Chapter 8
Chapter eight
Reeve Hardy
Lifetime — Three Days Grace
Hearing her confessions is like being stabbed in the chest multiple times, watching that person twist the knife over and over again to enhance the pain. No mercy.
Everything was fine before I was forced to leave. We had a life together, still caged inside the world her grandma built, though we weren’t alone in it.
I want her to live freely without constantly looking over her shoulder, yet she feels she cannot exist in this world without me.
What value does my desire have if she cannot see beyond it?
How can I fix this?
If she’s here on a mission—something I still need to figure out—and if she succeeds, what comes next?
Longing can drive a person to do the impossible as their soul slowly decays day after day. I know that much. What kind of madness seeped into her system?
I take a deep breath.
In order for us both to heal, we need more time. She’s come all this way for answers and will find them when she’s ready.
Winona finally entered her tower an hour ago. She’s curled into a ball in the center of the couch, amid the freezing cold, with the equipment scattered around her unmoving limbs.
I walk across the balcony with the radio in my hand, resting my elbows on the top rail. I would do anything to cover her with a blanket and take her to bed right now.
“Winona,” I call.
She doesn’t respond.
“Are you trying to freeze to death?” I ask. “It can go below zero around here.” Not that it has, yet.
“Where are we?” she finally says.
“I can’t tell you, but it feels like the end of the world, doesn’t it?” I look at the stream and then back at her.
“Yeah. Did we fly here?”
“You’re far from home if that’s what you want to hear.”
“Yes and no.” Her soft breaths pull the strings around my heart. “You wanted me to be real with you. Now it’s your turn to be real with me.”
My brows knit together. “I thought I was.”
“You danced around the subject but didn’t elaborate. Your scars may have faded or not, but if you cut into the skin, it still bleeds. The wound inside you still exists.”
She can still read me like an open book.
I guess some things never change.
And she is right.
I never talked to anyone about what happened at the circus, not even with Winona, despite spending so much time together.
I avoided it like the plague because if I opened that wound, it would make it real.
It would turn me into a victim. A survivor.
All those words I hate to think about. It makes me sick to my stomach.
“In a sea of monsters, are there really saints?” I toy with the cryptic words as they flee my mouth.
“Maybe one of them pretends to be one to survive.”
There it is. That splinter of hope we cling to—that deep-seated need to find goodness when bad infests deeply in our core.
That kind of weakness is lethal and easy to manipulate.
“Do you really believe that?” I ask, pulling out my lighter. I flick the switch on and off, toying with the flint wheel. Winona’s eyes slice up to mine. My subtle movements steal her attention.
“I have to.”
I want Winona to find her inner strength, not only when she holds a weapon or uses her combat skills.
“Why?” I press, narrowing one eye.
“Because that’s the only thing that makes sense. Otherwise, everyone I have ever known is a monster. A cold-hearted one with no conscience. If that’s what you imply?”
“You tell me, are they?”
She contemplates before saying, “Nice diversion. What you don’t talk about can’t hurt, right?”
I tighten my grip on the radio. “It hurts every single day,” I grit out. Anger pulses through me. I feel as if I’m being strangled, and someone presses down on my chest, denying me the oxygen I deserve. She reverses everything back at me in a cold and calculated way.
Physical pain doesn’t bother me, and intrinsic pain is the one I’ve been numb to daily ever since I was a teen.
Pain comes from losing her or being away from her. Everything else is insignificant in comparison.
“I’m all ears,” she says.
I interlace my fingers behind my head and gaze at the full moon as the waters ripple angrily below us. I scan the horizon to my right, watching the fierce waves crash onto the surface.
A storm is coming.
“I lived in the circus.” The words slip out, and suddenly, I’m sharing everything while omitting key details to keep my identity hidden. “I was fifteen, fifteen. If I hadn’t killed him, it would’ve been much worse. The circus was hell, and it turned me into… a killer.”
As I tilt my gaze upward, Winona stands directly in front of me. Awe glimmers in her empathetic eyes, and my body urges me to jump across the gap and hold her in my arms.
“Then, I met someone who brought heaven to me,” I finish.
Something inside me cracks open, as if she had pulled back the curtain I had drawn over myself for years and finally seen me naked for the first time.
