Chapter 32 #2
I shake my head, my body shuddering from the contact of his lips grazing the curve of my neck.
It would be so easy to give into him—to give myself to him.
But that is much too dangerous. I’ve been down that road before and all it got me was intensive therapy and endless nights of crying myself to sleep while I questioned my worth.
But I take a breath and decide to trust him tonight the way I did last week.
“What are your secrets, Rowan?” I whisper.
“I’m angry with my mother,” he confesses quietly.
“I know it wasn’t her fault that she got sick and left me and my brother alone with my dad.
We were happy—we had a good life with my dad—but I’m angry.
My dad did his best, still does, especially with Andrew still in college.
But I’m so fucking angry, Natalia, and I don’t know why. ”
The only thing I hear is our breathing for a moment, then a pained, heavy sigh from the grieving man behind me. Then the weight of his head comes down on my head, his forehead resting at the top.
“It’s grief,” I breathe and relish in the solace I’m strangely finding in the position I am in with him. “Grief always reshapes and renames itself as anger.”
“Do you think it’ll go away?” Rowan rasps.
“One day,” I answer honestly, but I wish I knew a cure to his calamity.
“I don’t think I want it to go away,” he says. “The grief.”
“Why not?”
“Grief means it was real. It means she existed, and she loved me. Grief and love come hand in hand.”
“Package deal,” I mutter. “See, this is why you shouldn’t listen to me. I’m messed up.”
“You aren’t messed up,” he whispers into my hair. “Have you ever grieved something? Or someone?”
“I feel like I grieve something new everyday.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t really know,” I say. “The pieces of myself I’ve lost. I can’t get them back. Ever.”
“You want to know something amazing about being human?”
“What?”
“We get to grow new, better pieces of ourselves,” he says. “Pieces no one will ever have because the old ones are no good anymore. Sometimes the loss is a gain.”
“Maybe,” I whisper. “You don’t talk about her a lot.”
Rowan sniffs. “It’s weird. I don’t really like to.”
“It hurts?”
“No,” he whispers. “I like to keep her to myself. The last few memories I have with my mom are for me—they’re mine. No one else knows her last words except me. I like it this way.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Rowan lifts a shoulder as his gaze falls from mine.
“The gist—She told me she loved me,” he whispers so quietly I almost don’t hear.
“She told me to keep my brother safe and help my father move on. I told her no.” He chuckles, a sad crack in the sound.
“I told her I didn’t want any of us to move on and she said we had to. ”
“I’m sorry,” I breathe as my hands go to his face. I hold his flushed face in my palms and force his head up. His eyes latch onto mine again and I notice the red around the stormy blue. “Rowan.”
He sniffs again as a tear slips from the corner of his eye, gliding down the side of his nose.
“Sweetheart,” I rasp as I wipe it away.
His lip trembles just before he pulls it between his teeth. “My mother would have loved you.”
“Rowan,” I breathe.
“She would have told me to stop being an idiot and go after you,” he continues.
“You did.” I laugh softly. “You were…persistent.”
Rowan chuckles tearfully, his ocean eyes reflecting just enough sunlight to calm my heart. “Why were you avoiding me?” he asks.
“I wasn’t avoiding you.” My thumbs run back and forth across his cheekbones. “I think I was taking time to heal.”
“Hmm.” He pushes unruly curls behind my ear. “What’s going on in that beautiful head of yours?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me, sweetheart, please,” Rowan begs, his voice hoarse and deep. His hands cover mine. “Talk to me.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” I lie.
“Then tell me a secret,” he says.
My hands drop and I turn back to the food on the work table. I expect him to retreat—I’m not sure why though, knowing him. But he steps in closer, his chest nearly pressing into my back. His hand settles on my hip, the firm weight of it settling me back into my skin.
“I…” My body clenches and shudders. “I’m going to therapy again,” I confess quietly. “I’m two years clean, or in recovery—whatever they call it. But I almost had a…slip up.”
His expression drops. “Nat—”
“I didn’t do it,” I promise. “I only thought about it.”
“Still.” He shakes his head, far too disappointed himself. “I would have stayed with you.”
“I know. That’s why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t tell anyone,” I say. “I thought I had it under control.”
“How long?” Rowan asks quietly, almost like he doesn’t really want the answer.
“The first time I did it I was fifteen,” I answer quietly, allowing him the opportunity to forget the whispered confession.
His hand around my hip tightens. “Why—”
“I got home that day and the house was empty,” I say. “This one girl was making fun of my dads and I was already really sad. I found Daddy’s razors he used to shave with, you know the ones you replace the…thing…with?”
Rowan nods against my head, his arms winding around my body.
