Chapter 28
Emma
It feels surreal to be standing in my living room again. To be back here, in this place that’s been my home since I was a baby.
Everything looks the same—but I feel so different.
The broken glass that was all over the kitchen has been swept up, and the floor has been mopped, courtesy of Talia, who called me this morning to let me know she’s expecting me at the diner in an hour for a makeup birthday dinner.
Ash is already lying in his favorite spot on the back of the couch, and I smile over at him before shifting my attention back to the box I’d left on the coffee table.
I breathe a sigh of relief when I look inside and see the photograph of Dylan and me, alongside the corsage he’d given me all those years ago, sitting on top.
I’m not sure who took them out of the trash can, but I’m so glad they didn’t end up getting thrown out.
Dylan.
He’d told me I could stay in his guest room as long as I wanted, but I needed to be back in my space.
Even though I’m genuinely afraid to be back in the place it was so easy for Mattheus to get to.
As it always does whenever I think about him, my pulse kicks up a notch.
A nice dose of fear left behind by everything I’ve been through the past couple of weeks.
He’s in prison.
After we delivered Heath, Mattheus, Tori, and the other armed guards to Frank Loyotta’s contact in the FBI, they finally had what they needed to get a warrant for both the Slater and Karver estates. And with Harlow’s testimony, Heath and Mattheus will both be going away for a long, long time.
We’ve been assured they’ll never breathe oxygen as free men again.
But the nightmares don’t seem to care about that.
Every night since we’ve been back, I’ve seen Heath when I close my eyes. Standing there, taunting me—hitting Dylan.
Cutting him.
Burning him.
Hurting him. Over and over again.
My heart rate begins to increase again, sweat beading at my temples. At the onset of the panic, I rest my hand on the back of the couch as I take a deep, steadying breath.
Lord, please help me breathe. Please help me.
Someone knocks on the door, and my pulse skyrockets. Black spots invade my vision, and I rapidly blink to try to clear them.
It’s not them. It can’t be them.
Logically, I know that’s true, but my body doesn’t seem to care about that.
“Emma?”
At Dylan’s voice on the other side of the door, I take another deep breath, then cross over to pull the door open with trembling fingers. The sight of him eases my panic just enough that the weight on my chest lessens.
“Hey there,” I greet, forcing a smile on my face.
He’s standing there, looking incredibly handsome and holding a bouquet of wildflowers placed inside a beautiful vase with golden veins threaded through the glass. “Hey. Sorry. I know you wanted to get settled, but I didn’t want to wait.”
“I’m actually really happy to see you,” I say, my bottom lip quivering as the tears fill my eyes again.
Dylan’s smile falls, his expression turning to concern in an instant. “What’s wrong?”
I shake my head, the emotion burning in my throat. Because I can’t trust myself to speak without completely losing it, I step aside and gesture for him to come inside. The moment he does, I shut and lock the door behind him.
I rarely used to lock my door during the day. Probably not smart, and not something I will ever forget to do again.
Dylan sets the vase down on the coffee table, then turns to me. “What is it?” he asks, reaching forward to brush some hair behind my ear.
The casual touches are getting easier for him—at least, that’s what he tells me—but I know there are moments he still struggles. Occasionally, I still see a bit of darkness reflected in his gorgeous hazel eyes.
Still, he’s doing a whole lot better than I am these days. I’m barely managing to shower, since the water on my skin is a burning reminder of the water rising in that safe as we sank to the bottom of the ocean.
“I’m just struggling. I don’t know how you do it.” I wipe the tears away.
“Do what?”
“Not let the fear consume you.” I whisper the words, almost ashamed to speak them. After all, I didn’t suffer the way he did. Not in that prison cave all those years ago, and not in the bottom of that ship.
He was the one who was burned, cut, and tortured.
Not me.
So why am I having such a hard time moving forward?
“For a long time, I let it consume me,” he says, stepping closer and running his hands over my arms.
“And now?”
“Now I’m actively choosing to give it to God. It hasn’t been easy, but it’s the closest I’ve felt to actual peace.” He moves in even closer, only inches from me now.
“It’s silly.” I shake my head, almost ashamed to even look at him. “I’m not even the one he hurt, but I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Emma.” Dylan wraps an arm around my shoulders and guides me over to the couch. I take a seat, and he sits beside me, taking my hand in his own. “It may have been me he hurt, but it was you he tortured.”
My eyes so full of tears I can’t see, I shake my head.
“No, he was hurting you, Dylan. It’s all I can see.
The pain on your face as you pretended you weren’t hurting.
