Page 35 of In The Darkness

“I don’t want to. I want to stay here. With you.”

Her voice trembled as she admitted why she’d come there. Yes, she did want his help with her plans for the future, but even more, she wanted him to be a part of her future.

She wanted him.

“Tell me you didn’t believe what that therapist said about me, Persephone,” he said in a low voice.

Full of anguish, the words sounded like someone was pulling each one from his throat. She knew the pain he felt at the thought that what existed between them wasn’t real. She’d felt it every time Dr. Wilson practically dismissed her feelings as this syndrome or that complex.

She bit her lip before telling him what he needed to know. “I don’t care what anyone else thinks. They don’t know what we went through. I can’t explain why I feel the way I do, but it isn’t in spite of what you did. I need you to know that.”

He bowed his head when she referred to the single event that threatened to push them apart. “I can’t forgive myself, so I can’t understand how you could forgive me.”

Reaching out, she took his hand in hers and brought it to her mouth in a kiss, loving the feel of his strong knuckles against her lips. The strength she’d relied on all those days and nights lived in those hands of his. She’d watched them as he lifted the spoon and tried to feed her with those hands, gentle enough to care but powerful enough to defend her. She’d felt the tenderness in them as he wiped away her tears with his fingertips.

She closed her eyes as she pressed his palm to her cheek. “You could have done anything else to show your claim to those men. You could have hurt me with your hands like they wanted to. You didn’t, though.”

“Don’t defend me. I don’t deserve it,” he said quietly.

Looking up, she shook her head in amazement. What did she have to say to convince him to forgive himself? Then the reality of what needed to be said between them came over her.

“Say it, Nick. Say it and then never say or think it again.”

“Say what?”

The time had come for that one horrible event to be put into the past. She would never have anything real with him if he couldn’t forgive himself.

“Say what you did to me. Say it so you and I both can see that whatever it needs to be called, you saved me and protected me by doing that. So say it and then let it go forever.”

His eyes filled with pain, and his eyebrows drew in toward the center of his face in a look of agony. “No. I won’t say it out loud. It’s bad enough that word will live in my mind forever. I won’t say it and demean you again.”

Clutching his hand, she pressed it over her heart. “You have to or you’ll never be able to be with me. Is that you want?”

He pulled his hand away and turned his back on her before walking back into the apartment. She followed him, not willing to give up on the future she believed they could have if only he admitted the truth.

“Nick, just say it. Say it and then never let it come between us again,” she pleaded, but he refused to face her now.

“Saying a word isn’t going to change what happened, Persephone.”

“Then say it.”

Suddenly, he spun around and she saw pure anguish in his expression. All the kindness had left his eyes, leaving only pain and hurt. “I can’t! I can’t even admit it to myself without feeling like I hate myself for what I did,” he yelled.

But she knew he had to face what actually happened if they were ever to be together, so she would say it.

“Then I will. You raped me. You did it to protect me, but the word is rape. And I forgive you because you didn’t think you had a choice. I don’t care what the rest of the world would think about that because I know why you did it. But if you can’t admit what it was, and it was rape, we have no chance of anything from this point on.”

As she spoke, he grimaced and every time she said that word, he reacted like someone had punched him in the face. Finally, when she finished, he started backing away from her.

“Stop…don’t do this.”

But she followed him, unable to stop because she believed with all her heart that if they didn’t get past this, they would have no future. She needed him to admit the truth to her there as she stood in front of him not in judgment but in acceptance.

“Nick, you can’t let this tear you up anymore. I forgive you, but if you can’t forgive yourself, then how can we ever be together? Don’t you care about me? Don’t you want to be with me?”

He stopped and shook his head. “You have no idea. I fell in love with you, Persephone. It made no sense, but I fell in love with you during those awful days. I would have done anything to protect you. I would have died for you! And what did I do instead?”

She listened and heard what she’d wanted to hear since they escaped that horrible place. That he loved her like she loved him. Now that he’d admitted that, he hesitated to take the final step that he had to in order for them to be together.

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