59. Wynn
WYNN
L eona asked Ximena, Ludmila, Claire, and Penny dozens of questions, but I’d barely been paying attention. I should have been, I knew that, but my head was reeling.
My feet had been swept out from under me.
When I’d hugged Willow goodbye, she’d whispered in my ear that she hoped I could finally see the truth about myself, and that once I had, I’d find peace.
Her words had replayed in my head the entire ride home.
Leona had been quiet, but more thoughtful than upset or nervous.
In fact, she felt like she’d found peace.
She’d spent some time at Selene and Ofelia’s memorial site before we left, holding hands with Penny, and though she’d cried, it had eased her.
She felt calm as her head pressed into my back while we rode.
When we made it back to the penthouse, she’d kissed me and thanked me for going with her before saying she was going to take a shower and talk to Cas. I didn’t know what else to do besides go back to my room, but as soon as I changed, my feet carried me through the penthouse.
I burst into Ciel’s room before I even knew what I was doing.
“Wynn?” he asked, energy drink frozen half-way to his mouth. The light from his computer screens reflected on his glasses, obscuring his eyes.
“Am I a good man?” I asked. My chest had been tight for hours, and my words were breathless.
His eyebrows pinched together. “What?”
“Am I a good man?”
He stood slowly from the computer chair, confusion etched across his face. “I believe you are.”
“But I’ve killed people. So many people.”
“You have.”
“So then how am I good?” I asked. My voice dropped to a whisper. “How can I be good if I’ve done so many bad things? And how can I be worthy of your love, of Leona’s love, if I’m not good?”
“Where—where is this coming from?” he asked carefully.
If his bed were here, and not currently in the living room, I probably would have collapsed on it.
Instead, I paced around his room. “The women at Willow’s haven.
They were happy to see me. Grateful. I felt good there.
Like my life had purpose and meaning. I’d already helped them and made our fucked-up world just a little better, but doesn’t that prove my point?
That to be good I have to keep redeeming myself? I have to keep saving them?”
“You’ve been trying to make up for your mistakes by redeeming yourself with good actions?”
I nodded. It had always made sense to me, but now I was questioning everything.
He stepped in front of me, blocking my pacing, and pressed a palm to my chest. “That alone is what makes you a good—a good man.”
I swallowed. “I’m violent and dark and bloody. I’ve hurt many more than I’ve helped.”
“None of us are good in the standard sense of the word, Wynn. Our morals are twisted and gray, but you are the best of us,” Ciel continued.
“You’ve always tried to make up for what we do, even though you’ve never had to.
No one is holding a measurement to your actions and determining your value but yourself.
Not in this household. It’s taken me a long time to learn that, too. ”
My voice lowered to a whisper. “Then why do I feel so guilty? Why do I feel like nothing I do will ever make up for my sins?”
“I don’t know,” Ciel said gently. “You tell me.”
My mind raced while I tried to tease it apart.
It all started with the first man I killed.
Willow and my captors. I didn’t want to kill him—I was only thirteen—but there was no way out.
No way for us to get free. I couldn’t let her do it.
I was the only one who could kill him. Once I did, I felt so sick to my stomach that I threw up on the dirty floor of that dingy kitchen.
Then, we’d gotten free, and we’d lived on the streets.
We’d stolen food to survive, and I felt so ashamed because it was just another sin, another wrongdoing staining my soul.
It went against everything our parents had taught us.
No matter how much Willow explained over and over that we were just trying to survive , it didn’t change my guilt.
Once we were picked up by the Irish, my mentor there told me that if I wanted to stop feeling guilty for surviving, then I had to put my skills to good use. I would have to do plenty of bad in our line of work, but he told me I had the choice to do good with what the Irish were training me to do.
I latched onto that like a lifeline. I had been drowning in panic attacks.
Drowning in shame. Drowning in the pain of everything we’d been through, and how Willow always took the brunt of it for me.
What he said that day gave me hope for the first time in years.
It gave me a light at the end of the tunnel.
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “I thought redeeming myself would ease the guilt, but it hasn’t. I don’t know if I’ll ever wake up one day and not feel this compulsion to be better. I’m frightened that nothing will ever cleanse it. ”
Ciel grabbed my hand, lacing our fingers together. “Nothing will ever feel like it’s enough because you don’t believe you’re enough.”
His words speared me through the chest while I stared at our clasped hands. “I’m not.”
“You are , carino ,” he said. “You’re enough for us.”
How was I supposed to believe that?
“Leona loves you because of who you are, not because she expects you to be better.”
My heart twisted inside my chest. “You think she loves me?”
“I do.” We both turned to see her standing in the doorway, one hand on the frame.
“I love you, Wynn. I love you because you care so deeply about us. I love you because you’ve always taken care of me.
You’ve looked out for me and expected nothing in return.
You fought for me. You almost died for me.
You’d do anything for your family, and we all know it.
We live in a world steeped in grey, but Wynn, you’ve always been the one pulling me through it. Not the other way around.”
I gusted a breath while my hands trembled. I reached out for her, and she wound her arms around my neck while I crushed her body to my chest. My hands tangled in her hair; my lungs breathed her in.
“I love you,” I breathed. I loved her with every fiber of my being.
She and Ciel were the only things in my life that made me feel warm and happy.
Everything else was a shade in comparison.
“But I don’t deserve your love. Not until I’ve redeemed myself.
Not until I’ve fixed the way I’ve let you down. ”
She pulled back and brushed her fingers down my cheek. Her voice went soft. “I am not your path to redemption. I am not the key to your goodness. You’re putting me on a pedestal, and you have to stop.”
“I’m not?—”
“You are. I’ve already given you my forgiveness, though you never needed it. I’ve already shown you every ounce of love I can give. If it was about me, that would be enough.”
I blinked, frowning while I processed what she said. “I don’t…”
The truth of her words seeped into my bones. I’d thought my greatest failure was letting her get kidnapped, but she didn’t think that way. If she had forgiven me, if she believed there was nothing to forgive…could she be right?
“ You are the reason you can’t forgive yourself,” she continued. “Until you figure out how to do that, you’ll continue to live with this guilt.”
“How am I supposed to forgive myself?” I asked them both earnestly. I’d lived this way for years. It was the only thing that got me through the darkest parts of my life. It fueled every choice I’d made since then. I didn’t know how to live differently.
“Every day, you have to tell that little voice in your head that whispers you’re worthless to go fuck itself,” she said, touch gentle on my cheek.
“You have to tell it that it’s wrong, and that you know better, and that you’ve got a whole family of people around you that prove you’re loved.
When it undermines your value, you come to us and we’ll build it back up for you.
You accept that you deserve love, just as you are. ”
“You’ve always done the best that you could, carino . Always. That is enough.” His palm was warm on my back. “You are enough.”
What would it be like to feel like I was enough? To feel like I deserved Ciel’s shy smile and Leona’s warmth?
The thought made my entire body ache . With pain, with longing, with desire. I wanted to be worthy of them, but I’d always felt like it was outside my grasp. Impossible.
But was it possible to do what they were saying?
I’d watched Ciel change right in front of my eyes. I’d watched him go from terrified of losing us and determined to prove he belonged, to being the most steady and hopeful out of all of us. He’d changed.
Couldn’t I?
I wanted to try.
I leaned down to softly kiss Leona. Then, I leaned my forehead against Ciel’s. The three of us clung to one another. A flutter of hope darted through my chest. With the two of them holding me up, anything seemed possible.
I exhaled until all the breath was gone from my lungs, and then I inhaled both of them, feeling my world shift. The shadows behind my sternum, the sinking weight in my stomach constantly pulling me down, began to disappear.