Chapter 19
“Broken-hearted is a savage roll of the dice.” a voice whispers low in the sea spray. “But if you drag that hurt from your chest and scream it into your soul-roar, you’ll bring the fucking house down. So, get up, soldier. We still need you.”
I don’t know if the voice is mine or the seas. Maybe both. Maybe neither.
Salt clings to my lashes and crusts my lips. My skin is tight, clothes suctioned to my body like regret. The whisper comes again low, deep, ancient.
“Don’t look back at the ghosts, Penn. They don’t deserve the light.”
It kisses the shell of my ear, warm breath against the coldest part of me.
I don’t know if I’m losing my mind or if madness is finally showing its face.
The cold bites deeper as the sea claws around me, each wave like a slap across already raw skin. I try to move, try to rise. My body doesn’t answer. Sadness doesn’t skim the surface anymore. It seeps in bone deep, cell by cell until even the marrow in me aches.
The sand drinks it all in my sorrow, my salt, my shattered edges as the waves crash over my knees.
My shoes are gone. My fingers are blue. I let the sea take the worst of him, the dirty bits, the lies, the betrayal, and begged it to leave behind whatever was still pure inside me if there was anything left.
But I know better.
Nothing will ever erase the words I saw today. Nothing will cleanse the rot of what he wrote to her things he never even said to me, things he never touched me with. He offered a stranger what I begged for as his wife.
“Sadness is a painful purge, Penn.” a familiar voice says, “It’s grief’s twisted way of wringing you out. But it’s still a detox. Let it come. Let it burn. Let it bleed.”
Carrie.
I don’t know how she found me. But she always does.
She kneels beside me, her fingers strong on my jaw, turning my face to hers. Her eyes are oceans too, deep with knowing. “Oh, baby,” she whispers, “your anger’s just your sadness in armour. You’re not trying to drown. You’re trying to exorcise him.”
Tears glue my lashes shut as she wraps her arms around my ice-laced body, rocking me like a mother would.
“You have to dig the bullet out to heal, Penn,” she says, breath hitching. “But it’s gonna hurt like hell. And I love you too much to lie about that.”
I look past her to the bruised sky. The sun is bleeding into the ocean. The moon, half-full and silvered with sorrow, watches from above like a silent witness.
And then a new warmth a different presence. Strong arms cradle me, lifting me from the cold sand like I’m weightless. Like, I still matter.
Carrie looks at the man holding me. Dane.
“Take her,” she says, voice breaking. “Protect her. I don’t even recognize her anymore.”
My teeth chatter. My lips crack.
“That’s because the girl you knew died tonight,” I whisper, my voice hollow.
Dane pulls me tighter against him, anchoring my brokenness in something steady.
“I’ve got her,” he says. “I’ll keep you updated.”
My laughter bursts out cracked, jaded, wrong. It sounds evil in my ears.
The girl I used to be is dead.
And what’s left of me? Beautifully broken, deeply fucked up, and maybe just maybe dangerous now.
‘Where does love go when the fire goes out?’
The message echoes through my mind as I sit in the sterile white bathroom, surrounded by gold-framed robins and black marble.
‘Can we ever find our way back? I gave you all of me. Why do you act like I never mattered? Ten years. A fucking decade. And you ended it like it was a line of text you could backspace.’
I don’t remember sending it. But I remember his reply.
“This needs to stop. If you keep harassing me, I’ll take legal action. And nice to know you’re drinking over the grave of our daughter, leaving smoke butts and empties in her garden. Clean yourself up.”
The rage hits me like ice.
“Ha!” I choke out. “Ha-fucking-ha.”
Harassment?
I message my husband, my husband and ask him why. Why is he fucking someone new? Why has he wrecked our world? Why has he become a stranger? And now I’m the villain?
I stare at my reflection in the mirror. Hair a salty mess, skin pale and kissed with death’s chill. And behind me—him. Dane. Rolled-up sleeves, tattoos like shadows across his skin, and eyes… eyes red and broken.
“Oh fuck,” I whisper. “I fucked up.”
He steps forward, slow and sure, taking my hands and lifting them above my head like surrender.
“No, baby. You didn’t fuck up. You’re just lost. You’re hurting.”
