Chapter 21
VALENTINA
The apartment looks different with Xavier in it.
The same beige walls that have been pressing in on me for all these months somehow feel less oppressive when he's sprawled on my questionable couch with his wheelchair folded by the door and his legs stretched out in front of him in a way that suggests the physical therapy is working, that he's getting stronger even if he's not quite back to where he was.
The same terrible TV with its underwater picture quality is showing Looney Tunes—actual Looney Tunes, like we're children instead of adults who've lived through more violence and grief than most people experience in a lifetime—and we're both laughing at Bugs Bunny outwitting Elmer Fudd for the thousandth time like this is normal, like this is something we do.
Like we're us again, somehow, against all odds.
It's been three weeks since he showed up on my birthday with cake and a promise that he could never hate me.
Three weeks of careful rebuilding, of learning how to exist in the same space without the weight of what I did crushing us both.
Three weeks of him showing up at my door with take-out or movies or just himself, sitting on this terrible couch and watching cartoons like we have all the time in the world to figure out how to fit our broken pieces back together.
Three weeks and I still can't quite believe he's here.
I'm curled against his side with my head on his shoulder and his arm around me in a way that feels both familiar and fragile, like something that could shatter if either of us moves wrong or says the wrong thing or acknowledges too directly that this—us, together, his warmth against my body and his laugh rumbling through his chest when Bugs does something particularly clever—is a minor miracle we probably don't deserve.
His phone buzzes on the coffee table. Once.
Twice. A text notification that pulls his attention away from the screen, makes his whole body go tense in a way I feel immediately because I'm pressed against him, because after months of not touching him at all I've become hyperaware of every shift in his mood, every change in his breathing.
He huffs—a small sound of frustration that he tries to suppress but doesn't quite manage—and I feel it vibrate through his chest into mine.
"What's wrong?" I ask, not moving from where I'm tucked against him because moving feels dangerous, feels like acknowledging that the outside world exists beyond this couch and this moment and the sound of cartoon violence playing on a TV older than both of us.
"Nothing," he says automatically, his fingers still tracing absent patterns on my shoulder like he's been doing for the past hour, like touching me is something he does without thinking now.
Nothing. The word sits wrong in the space between us, heavy with everything he's not saying, with the distance that still exists despite the three weeks of rebuilding.
I sit up, pulling away from his warmth to look at him directly. "Is this ever going to change?" The question comes out sharper than I intended, edged with months of loneliness and three weeks of walking on eggshells. "Are you ever going to actually trust me again?"
"I do trust you," he says, but even as the words leave his mouth I can see the way his jaw tightens, the way his eyes won't quite meet mine.
"Bullshit." I stand up, needing distance, needing to move because staying still means crying and I've cried enough in the past four months to last a lifetime.
"You say you trust me but you won't tell me what's bothering you.
You say you've forgiven me but you still—" My voice cracks despite my best efforts.
"You'll never really forgive me, will you?
You'll never stop hating me for what I did.
For killing him before you could. For taking that away from you. "
Xavier laughs.
It's not the laugh I'm expecting—not bitter or cruel or mocking.
It's incredulous, like I've said something so fundamentally wrong that he can't quite process it.
He pushes himself up from the couch with more ease than he had a month ago, his legs supporting his weight better now, the physical therapy paying off in incremental victories that I've been cataloging every time he's here because I can't help myself, can't help tracking every sign that he's healing.
"You think that's why I'm angry?" He's looking at me now with an intensity that makes my breath catch, with something burning in his eyes that I can't quite name. "You think I hate you because you killed Marcus first?"
I don't answer because yes, that's exactly what I think. That's what I've thought for all this time—that his anger is about me stealing his revenge, about me taking away his right to be the one who ended his brother's life, about me robbing him of something fundamental that he needed to survive.
"No." Xavier takes a step toward me and I find myself backing up instinctively, my spine hitting the wall. "I'm not angry because you killed him. I'm angry because I didn't get to."
