15. The Greenhouse
The Greenhouse
Gabriel
Iknew before I saw.
It was in the way my father looked at her at breakfast—the possessive hand on her lower back, the way his thumb traced circles against her spine while he pretended to read the newspaper.
It was in the way she wouldn't meet my eyes, the way she kept her gaze fixed on her plate, the way her hands trembled slightly when she reached for her coffee.
Something had happened. Something had changed.
And I knew, with a certainty that sat in my chest like a stone, that it had happened in the dark hours between midnight and dawn, when the house was quiet and the rest of us were sleeping.
I excused myself before the meal was over. I couldn't sit there anymore—couldn't watch my father touch her, couldn't watch her let him, couldn't pretend that everything was fine when everything was falling apart.
The greenhouse was cold.
The sun hadn't reached it yet—the glass walls were frosted, the plants huddled together for warmth, the orchids pale and trembling. I stood in the center of the room and tried to breathe. The air was thick with the smell of earth and decay, the particular sweetness of things that were dying slowly.
I heard the door open behind me.
"Gabriel."
Her voice was soft. Careful. The voice you use when you're approaching something that might bite.
"Don't," I said. I didn't turn around. "Don't come any closer."
"Gabriel—"
"Did he touch you?"
The question hung in the air between us. I heard her breath catch—a small, sharp sound, like glass breaking.
"Gabriel, please—"
"Did he touch you?" I turned. She was standing a few feet away, her arms wrapped around herself, her face pale. She was wearing my sweater—the one I'd left in her room, the dark green one she'd said she liked. I'd noticed it at breakfast. I'd noticed everything.
She didn't answer.
That was an answer.
"You let him." My voice cracked. I could hear how pathetic I sounded—jealous, possessive, everything I'd sworn I wouldn't become. But I couldn't stop. "You let him touch you. After everything. After the greenhouse. After—"
"Gabriel, it's not—it's not what you think."
"Then what is it? What is it, Monika? Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you spread your legs for my father the same way you spread them for me. The same way you'll probably spread them for Nathan, eventually. Is that the plan? Fuck your way through the whole family?"
She flinched like I'd hit her.
I regretted the words the moment they left my mouth. But I didn't take them back. I couldn't. The jealousy was too hot, too sharp, too alive in my chest.
"I'm not his," she said quietly. "I'm not yours. I'm not anyone's."
"You're mine." I stepped toward her. She didn't step back. "You were mine first. In the snow. In the greenhouse. You were mine before he ever touched you."
"I'm not a thing to be claimed."
"Then stop acting like one."
She kissed me.
I don't know who moved first—her or me. One moment we were standing apart, the tension between us thick enough to cut.
The next, her mouth was on mine, and I was pulling her against me, my hands fisting in the fabric of my sweater—her sweater now—and the world was shrinking to the space between our bodies.
The kiss was not gentle.
It was desperate and angry and full of everything we couldn't say. She bit my lip, hard enough to draw blood, and I groaned into her mouth. I tasted copper and coffee and something else—something that might have been my father's cologne, still lingering on her skin.
I kissed her harder, trying to erase it. Trying to replace the memory of his mouth with mine.
She let me. For a minute—maybe longer—she let me press her against the potting bench, let me slide my hands under the sweater, let me touch the places he'd touched.
Her skin was warm beneath my fingers, soft, familiar.
I knew this body. I'd been learning it for weeks, memorizing the curves and hollows, the places that made her gasp and the places that made her sigh.
But there was something different now. Something that felt like a door closing.
"Gabriel—"
"Don't." I kissed her throat, her collarbone, the hollow between her breasts. "Don't tell me you're his. Not yet."
"Gabriel, stop."
She pushed me away.
Not hard—just enough to create space between us, enough to make me look at her face. She was crying. Tears slid down her cheeks, silent and steady, and I watched them fall and felt something in my chest crack.
"I can't do this," she said. "I can't be what you want me to be."
"What do I want you to be?"
"Good. Pure. Uncomplicated." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I'm not any of those things. I haven't been for a long time."
"I don't want you to be good. I want you to be mine."
"I don't know whose I am anymore."
We stood there for a long moment.
The greenhouse was cold. The orchids shivered in their pots. Somewhere in the house, a clock chimed—nine, or ten, or something else that didn't matter. The world outside the glass was grey and flat, the sky the color of old bruises.
I looked at her. Really looked. At the dark circles under her eyes, the pallor of her skin, the way her hands trembled at her sides. She was exhausted. Not just from lack of sleep—from carrying something too heavy for her shoulders.
"He made you his ward," I said. "Gave you his name. And then he—"
"Yes."
"And you let him."
"Yes."
"Why?"
She looked at me. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but steady.
"Because I'm tired of saying no."
The words landed like stones in still water. I watched the ripples spread across her face, across her shoulders, across the way she held herself like she was waiting for something to break.