His hands trail down my sides, over goosebumps and the curve of my waist, slipping beneath the wet fabric. With reverence, he peels my shirt away, exposing my lace bra and the skin beneath.
He sees me like really sees me and it scares the shit out of me.
“You’re a drug,” he says, eyes roaming my scars and softness. “Penn, you’re addictive in all the ways that matter.”
My phone buzzes. Another message from Blake.
I see Dane’s expression shift as he grabs it, reading the screen. His body tenses.
“This thing,” he says, holding up the phone like it’s a live grenade. “It’s killing you. That app. That man. Tonight, it’s off. He doesn’t get another piece of you tonight.”
My tears fall soundlessly now. He feels familiar. Like a dream I forgot I had.
“Why?” I whisper.
He doesn’t hesitate, “Why not?”
“Because you don’t even know me. I don’t even know myself anymore. I used to. But then the darkness came and asked me to dance. And I never sat back down.”
His hands graze my collarbone, igniting fire across frozen skin.
I speak softly more in prayer than in confession.
“God save my soul because I want him. I want him to touch me. I want to drown in him. Does that make me a monster? A bad wife? A worse mother?”
I wonder if anyone hears me. If heaven has voicemail. What would Nana say if she saw me now?
Dane breathes in sharply.
I blink and meet his eyes through the mirror. “I said that out loud, didn’t I?”
“Yeah. You did.”
He steps in front of me, swallowing the space between us.
His scent wraps around me, warmth against everything I’ve lost.
“If I close my eyes,” I whisper, voice trembling, “Would you be paradise for me, Dane?”
He blinks slowly, that silver-blue ocean crashing into mine.
“I’d be anything for you, Penn,” he says. “But first, I need to warm you up. Let’s start with that bath.”
And as I look into his eyes, eyes like a full moon bleeding into midnight, I wonder if I’ve already stepped into something holy. Or if it’s just another shade of ruin wearing a softer face.
His hands moved beneath my arms, pulling me into him like I was something worth holding onto. His warmth bled into me, his touch trailing down my sides in reverence, like I was both sacred and breakable. When he reached my hips, his fingers curled softly into the flesh, grounding me.
My teeth clacked together as a shiver claimed me whole.
“I didn’t realise I was so cold until now,” I whispered, breath ghosting across his cheek.
“Penn,” his voice dropped, concern curling in every syllable, “I’m surprised you don’t have hypothermia.”
My hand trembled as I lifted it to his face, cupping his cheek.
In the low bathroom light, he looked like something I didn’t know men could be gentle fire, all soul and simmer.
His eyes burned into mine, dreams dancing in the dark behind them.
A soul that wanted to love deeply, desperately.
A soul I wasn’t sure I had the capacity to endure.
“From what?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“The raging waves,” he said. “Crashing over your tiny body, trying like hell to drag you out to sea.”
Fear trembled in his voice, thick and furious.
His hands moved with intent, slipping to the waistband of my soaked pants.
With practiced care, he undid the button, sliding the zipper down with a slow hiss that felt like it sliced through silence.
He crouched, peeling the heavy fabric down my thighs, lifting one ankle at a time.
His hands were steady, but his touch was sinful soft and reverent, like he was undressing something holy.
A smile broke across my lips uncontrollable and starved as I looked down at him.
“So attentive, Dane.”
My voice cracked over the chill that still lingered. His hands, his heat, his presence, they were thawing me slowly.
As his fingers traced fire up my calves to my thighs, I wondered what he’d taste like. I imagined white chocolate and cayenne sweet and dangerous, the kind of thing that lingers on your tongue and ruins you for anything else.
“Deep in thought, Penn?”
His words cloaked me, landing like soft rain on bare skin.
Standing there in black lace, stripped down to my damage and desire, I should have felt exposed. Instead, I felt wanted. Safe. Seen.
“Do you like me, Dane?” I asked, voice barely a thread.
His fingers paused at my hips, his eyes flickering with thought.
“Like you?” he said. “For you, Penn, I’d steal the fucking stars.”
I bit my lip, teeth sinking into soft skin as I reached for his face again. I needed to feel him. Needed to believe he was real and not just a dream conjured by grief and salt water.
