CHAPTER 100
Kissing had quickly turned to much, much more, and now, glowing and breathless, they lay in their cove. The moon had yet to rise; it was just them and the stars and the Milky Way—glorious and colorful and bright and perfect—just like his arms, just like this night.
“I love you,” she said again. “Am I getting repetitive?”
He laughed. “I’d hear it ten thousand times still and not be quenched. I’d have you ten thousand times more and not be full too.”
She laughed. “Since when were you so eloquent?”
“Fine. Do you like it better when I’m not?
” He turned to his side, eyeing her dangerously as if he really could have her again right now to fill that quota.
“Shall we go back to my first words? Kallias likes Daria,” he said, kissing down the side of her cheek and then her neck. “Very”—kiss—“very”—kiss—“very much.”
“Better than biscuits?”
“Maybe not better than biscuits.”
She teasingly smacked his chest. “Stop it.”
“I’m kidding. Of course, I’m kidding. You know I love you.”
“I do.” She inhaled deeply. There was a hint of sadness tucked in his beautiful eyes that was just not going away. Since he hadn’t mentioned it, she had thought she wouldn’t too, but now, it hurt her just to see it. She stroked back some of his hair. “Are you…are you okay? Today…”
He took her hand yet said nothing for the longest time. Then finally, he murmured, “No.”
She didn’t know a single word could break her heart so much, and she was throwing her arms around him before she knew what she was doing. “Oh Kallias.”
He held her tightly against him. “It’s okay. Or it will be, even if it’s not now.”
“You don’t have to be strong, you know,” she said, pulling away so she could look at him. “I don’t need you to be. You can cry or scream or…or…”
“I don’t need to cry or scream,” he said, though his eyes said differently.
There was such sadness, such haunting sadness that it was only then that she truly realized someone had died.
Even if she didn’t like him, even if she detested him, a life was still cut out, and her husband was the one to have to do it.
Because even if it was to protect himself, her, and Mr. Wilson, he had still had to drown someone—just like his father.
“You were protecting us. He attacked first, and he didn’t seem to care if any of us got hit or died and….” But it was still awful, wasn’t it? She touched his cheek again. “Kallias, I’m so, so sorry. If I had…if I could’ve…”
Now he touched hers. “And why would I want you to carry that burden?”
Because even though she was sure it would wreck her all her life, at least she didn’t have the related trauma; at least she would never have to wonder if she was just like her father, for her father was a man worth being like.
She hugged him again, tighter this time, with everything she had, and she hoped he could feel it. “You’re nothing like him,” she said. “Nothing at all.”
His body tensed at first in surprise and then, as his arms tightened back over her, it was then that he cried.