Chapter 20 Midnight Gardens #2
Just shattered like glass. Like every wall I'd ever built collapsing at once under weight they were never meant to hold forever.
Sebastian moved. Closed the distance in two steps. His hands found my arms, gripping hard enough to hurt, grounding me in reality when all I wanted was to disappear into the past and fix everything I'd broken.
“Look at me.” Not a request. A command. “Viktor. Look at me.”
I couldn't. If I looked at him, if I saw pity or disgust or anything resembling what I deserved, I'd fall apart completely.
“Please.”
The word undid me.
I looked.
Found him staring back with eyes that held no pity. No disgust. Just raw understanding that hurt worse than any condemnation could have. Like he'd looked at the worst parts of me and decided they were worth holding anyway.
“It wasn't your fault,” he said.
“I was supposed to protect her.”
“You were a kid yourself. What were you, nineteen? Twenty?”
“Eighteen.” The number felt obscene. Like admitting how young I'd been made it worse somehow. Made the failure more complete. “Eighteen years old and so fucking sure I knew what was right. So convinced I could stand on principle and the world would bend around it.”
“You tried to do the right thing. That's not—”
“Is exactly failure!” The words exploded out of me. “I chose morality over her safety! Chose to feel noble instead of keeping her alive! If I had just done what they asked. If I had just broken one man who probably deserved it anyway, she would still be here! She would be alive and whole and—”
“And you would be dead inside.” Sebastian's grip tightened. “You would've broken yourself to save her, and she would've spent the rest of her life knowing her brother became a monster to protect her. You think that would've been better?”
“She would be alive!”
“And you would be what? Their weapon? Their tool? The thing you spent years making sure you never became?” His voice went rough. Raw. “You made the only choice you could make, Viktor. The right choice. And they punished you for it because that's what powerful men do when people refuse to break.”
“I should have found her faster. Should have—”
“You did everything you could.” His voice cracked. “Everything humanly possible. And it still wasn't enough because sometimes the world is just cruel and there's nothing you can do to stop it.”
The words hit like bullets. Each one finding its target. Each one opening wounds I'd spent years teaching myself not to feel.
“I have heard that before,” I whispered. “Does not make it easier.”
“I know.” He lifted one hand from my arm. Touched my face. Careful. Gentle. Like I was something fragile instead of something sharp and dangerous. “But maybe it's not supposed to be easy. Maybe grief doesn't get lighter. We just get stronger at carrying it.”
“I am tired of carrying it.”
“Then let me help.”
I stared at him. At this golden prince standing in rain and broken glass, offering to shoulder weight that would crush him. Offering it like it was simple. Like it wasn't the most dangerous thing he could possibly do.
“You do not know what you are offering.”
“I know exactly what I'm offering.” His thumb traced my cheekbone. Catching rain or tears, I couldn't tell anymore. Didn't care. “I'm offering to carry your ghosts with mine. To be someone you don't have to pretend with. Someone who sees all of it and chooses you anyway.”
“I will hurt you. Will fail you. Will—”
“Will be human,” he interrupted. “Like the rest of us. Imperfect and flawed and trying anyway.”
“I am not good at trying.”
“Bullshit. You try harder than anyone I've ever met. You just call it duty instead of caring. Call it protocol instead of love. Call it anything except what it actually is because admitting you care means admitting you could lose, and you've lost enough.”
That startled a laugh out of me. Broken. Wet. But real.
“You are impossible.”
“Runs in the family.” He stepped closer. Until we were breathing the same air. Until I could feel his warmth cutting through the rain. “You don't have to be alone anymore, Viktor. You don't have to carry this by yourself.”
“I have carried it for a long time.”
“And you can keep carrying it for more if that's what you need.” His forehead rested against mine. “But you don't have to. I see you. All of you. The good and the broken and the parts you think make you a monster. And I'm not afraid.”
“You should be.”
“Too late.”
The rain fell harder. Thunder rolled closer. The world narrowing to just this: him and me and the space between where all my walls used to be.
“Everyone I get close to dies or gets destroyed,” I said. Last defense. Last wall. Last desperate attempt to protect him from myself.
“I'm not everyone.” His hands framed my face.
“I'm not Anya. I'm not helpless. I'm not someone who needs you to sacrifice yourself to keep me safe.” His eyes burned into mine.
“I'm someone who fights beside you. Who chooses you.
Who refuses to let you disappear into guilt and shadows because you think that's what you deserve.”
“Why?”
“Because you're worth it. Because even if you can't see it yet, I do. And I'm not going anywhere.”
The words broke something inside me.
Not violent. Not destructive. Just broke.
Like ice cracking under spring sun. Like walls I'd spent years building finally giving way under pressure they were never meant to hold forever.
I tried to speak. Couldn't. Throat too tight. Eyes burning in a way that had nothing to do with rain.
“Viktor.” His voice went soft. Worried. “It's okay. You're okay.”
I wasn't okay.
I was falling apart in a garden at three in the morning while a prince whispered lies about me being worth saving.
I was remembering Anya's laugh. Her smile.
The way she used to steal my cigarettes and pretend she didn't smoke.
The way she'd called me Vitya in Russian when she wanted something, knowing I couldn't say no.
The way she'd looked at me the last time with eyes that said she forgave me even though I'd never forgive myself.
I was feeling every hour of every day I'd spent turning myself into a weapon because weapons didn't grieve, didn't feel, didn't break under the weight of memories that should've killed me years ago.