"Monika—"
"He's the only one who's ever given me anything without asking for something in return." She laughed—a bitter, broken sound. "I know that's not true. I know he's asking for everything. But it felt like... it felt like someone finally saw me. Not the farm girl. Not the waitress. Just me."
"I see you."
"I know. That's what makes this so hard."
She reached out and touched my face. Her fingers were cold, trembling, and I covered them with my own.
"You're the best part of this place," she said. "The only good part. And I'm going to ruin you. I'm going to ruin you the way I'm ruining everything else."
"You can't ruin me. I was already ruined before I met you."
She kissed me.
Not the way she'd kissed me before—not soft, not tender, not full of questions and trembling hands. This kiss was desperate. Frantic. The kind of kiss you give when you're trying to hold onto something that's already slipping away.
I kissed her back the same way. My hands found her hips, her waist, the swell of her breasts beneath the sweater. She moaned into my mouth, and the sound of it—the raw, hungry sound—made me harder than I'd ever been.
I lifted her onto the potting bench. The wood was cold beneath her thighs, and she gasped, but she didn't pull away. She wrapped her legs around my waist and pulled me closer, and I could feel the heat of her through our clothes, the want of her, the need.
"Now," she said. "I need—now, Gabriel—"
I fumbled with her jeans. My hands were shaking—they were always shaking around her—but she didn't guide me this time. She just watched me with those steady brown eyes, waiting, trusting.
When I finally got them open, when I finally pushed inside her, she cried out.
It wasn't gentle.
Nothing about this was gentle.
I fucked her against the potting bench—harder than I'd ever fucked anyone, harder than I knew I could. The wood creaked beneath us, and the orchids rattled in their pots, and somewhere in the distance, I heard a bird singing a song I didn't recognize.
Her hands were in my hair, pulling, and her legs were around my waist, and her face—her face was open and raw and beautiful in a way that made my chest ache.
"Harder," she said. "Please—Gabriel—harder—"
I gave her what she asked for. I gave her everything I had.
I put my hand around her throat—not tight enough to hurt, not tight enough to bruise, just tight enough to feel her pulse beneath my fingers, just tight enough to know that she was alive and I was alive and we were both here, in this moment, falling apart together.
She came first. Her body tightened around me, and she said my name—Gabriel—like it was the only word she remembered. I watched her face as she shattered, and I followed a moment later, burying myself inside her, burying my face in her neck, burying everything I couldn't say.
When it was over, we stayed like that for a long time.
The potting bench was cold beneath us. The orchids were still. Somewhere in the house, a door slammed, and footsteps echoed through the hallway, and I held her tighter.
"Monika," I whispered.
She didn't answer.
"Monika, I love you."
The words came out before I could stop them. They hung in the air between us, fragile and terrible, and I watched her face for a reaction.
She didn't say it back.
She just looked at me with those steady brown eyes, and I saw something there that looked like pity.
We cleaned up in silence.
The greenhouse had a small sink in the corner, and I found a towel that wasn't too dirty, and I wiped her thighs and then mine and then the bench where we'd left marks that would probably never come out.
She watched me the whole time, her arms wrapped around herself, my sweater falling off one shoulder.
"You should go," she said.
"Monika—"
"You should go, Gabriel. Before someone finds us. Before your father—"
"My father doesn't own you."
"Maybe not. But he owns this house. And he owns the air we breathe in it." She walked toward the door. Paused with her hand on the handle. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For being kind to me. When you didn't have to be."
She left. The door closed behind her with a soft click, and I stood in the greenhouse alone, surrounded by orchids and the smell of earth and the ghost of her skin on mine.
I loved her.
I loved her and she didn't love me back, and I didn't know what to do with that.
I sank onto the potting bench and put my head in my hands.
The orchids watched me in silence.
I stayed in the greenhouse until the sun went down.
I thought about my mother. About the way she used to sing in this room, her voice soft and low, her hands gentle on the leaves. I thought about the way she'd looked at my father—with love, yes, but also with fear. The same fear I saw in Monika's eyes sometimes, when she thought no one was watching.
I thought about the future. About medical school, about the person I was trying to become, about the person I was afraid I already was.
I thought about Monika's face when I'd said I love you. The way she'd looked at me. The way she hadn't said it back.
I thought about my father's hand on her lower back.
I thought about Nathan's eyes, watching us all.
And I thought about the greenhouse—about the way it had felt to be inside her, to be wanted by her, to be the person she chose in this moment even if she wouldn't choose me in the end.
I loved her.
I loved her, and it was going to destroy me.
And I didn't care.
When I finally walked back to the house, the lights were on.
The windows glowed gold against the dark, and I could see figures moving inside—servants, guards, the machinery of the Mire household grinding on despite everything. I stood in the garden for a moment, looking up at the second floor, at the window of Monika's room.
The light was on.
I could see her silhouette against the curtain—small, still, her head bowed like she was praying.
I wondered what she was praying for.
I wondered if she was praying for me.