“You have me questioning everything I thought I knew about love and pain. My heart hurts so much, Dane.”
He didn’t flinch. Just let me wind my fingers around a strand of hair that had slipped over his face.
“And when your heart hurts,” he said, voice breaking softly against the tiles, “Days like today are the antidote. Here. With me. Because Peach he’s a coward. A killer of your heart. He left you lying in the dark.”
He scooped me into his arms, strong and sure, stepping toward the bath filled with water that smelled like jasmine and white pear. Purple iris petals floated like little memories on the surface.
“My favourite,” I whispered, curling into him.
“I know, baby.”
“How?” I asked, burying my face in the hollow of his neck.
“Your office. Always full of them. Weekly delivery from Living Blooms.”
A laugh, fragile and fleeting, escaped me.
He remembered. He noticed.
Lowering me into the water, the heat bit at first, then melted over me like a lullaby. The scent of me wrapped around my skin, and I felt my past claw its way up through my throat.
“I wish he could see how much it destroyed me when he left.”
Dane knelt beside the bath; fierce tenderness etched across his face. “Oh, Penn. I wish I could beat it into him, but I’d probably get arrested.”
I smiled. It cracked through me like lightning.
“He’s throwing away a ruby, chasing after glass. And that? That’s fucking tragic.”
His hands moved over me, washing away the salt and sorrow. The body wash smelled like vanilla and coconut, like the promise of softness after the storm.
“When I’m with you, Dane, I feel… safe. Like I’m home.”
I searched his eyes, afraid of what I’d find and terrified of what I wouldn’t.
“Sometimes,” he said, “we find home in people we’re not supposed to. Right person, wrong time. Right season, wrong feelings. Maybe I’m meant to be your season.”
“Do you think you could wait for me to find the right feelings for this season?”
He tilted my head back, fingers threading through my hair.
“Of course I can wait,” he said. “I’d wait for you forever. And I know you’ll ask me why, so I’ll tell you now, because I’ve been waiting my whole life to find my soulmate.”
As he rubbed shampoo into my hair, I stared up at him. This, this was the kindest thing anyone had ever done for me.
Even after my emergency C-section, Blake never helped me bathe. Never touched me gently. The nurses did. My mother. Not him. He blamed me, and even when he said he didn’t, I saw it in his eyes. Every damn time.
“Do you believe in love at first sight, Penn?” Dane asked.
“Yes. It’s how I felt when I saw Blake. I knew I would marry him.”
A small smile tugged at Dane’s lips.
“That’s good. Because that’s exactly how I felt when I saw you. I knew you’d be my wife.”
I didn’t have words. Just a smile. Just a yawn. Just the ache of something new and terrifying unfolding inside me.
“All done, little lady,” he said. He wrapped me in a thick, warm towel, lifting me from the water like I was something rare.
“I’ve put out some sweats and a jumper,” he added, nodding to the next room. “Put your wet stuff in this bin. I’ll wash and dry them for you.”
“Okay,” I mouthed.
“Anytime, babe. Helps that you’re cute,” he winked, disappearing through the bathroom door.
When I caught my reflection in the mirror, I startled.
I didn’t recognize her, the woman wrapped in grey fluff, cheeks pale, mascara smudged like tears that forgot where they belonged. Her lips were bare. Her eyes are dull. She looked… empty.
I reached up, brushing my fingers across my collarbone, to my lips, then up to my hairline. You’re a mess, Penn.
I stepped into the next room, eyes sweeping across a space that didn’t belong to a mail guy.
It looked like a photo from House & Home magazine walls of windows, ocean views, and designer furniture. Clean lines. Monochrome tones. A king-sized bed flanked by hanging lights like falling stars. His scent was everywhere. Musk and woods and whatever it was that made my stomach flip.
I padded to the window, pressing my palms and cheek against the cool glass. I breathed him in. His space. His kindness. The impossibility of him.
He found me. I hadn’t messaged. Carrie hadn’t either. But he found me. And brought me here. Bathed me. Touched me like I mattered.
A stranger, but he felt like someone I’d known in another life. Someone who could rebuild me, piece by piece, if I let him.
His kindness scared me.
But his hands? His hands made me feel alive.
And his eyes? They held hope.
And his smile?
His smile looked like sin.