“I never told anyone her name,” I heard myself say. “Not in eighteen years. Not Adrian. Not Dom. Not anyone. Just kept her locked inside where she couldn't hurt me anymore.”
“Then I'll keep it safe.” His thumb brushed across my cheek, catching moisture that wasn't rain. “I'll keep her safe. Both of you.”
That did it.
The dam broke.
Everything I'd been holding back for eighteen years came pouring out in a sound I barely recognized as coming from me. Somewhere between a sob and a roar. Raw and animal and completely uncontrolled.
My knees gave out.
I felt myself falling, felt Sebastian catch me, felt us both sink into wet grass while I came apart in his arms like something that had been held together with wire and will finally giving up the fight.
And he held me.
Didn't try to shush me or tell me it would be okay or any of the useless platitudes people offered when they were uncomfortable with someone else's grief. Just held me. Let me break. Let me bleed out years of poison I'd been swallowing to stay functional.
I cried like I hadn't cried since I'd dug Anya's grave with hands that refused to stop shaking.
Cried for the girl I couldn't save. For the man I'd become trying to make up for it.
For all the years I'd spent alone because being alone meant no one else could die on my watch.
For every wall I'd built and every connection I'd refused and every moment of warmth I'd turned away because warmth meant vulnerability and vulnerability meant loss.
Sebastian's hand moved through my hair. Gentle. Steady. Anchoring me in the present when all I wanted was to drown in the past.
“I've got you,” he murmured against my temple. “I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. You can break. I'll hold the pieces.”
“You should—”
“I'm not going anywhere.”
“Sebastian—”
“Shut up and let me hold you.”
So I did.
I shut up and let him hold me while I fell apart. While rain washed blood and tears and eighteen years of pretending into the grass. While thunder rolled overhead and roses bloomed pale in darkness like ghosts I'd spent my whole life running from.
I don't know how long we stayed there. Could've been minutes. Could've been hours. Time felt different. Slippery. Like we'd stepped outside normal reality into some pocket where grief was allowed and breaking wasn't weakness and you could fall apart without disappearing completely.
Eventually the tears slowed. Turned into shuddering breaths. Into silence.
My face was pressed against his shoulder.
His shirt was soaked through with rain and tears and everything I'd been holding back.
His hand still moved through my hair in slow, steady strokes.
Patient. Infinite. Like he had all the time in the world and intended to spend it right here holding me together.
“I am sorry,” I managed. Voice wrecked. Unfamiliar in my own mouth.
“For what?”
“For falling apart. For being—”
“Don't apologize for being human.” He pulled back just enough to look at me. Rain streaked his face. Made him look younger. More vulnerable. More real than anything I'd ever held. “Don't apologize for having feelings in a world that tried to beat them out of you.”
“I am supposed to be professional. In control. I am supposed to—”
“You're a person.” His hands framed my face. “A person who's been through hell and is still standing. That's not weakness, Viktor. That's the strongest thing I've ever seen.”
I searched his face. Found nothing but honesty. No pity. No disgust. Just acceptance so raw it hurt to look at directly.
“I do not know how to do this,” I admitted. “How to be close to someone without destroying them. Without failing them the way I failed her.”
“Neither do I.” His smile was small. Real. Sad in the way that comes from understanding. “But we can figure it out together. Make new mistakes instead of old ones.”
“What if I fail again? What if—”
“What if you don't?” He leaned closer. Close enough to kiss but not quite. Waiting. Giving me the choice even now. “What if this time, it works? What if we both make it through whatever's coming? What if choosing to try is enough?”
“Statistically unlikely.”
“Fuck statistics.” He closed the last inch. “I'd rather live one real moment with you than a thousand safe ones alone.”
I kissed him.
Kissed him like he was air and I'd been drowning. Like he was the only solid thing in a world made of water and darkness. Like he was the truth I'd been running from my entire life, the warmth I'd convinced myself I didn't deserve, the grace I'd never thought to ask for.
He kissed me back just as desperately. Hands in my hair. Mouth opening under mine. Tasting like rain and hope and everything I'd spent eighteen years telling myself was impossible for men like me.
It wasn't the fierce, hungry kiss from before.
This was different. Slower. Deeper. Tender in a way that terrified me more than violence ever had.
Like we were learning each other from the beginning.
Like everything that came before had been preparation for this moment right here, kneeling in wet grass while the world fell apart around us and we held each other through it anyway.
When we broke apart, both breathing hard, his forehead rested against mine.
“Stay with me,” he whispered.
“I am not going anywhere.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.” The words felt like vows. Like signing my name in blood. Like stepping off a cliff and trusting he'd catch me. “I promise I will stay. Will try. Will be human with you even when it terrifies me.”
“That's all I'm asking.”
The words felt like absolution.
Like finally, after eighteen years of carrying guilt alone, someone was telling me I was allowed to put it down. Not forget it. Not pretend it never happened. Just allowed to carry it with someone else instead of letting it crush me in the dark.
Like maybe choosing to live instead of just survive wasn't betraying Anya. Maybe it was honoring her. Maybe she'd want me to be happy instead of spending the rest of my life punishing myself for failing her.
Maybe grief could coexist with joy.
Maybe I could hold both.
We stayed there, kneeling in the grass, holding each other while rain washed everything clean except the things that needed to stay dirty.
And for the first time in eighteen years, the ghosts felt a little quieter.
Not gone. Never gone.
Just. Quieter.
Like maybe I could learn to live with them instead of being haunted.
Like maybe I deserved this.