just a little further.
At our party, he only took one tiny sip of bubbly wine before discarding the glass. Told me that alcohol dulls his senses too much and the numbness it brings was a sensation he could easily become far too friendly with. Therefore, he rarely imbibes in alcohol. I didn’t think too much of it at the time.
“Also—I’m a terribly cheap drunk,” he whispered in my ear to finish his explanation, making me chuckle as I imagined an easily inebriated Val.
“Blair told me you were back,” I say, unsure of how else to announce myself. My small voice is swallowed by the brittle leaves surrounding us, calling to my senses.
My heart is nothing but a hummingbird, flapping incessantly in my chest.
Val stills, pausing the trek of his drink to his mouth. Without turning, he recovers himself; takes a drink of the amber liquid; slowly places his glass on a table; turns to me.
Longing pours from him, so stout it catches my breath in my lungs, settling across my tongue. We’re quiet. Accepting the other’s presence silently. We often don’t need words to share our heavy moments and communicate how we feel.
His eyes roam all over me, as if he can’t quite believe I’m more than just an apparition. “I thought you’d left. I…” Val trails off. Clears his throat. “I didn’t ask about you. When I returned.”Because Icouldn’t stand to hear that you’d gone.He doesn’t have to say it. The truth lingers between us like a noxious mist.
“You were away. For a while.” I can’t think of anything else to say. I’d worked through my mind all the elaborate words I’d offer Val when I found him. But now that I’m here, they’ve all scattered like mice.
He nods slowly, apprehension pulling at his eyes, equally unsure. “Yes.”
“Because of me?”
“No. Not because of you,ocellus.” The use of his nickname settles a jaggedness in me.
I walk across the conservatory. Val tracks my movement, like he’s watching a predator intent on devouring his heart, not trying to fight his imminent demise. The crunch of felled, dead leaves announce my steps, rounding the settee to face my husband. The sound of his devotion, appealing to my heart. And I wonder if he cultivated this conservatory before or after I challenged him to learn what grand gestures would woo me on his own.
I take a step closer, barely taller even as he sits. Val looks so tired and beaten down. Worse than I’ve ever seen him.
Val rubs his forehead, grimacing before scrubbing his hand over his face. “Fuck,” he whispers. Strained. Defeated. Falling apart all over again.
I attempt to swallow the thickness of my throat. Composing my shakiness the best I can. “After I learned about Rainah, I kept playing through my mind if there was anything that could ever make me want to forgive you. To salvage any chance of us having an amicable marriage.”
Val keeps his face in his hand, using my own method of refusing to look at me, like it might make this easier. I don’t have it in me to tell him that it never does. It hurts just the same.
“The only solution I kept coming back to was the one I kept telling myself was impossible. If, somehow, thedeossent me that person you reminded me of so much. Implanted him straight into your being, on this side of life where I could keep him for myself. If you were him—Sebastian—I could spend the rest of my life choosing to love you and look past your wrongs, every single day. But I convinced myself that the similarities were only my grief-fueled imagination, trying to make reality something it wasn’t. I convinced myself I was going insane.”
Slowly, I sit next to him, our knees nearly brushing. Val pulls his hand away from his face, his expression beneath guarded.
“I was given that impossibility. What I prayed for so often: for the person I chose when I was just a girl to come back to me, a reason to forgive you, and a reason to no longer punish myself for wantingyou. Valledyn. All in one. And I ran from you instead. You were right. I’m terrified of you. Of how easily you could break me. I lost you once, and I nearly didn’t survive.”
I rub my thumb over my wedding ring. He releases a loud breath while I smile softly at the token. “If I had known you were still alive, I would have done everything I could to bring us together again. Until you were mine forever. No escape. Just like you did for me.”
I lift my head, meeting my husband’s stare. “I can’t promise I won’t still be angry with you. Or that I’ll ever fully be able to forgive you.” Reaching out my hand, trembling terribly, I bring it to his jaw, cradling it in my palm, my wedding ring resting against his cheek while I stroke. “But I want to try.”
“I’m sorry,” Val whispers seriously. “I thought it would be easy between us. Like when we were young.”
“I’m sorry, too. For all the hateful things I said. For refusing to see you for who you were. For running from you when you begged me not to.”
Val swallows hard, his eyes still reserved. He makes no move to come closer. To touch our knees together. Or take my hand. His arms stay planted over the back of the settee. Whether it’s because he doesn’t trust himself or me, I don’t know.
This reservation from him, a man who disregards the wordboundariesat every turn as if the notion doesn’t apply to him… I can’t stand it.