Small tears like diamonds cling to her lashes, and I want to reach out. Wipe them away. Taste the salty drops, as if they are a prism distorting her light freckles. I want her, no matter how much it hurts me. It always hurts in ways that are out of our control.
My chest tightens.
“She healed something in me that was broken long before I met her. She revived my dormant heart. I kept these secrets because I didn’t want to burden her with my dark past. It didn’t matter anyway; it was behind me.”
“Was it?” Winona’s breathy voice drifts, still cutting through me.
“If you needed to talk to someone, she was right there, probably waiting for you to unpack what was racing through your head. It’s an opportunity to be transparent and communicate with your partner.
It may take time, but maybe part of your healing process happens when you heal together.
You learn to open up and share. Your bond tightens.
Your intimacy blooms. When you bury the truth, you disguise yourself. And you deserve to be free.”
“So, I was wrong to keep it from her?”
“I don’t know. I can’t judge. You did what you thought was right.
If it were me, your burden is ours, and we carry it together.
Proudly. You did nothing wrong, Jason.“ Her sharp words slowly drain the tension that had clutched my bones for years.
That tangled knot inside me finally snaps, and I feel like I can breathe for the first time in three years.
“For the record, he deserved to die, and you deserved to live.”
A smile slowly works its way across my face, still hidden behind the mask.
That’s right.
You get it.
“If your husband were here, what would you say to him?” I ask, needing to know that myself.
Radio silence.
“Talk to him. Tell him how you feel,” I encourage. She wants transparency, and I want the same.
She glances around her—first at the couch, then at the ocean in the distance—before she presses the button and says, “I love you.”
My heart nearly stops.
“I love you more,” I murmur to myself.
“And I hate you at the same time.”
Our eyes meet again, locked onto each other.
Even when I bled to death, it didn’t hurt me quite like this.
That is pain.
In its raw form.
I feel completely helpless, so close to her yet so distant. All I want is to win her back and be the man I used to be with her. She knows the real me, not the monster I was forced to become.
I clench my jaw, knowing I deserve it. Pulling the pack of cigarettes from my back pocket, I grab one and light it quickly.
“You broke our promise.” Her voice is harsh. Loaded.
I swear I didn’t.
Smoke rolls past my lips, encircling the mask. If she could see my face, she would’ve punched it and used her ninja moves to bolt me to the floor. She pretends to be fine, but she’s still grieving.
The man who stands before her.
I knock on Romina’s office door. She requested me specifically. Anxiety climbs up my body, crippling my shoulders and pressing down my throat.
“Step in, Reeve.” She waves at me, finishing up her lunch. When my shadow falls over her, she clears her throat but remains silent.
I swallow thickly.
“You know.”
I already know she does.
She tilts her chin up, peering up at me. “Know what?”
“About Winona and me.”
I was aware of the consequences when I gave in that night, but it’s only been two months, and she’s already found out.
We haven’t done much besides talking, kissing, and riding my bike.
I started giving her riding lessons that she calls dates.
I read every book she buys after she finishes them—her taste may be questionable, but I often find it therapeutic and a source of extra creativity once we hit the sheets.
But I don’t want to rush this. I’m not going anywhere.
I want to earn her trust. I want her to feel comfortable with me. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll wait.
Unlike the first time we met, Romina looks at me with confidence and respect.
“I had my suspicions,” she clarifies.
“I didn’t plan for this to happen—”
“That’s a classic answer,” she cut me off. “But it did, and now we must face the consequences.”
Hearing those words fills me with dread. “Don’t take me away from her. No one will protect her the way I do. I would never hurt her. I’ll be good to her. Always. Please.” The panic in my voice gnaws at my insides and pierces my ears. I hate to beg, especially for what I have earned.
I don’t want to forget her voice or the way her expression changes when a smile meets her eyes. I don’t want anyone else to have it; to hold the privilege of owning it.
“I know.”
With each passing second, I’m losing my damn mind.
I don’t know what to do.
“But,” she pauses, “I must stay true to my rules.”
No… I fucking hate those words.
Rules and contracts—that’s all I’ve ever known since I met Romina.
My chest tightens, and the pain is unbearable. Is this how people feel when they get a heart attack?
“I love her,” I confess. I waited five years to meet Winona again—she doesn’t even know it—because I wanted a friend, and then three years for her to choose me.