I took another careful step back.
“I’ll help you heal.”
“You can’t,” I said quietly. “A broken glass can be repaired, held together, made to look whole again. But when it shatters completely... there is nothing left to piece back.”
My breath hitched.
“That’s what I am, Rafael.”
The words hung in the air, heavy and final.
“You have no idea how deep this darkness goes. So stop telling me I can heal. Just... stop.”
He took a step closer.
I didn’t move this time.
My hands hovered inches from his chest.
I could hear the faint rustle of his shirt as he breathed, slow and controlled, like nothing in the world could rush him unless he allowed it.
The space between us felt smaller than it should have.
He stopped.
“Put your hands down,” he said softly.
That softness nearly broke me.
Because it wasn’t weakness. It was the kind of gentleness that still held authority beneath it.
I shook my head immediately, stubborn even as my throat tightened. “You talk about healing like it’s something clean. Something you can choose if you’re strong enough. You haven’t even healed from your late wife.”
My voice cracked slightly, but I didn’t stop. “You still carry her like a shrine. You still take other women to her grave like it’s some ritual of punishment you’ve decided to live with. And yet—yet—you stand there and tell me I can heal?”
He didn’t answer right away.
When he did, his voice was quieter.
“I haven’t healed from many things,” he admitted.
That honesty startled me more than any anger would have.
A beat passed.
Then he continued, carefully controlled again, “The difference between us is that I remain open to it.”
I frowned slightly, confused despite myself.
“And besides,” he added, and something in his tone hardened again, “I am a man. I was raised to endure pain. To carry it without breaking apart in public. That is what men do.”
I let out a sharp breath. “And women don’t?”
“You are strong, Loretta. But you are also fragile in ways the world has already exploited. You don’t have to remain trapped in this darkness forever.”
My chest tightened at the contradiction in his words.
All of it tangled together until I couldn’t tell what he was trying to make me anymore.
