Chapter 18
Dante
Silence stretches like wire, tight and unforgiving.
Harlow has been unconscious for nearly ten hours.
The doctor told me the blood loss alone would have kept her under, but the blow to the head only complicates things, concussion, swelling, trauma layered on trauma, and then the rest of it, the part we don’t talk about in medical terms.
The part that lodges itself somewhere deeper.
What terrifies me, what anchors this cold, unbearable pressure in my chest, isn’t the physical damage, although that’s bad enough.
It’s the knowledge that she did this.
Whether consciously or in a trance or in some godforsaken state in between, my wife reached for a way out that didn’t include staying alive.
For the last hour, I’ve noticed the smallest signs of resistance.
A twitch of her fingers, the faintest tightening in the muscles of her brow, a flicker in her eyelids.
Simple, insignificant things to anyone else, but I’ve been watching her too long, too closely, to miss them.
Then five minutes ago, she stilled again.
Like even the act of surfacing, coming back, was too much.
Consciousness and whatever else is buried deep inside her are at war, and for now, the darkness is winning.
I want to reach in and tear it away.
I need her to wake the fuck up.
I’m furious.
At everything.
At the man who took her, who broke her so thoroughly that death felt easier.
At myself, for not stopping it.
At the fucked up reality that lives in her mind, where she carries this unbearable weight alone, because none of us are trained to reach that far down and pull her out.
I’ve had fifteen different specialists brought in, therapists with various backgrounds, expertise, languages, methods.
I don’t need hope, I need precision.
She doesn’t have to speak to a single one of them now, but when she’s ready, she’ll have options.
Real ones.
Not friends trying to talk her back into the light. Not family with good intentions and clumsy words. I won’t let anyone mishandle what’s this fragile.
The doctor said it’s possible she wasn’t even aware of what she was doing.
That people in her condition can enter dissociative states, where the body moves, performs, but the mind... floats.
Observes. Detached.
It might not have felt like a choice at all. Or it might have been the clearest, quietest decision she’s ever made.
A surrender.
Either way, the result is the same, a deep red line across her wrist, and a piece of her soul that I haven’t yet figured out how to reclaim. But I will. Even if I have to tear the world apart and rebuild it from the bones up.
She’s not disposable.
She’s loved.
She’s necessary.
Not just by me, though most of all by me, but by Mattia, who’s now curled in the armchair beside her bed, one leg tucked beneath him, his small face pale and drawn with worry. By her brothers, Her cousin. Her father. All of them.
People come and go from the doorway now, checking in, watching from the threshold in silence. I’ve seen the looks. A few of them are clearly fed up with me, but I couldn’t care less.
This is my bedroom. My wife.
And I don’t give a single fuck if they’re uncomfortable.
I’ve lost my temper more times than I care to count. Told them, clearly, to stay out. To give her peace.
They come anyway.
I assume they’ve learned to ignore me just as easily as I ignore them.
And if I bother to dig beneath the temper, if I force myself to be rational, I know why they’re here.
She’s their family, too.
They care. Of course they do.
My wife, always pretending not to feel. Always playing the untouchable. But she’s never fooled me.
Her soul is too pure, buried deep beneath that fa?ade of steel, but it’s there. And somehow, despite everything, she still draws people in.
No one says much.
There’s nothing left to say.
We’re all just waiting for her to come back.
Again.
And it makes me want to break something.
Because how many times do we end up here? In this same fucking place, sitting at her bedside, praying with our silence, our presence, that she’ll open her eyes.
I cleaned the room myself. Still, the smell of blood lingers. Coppery and heavy. It clings to the furniture, to the walls. To me.
Her hand is still in mine. The bandages are white. Clinical. But I know what’s underneath.
I know how deep she cut.
I know how much it bled.
I watch her chest rise and fall. Count the seconds between each breath. Feel her pulse against my thumb.
She twitches. A small movement, just above her brow and my heart lodges in my throat.
Her eyelashes flutter.
Her breathing shifts, barely. But it’s enough.
I shift forward, my hand tightening around hers. Her eyelids flicker again. A full second passes. Then, finally, they open.
Not wide. Not fully. She blinks once, slow, dazed. Her pupils shift, unfocused. I know she’s not seeing much. Her body is registering light, but not yet meaning.
I sit up straighter, trying to contain everything inside me that wants to erupt.
“Harlow,”
I say, in a low voice, even, careful.
No response. No sound.
She blinks again. Her gaze drifts, lost, then settling. Her eyes find the ceiling, then my face, then lower, toward her bandaged wrist. Her brows draw together, slow and tentative, like she’s trying to put together a puzzle with missing pieces. Confusion shadows her expression.
Mattia looks up from his iPad. I hear the breath he takes when it hits him, when he realizes. The sharp thud of his foot hitting the floor as he scrambles to stand.
She doesn’t speak.
She looks at me. Then at Mattia.
And that fucking expression crosses her face again, like it hurts to see us, like it physically pains her that we care.
Her gaze drifts to the window next.
Always the goddamn window.
I study her, the faint crease between her brows, the dull haze behind her eyes.
She’s back, but not fully.
Half here, half in whatever place tried to take her from us.
Still, it’s enough. Enough for now.
We might be back at square one.
Again.
But it doesn’t matter. Because this time, I know how to fight for her in the dark.
And I will.
Whatever it takes.
Whatever the cost.
Even if I have to carve the path back to her inch by fucking inch, I will. Because my wife is still here. And I won’t let the darkness take her from me again.