The distinction seems meaningless until he keeps talking, until the words start pouring out of him like something that's been building pressure for weeks and finally found a release valve.
"Marcus made every waking moment of my life unbearable from the time I was old enough to understand what he was.
" Xavier's voice is raw now, stripped of the careful control he usually maintains.
"He took everything. Every scrap of affection from our father—what little there was.
Every opportunity. Every person who might have cared about me.
He took them and he twisted them and he made them his and I—" He stops, swallows hard.
"I spent thirty years dreaming about the day I'd be strong enough to kill him.
The day I'd be powerful enough to rid the world of the man who killed our mother in cold blood when I was seven and she tried to protect me from one of his rages. "
The words hit me like physical blows. I knew Marcus was terrible. Knew he was a predator. But this—this history, this depth of trauma—I didn't know. Couldn't have known.
"I wanted to be the one," Xavier continues, and there's something almost desperate in his voice now, something vulnerable that I've never heard from him before.
"I wanted to look him in the eyes while I did it.
Wanted him to know it was me. Wanted to take back every single thing he ever stole from me by being the one to end him.
" His laugh is bitter now. "It was my dream.
My purpose. The thing I told myself I'd live long enough to accomplish no matter what else happened. "
"Xavier—" I start, but he's not done.
"I don't hate you for killing him, Valentina.
" He takes another step closer, close enough now that I can see the tears gathering in his eyes that he's fighting not to let fall.
"I envy you. I envy you that you got to commit what he would have seen as the greatest sin—fighting back, surviving him—and turn it into a blessing for everyone who ever had to exist in the same world as him.
I hate that it wasn't me. But I don't hate you. "
The tears I've been fighting start falling, hot and fast down my cheeks, because this—this is what I've been afraid to hope for. Forgiveness. Understanding. Some acknowledgment that maybe I'm not the monster I've spent four months believing I am.
Xavier closes the distance between us completely, one hand coming up to cup my face with a tenderness that makes my chest ache.
"It's only fitting," he says quietly, his thumb brushing away tears that just keep coming, "that the girl I'm most in love with would be the one to kill the man who almost broke me beyond repair. "
Most in love with. Present tense. Like it's still true despite everything, despite all this time despite all the ways we've hurt each other.
He leans in and kisses me, and it's nothing like the desperate, hungry kisses we shared before.
This is tender. Careful. Sweet in a way that makes my heart feel too big for my chest. His lips move against mine with reverence, like I'm something precious instead of broken, like I'm someone worth cherishing instead of someone who destroyed his world.
"It's only right," he murmurs against my mouth, his forehead resting against mine, "that the girl I love—the girl I would destroy everything for—would accidentally get rid of the only thing that could distract me from her."
The words settle into my chest like coming home, like finding something I didn't know I'd lost. He loves me. Not past tense. Not despite what I did. Just—loves me. Completely. With full knowledge of what I am and what I'm capable of.
I kiss him back with everything I have, my hands coming up to tangle in his hair, pulling him closer even though there's no closer to get. He tastes like the root beer we were drinking earlier and something underneath that's just Xavier—familiar and essential and mine again. I thought I lost him.
His hands slide down from my face to my waist, pulling me away from the wall and against his body in one smooth movement that makes me gasp into his mouth.
I can feel him already hardening against my hip, can feel the tension building in his shoulders as he holds himself back from taking what he wants.
"Bedroom," I breathe against his lips, already tugging at his shirt.
"Here," he counters, his hands sliding under my tank top to find bare skin. "Can't wait. Need you now."
We strip each other with fumbling hands that are made clumsy by urgency and four months of not touching.
My tank top hits the floor. His shirt follows.
My sleep shorts. His jeans, which take longer because I have to help him balance while he kicks them off, because his legs are still recovering and some positions are harder than others.
But we manage. We always manage.