“I found them in the bathroom just before I was going to get into the shower. I wondered what it would feel like for a few minutes and I just sat there staring at it until… until I did it.”
His hand caresses down my left arm until it wraps around my wrist, pushing up the sleeve of my sweater. I stare down at where his thumb brushes over the skin, moving back and forth.
“Here?”
I nod and the weight of his head on mine is gone. Rowan brings my wrist to his lips, pressing a soft kiss over the pale lines, leaving his lips over them for a moment as though they will heal and fade beneath his kiss.
Slowly, I turn in his arms and when I face him, the blue of his eyes is stormy and red-rimmed. “Rowan?” I breathe.
I pull my wrist from his hold and put my palm to his cheek.
“You can’t fix me,” I whisper. “I have to do that—you said it yourself and you were right.”
“But I don’t see anything to fix,” he whispers back. “I don’t see anything broken.”
“Maybe not on the outside, but on the inside—”
“You’re beautiful,” Rowans says, his hands coming to cradle my face. “Especially on the inside.”
“No, Rowan… I—”
“Fixing and healing are different things,” he says tenderly. “You’re healing.”
“I’m trying.”
“And that’s enough.”
“Will it always be though?” I ask, but my heart isn’t prepared for the answer.
“Trying is always enough.”
“I had therapy today,” I blurt in a whisper. “And we were talking about…my bag.”
“Your bag?”
“Mhhm,” I hum with a nod.
“What about your bag?” His brows pinch together.
I swallow before I give him my secret. “I keep things in it. To make me feel comfortable.”
“Sweetheart, your therapy is yours. You don’t have to talk about it with me.”
“I know,” I squeak. “But I know your secrets. And you know mine.”
“You’ll keep mine safe?”
“As long as you keep mine safe too.”
“You and your secrets are safe with me always,” he says. “Always.”
I nod with an exhale. “I keep razors in my bag.”
Rowan tenses at that.
“I don’t use them,” I continue. “I haven’t used them, I swear. I promise you, Rowan, I haven’t—”
“Natalia,” he sighs, his softness soothing my aching heart. “Even if you did, or do, it won’t change what I feel for you. I’ll kiss your scars, sweetheart. I’ll heal them.”
I shake my head, my chin quivering almost violently. “You can’t do that.”
“I will try to,” he counters. “I’ll always try to for you.”
“It feels weird sometimes,” I say as his thumbs wipe my cheeks. “I mean, I’m almost twenty-eight and I’m still dealing with this? Doing this?”
“With what?”
“This,” I say again, waving my hand around. “The insecurity and the depression and the…cutting. It makes me feel so infantile sometimes.”
“Sweetheart,” he breathes with a soft sigh. “You aren’t alone. And age… well, age doesn’t really matter. Sometimes things will be a life-long battle and I know you don’t want them to be, but sometimes they are.”
“I’m tired,” I rasp, my voice thick and hoarse and my throat sore.
“I know.” Rowan frowns and puts his forehead to mine. “I know, sweetheart.”
“I’m not as strong as you think.”
“Yes you are,” he says. “Strength just looks different on everyone.”
“Then how does it look on me?” I croak. “Pathetic? Rowan, I don’t want to feel this way forever.”
“It looks beautiful,” Rowan says. “You wear it differently, but I see it. You’re going to therapy again, you’ve been clean for almost two years.
That is how you’re wearing it.” Rowan holds my wrist gently in his tender, loving hands.
“These scars…” he rasps, pained, with sad eyes.
He brings my wrist to his lips to place another soft kiss on it.
“Battle scars?” I whisper.
“Survival,” he whispers back. “Even when you didn’t want to survive.”
“Rowan.” The bastard is making my chest tighten, throat burn, and eyes blur. Everything hurts but, more than that, everything feels good around him. Like the pain of a healing wound. “I’m scared I won’t be enough for you. I’m scared that I’m still so insecure I’m going to ruin this.”
“I won’t let you ruin this.”
“You can’t—Rowan, I’ve been working on it. Going to therapy again…” I take a beat to breathe, control the trembling in my voice, and soothe the burning in my throat. “Going more often has been helping me a lot. But I’m not perfect.”
“Perfect is overrated, you know that.”
I scoff. “You’re pretty perfect, Rowan Asher.”
He blinks, his eyes narrowing and brows pulling together as a smirk decorates his lips. “Did you just…”
“Don’t make it a thing.” I roll my eyes and gently shove his chest.
“Come here, sweetheart.” He chuckles and pulls me tight against him. “I’ve waited a long time to be yours. Nothing is ruining this for us.”
My cheeks flush again, not from the tears this time. “You promise?”