I can’t unsee it. It’s branded in my brain.
On repeat, alternating with the sight of Jesper—” My stomach rolls just thinking about it.
“Baby, we survived. I’m right here.” He takes my hand and presses it to his heart. “God brought us through it. I’m sorry you had to see what happened to Jesper, and I’m so sorry Heath used me against you. But we’re okay. We’re here,” he says again.
I nod, but I can’t speak. No thanks to the lump burning in my throat. One single word, and I’ll completely lose it.
“You can’t let it fester, or it’ll eat you alive. Trust me. I’ve been there. For the first time in my life, I’m fighting the demons I buried deep within me. The parts of me that I let blacken because I was so angry.”
“I’m trying to let it go. And it’s not anger I’m feeling—it’s fear.
Fear that I’m going to wake up and Heath is going to be standing over me.
Fear that our rescue has been a figment of my imagination, and at any moment now, that picture is going to shatter, and I’ll be back in that safe—the water rising. ”
Dylan is quiet for a few moments, then he releases my hand to lift the vase he brought me. “Do you recognize this?”
I study the glass. “No.”
“It’s the vase that broke when you threw that box at me,” he says with a crooked smile.
My stomach falls. “Oh, Dylan. I’m sorry. I did break one.”
“No, no. Don’t apologize. Look at it.” He runs the tip of his pointer finger over one of the golden veins. “Have you ever heard of kintsugi?”
I tilt my face up to look at him. “No.”
He smiles. “It’s the Japanese art of fixing what’s been broken. Instead of throwing something away, they use an adhesive to piece it back together, then dust those cracks with powdered gold, silver, or platinum to make it even more beautiful than it was before it was broken.”
I follow his gaze back down to the vase, his words saturating my soul. “Dylan, that’s lovely.”
He sets the vase back down and places a finger beneath my chin so he can tilt my face up to his.
“I was broken. Shattered into a million pieces, sure that I would never be whole again. But God pieced me back together. While I don’t know that I’ll ever be the man I was before, I’m on my way to being me again, because of Him.
” He turns to me. “You gave me a reason to want to change, Emma. You’re the lifeline that pulled me back to Him. ”
Tears burn in my throat. “Dylan.”
“And just like this vase, just like me, you feel broken, but He’ll put you back together too. You just have to let Him and give it time.”
Dylan leans in and kisses me gently, then pulls away and rests his arm around my shoulders again.
I lean into him, and we relax against the back of my couch.
As we sit here in silence, I stare at the vase overflowing with wildflowers.
It was broken before—into a lot of tiny pieces, from the look of it.
But it’s back together now. Not the same as before, but beautiful because of the brokenness.
Just like Dylan.
He’s a haunted man—and probably always will be on some level. But he’s beautiful in his pain. A living testimony to the grace of God. A man returning to the light after spending a good portion of his life in the fiery furnace of his past.
Is that what I’ll be someday? Beautiful despite the pieces that broke in the bottom of that boat?
On some level, I understand Dylan even more now.
Not because we suffered the same but because I gave in to the hopelessness that was seeding in my heart during our time in captivity.
And it’s taking all I have to rip it out by the roots now so I can find the version of myself I was before all of this happened.
“Thank you, Dylan.”
“For what?”
“For being here.”
“I spent enough time away from you, Emma. I don’t ever want to be separated again. I want to give you everything I promised you before. A family. A future. A house surrounded by wildflowers.”
The smile that spreads across my face erases some of the darkness. I tilt my face up to look at him. “You remembered.”
“I remember everything,” he says, expression serious. “And if you’ll have me, I promise that I’ll fight to be a man who deserves you.”
“Dylan. You already do.”
“No,” he says. “But I’m working on it.” Leaning in, he kisses me again, then pulls away to stare down at me.
“On one condition,” I say with a smile.
“Oh?”
“You teach me to swim.”
He pulls away slightly. I can see the hesitation on his face, the concern that I’m jumping right into the deep end. Truthfully, that’s exactly what I’m doing. But I trust him not to let me drown.
“Are you sure?” he asks. “You can give it some time.”
“I’m sure. I don’t want to live in fear anymore. I want to find my way back too.”
Dylan cups my cheeks, then leans down to kiss me again. “I’ll get the floaties ordered.” He smiles against my mouth, and I laugh, some of the weight lessening on my shoulders.
“Good.”
“I love you, Emma,” he says softly. Though he’s spoken the words before, as he says them this time, I feel a bit of the brokenness within me coming back together.
“I love you too, Dylan.”