Chapter Six
Hope
I felt the exact moment his breathing evened out.
The shift from ragged gasps to the slow, steady rhythm of sleep.
It happened gradually, like watching the tide recede, each exhale a little longer, a little deeper, until finally settling into that unmistakable pattern of unconsciousness.
His arm, still draped across my waist, heavy and warm, anchored me to the grass beneath us.
The weight of it should have been comforting, should have made me feel safe and wanted, but instead it felt like a chain I couldn’t break free from.
His face was pressed against my hair, his breath ghosting across my temple in soft, regular intervals—tick, tick, tick, like a clock counting down the seconds until morning would force us to confront what had just happened.
He was asleep.
Just like that. As if nothing had changed. As if the world hadn’t just tilted sideways and spilled everything I thought I knew onto the ground between us.
And I was still here, wide awake, staring up at the stars through a blur of tears I had been holding back since the moment he had whispered her name.
The sky was impossibly clear tonight, each point of light sharp and accusatory, bearing witness to my humiliation.
I blinked and felt the wetness finally escape, trailing hot down my temples and into my hair where his face rested, oblivious.
I wondered if he could feel it. I wondered if, even in sleep, some part of him knew what he had done.
Julie.
The tears fell harder then, hot and silent, as they spilled down my temples and into my hair.
They pooled in the hollows beneath my eyes before sliding sideways across my skin, soaking into the ground beneath my head.
I pressed my lips together hard, biting down on the inside of my cheek, trying to keep the sob trapped in my chest, trying not to shake and wake him.
My throat burned with the effort of staying quiet.
I could feel my ribcage trembling with each shallow breath I took, but I forced myself to remain still beside him in the darkness.
All the while, my heart was breaking. Not just for him, but for myself. For both of us, really.
For this impossible situation we had both found ourselves in.
Because I knew with a certainty that cut deeper than any blade, that there was nothing I could do to ease his pain. Nothing I could say or give that would fill the void she had left behind.
I had given him my body. I had let him pour his soul into me, let him worship me like I was something sacred, something precious and irreplaceable, let him whisper promises and love into my skin.
I had opened myself to him completely, held nothing back, offered everything I had.
And the entire time, every kiss, every touch, every breathless moment, he had been calling me by another woman’s name. Her name. Not mine.
Julie.
I turned my head slowly, carefully, and looked at him, my breath catching in my throat as I took in the sight of him lying there beside me.
God, he was beautiful.
Even in sleep, there was a tension in his face.
A tightness around his eyes, a furrow between his brows like he couldn’t escape whatever haunted him even in his dreams. Whatever demons chased him during his waking hours clearly followed him into the darkness, refusing to grant him peace.
His hair was dark and messy, falling across his forehead in damp strands that stuck to his skin.
His jaw was strong and shadowed with stubble, the kind of rough texture that I knew would feel coarse against my fingertips if I dared to reach out and touch him.
His lips were slightly parted, soft and vulnerable in a way they never were when he was awake, and I could see the faint rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, each breath steady and rhythmic, like the gentle ebb and flow of ocean waves against the shore.
He was covered in tattoos. Dark ink that wrapped around his arms, his shoulders, his chest. Each design told a story I desperately wanted to know but didn’t have time to decipher.
Serpents coiled around dragons, geometric patterns intersected with what looked like ancient runes, and scattered among them were words in languages I couldn’t read.
I could see the edge of something on his ribs, disappearing beneath the grass where he lay.
Maybe a phoenix, maybe wings. I couldn’t tell.
The artwork was beautiful and haunting, a map of pain and survival etched permanently into his skin.
He was broad and muscular, built like a man who worked with his hands, who knew violence and strength in equal measure.
His forearms were thick with corded muscle.
His shoulders were wide enough to carry the weight of the world.
There were scars too, pale lines cutting through the tattoos here and there.
Evidence of a life hard-lived, of battles fought and survived.
But right now, in this moment, he looked vulnerable.
Broken. Lost. His chest rose and fell with shallow breaths, and his face—God, his face—was unguarded in a way I suspected it rarely was when he was conscious.
The hard edges had softened, the walls had come down, and what remained was raw and achingly human.
I wanted to reach out and touch his face.
Wanted to smooth the furrow from his brow, trace the line of his jaw, memorize every detail of him before I had to leave.
My fingers itched with the need to brush away the dark hair that had fallen across his forehead, to feel the rough stubble on his cheek, to press my palm against his chest and feel his heartbeat beneath my hand.
But I didn’t.
Because he wasn’t mine.
He was hers. Julie’s. And I was just the woman who happened to be here when he needed someone to hold, someone to use, someone to lose himself in for a few stolen moments under the cover of darkness.
I could still feel him inside me. The ache, the fullness, the strange intimacy of being connected to someone in a way I had never been before.
The ghost of him lingered there, a phantom presence that made my breath catch.
My body felt different. Changed. Marked in some invisible way that only I would ever know about.
There was a dull throb between my legs, a tenderness that reminded me with every breath, every small shift of my hips, of what we had just done.
What we had shared. What I had given him.
What he’d just done.
What he had taken.
The grass beneath me was cool and damp, pressing into my bare skin.
I could feel each individual blade against my thighs, my back, the curve of my shoulder.
The earth beneath seemed to cradle me, or perhaps it was pulling me down, trying to swallow me whole.
The moonlight bathed everything in silver, washing out colors and casting long shadows that stretched across the field like reaching fingers.
It made the world feel unreal. Like a dream, where I would wake at any moment and find myself back in my bed, alone and untouched and whole.
But I knew I wouldn’t wake up. This was real. This had happened.
This wasn’t a dream.
And I had to leave before he woke up and realized what he had done. Before he looked at me and saw a stranger instead of the woman he loved.
Slowly, carefully, I eased out from under his arm, moving inch by inch so I wouldn’t disturb him.
The weight of his arm had been comforting and crushing all at once.
He shifted slightly, his breathing changing rhythm for just a moment, murmuring something low and incoherent that I couldn’t make out, but he didn’t wake.
His face remained peaceful, untroubled in sleep in a way it never was when he was awake.
I sat up, pulling my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around my legs, holding myself together because I felt like I might fall apart.
I let my tears fall freely now. Silent, aching sobs that shook my shoulders and made my chest hurt, made it hard to breathe.
I cried for him. For the pain he was drowning in, the grief that consumed his every waking moment. For the woman he had lost, the one he couldn’t let go of, couldn’t move past. For the love he had poured into me tonight that was never meant for me at all, but for her ghost, her memory.
And I cried for myself. For the choice I had made tonight, knowing full well what it meant.
For the fact that I had let him take my virginity while he whispered her name against my skin, called me by another woman’s name in the heat of passion, and I hadn’t stopped him.
I’d heard him clearly. Heard her name on his lips and I had let him continue, anyway.
Because I had wanted him. God help me, I had wanted him so badly it hurt, wanted him with an intensity that scared me, that made me willing to accept whatever scraps of affection he could offer, even if they were meant for someone else.
I had been foolish enough to believe that maybe, just maybe, if I gave him everything, he might eventually see me the way I saw him.
That he might one day look at me with the same longing I felt every time he cried out in the night.
But deep down, I had known the truth all along.
I had simply been too hopeful, too pathetic to admit it to myself.
After a long moment, I wiped my eyes and reached for my nightgown, crumpled in the grass beside us.
My fingers trembled as I gathered the thin fabric, damp with dew and smelling of earth and wild clover.
I pulled it over my head, covering myself, suddenly feeling exposed and vulnerable in a way I hadn’t moments before.
The cool night air raised goosebumps along my arms as I looked down at him one last time.