Page 116 of Shattered Obsession

As I wake up in the middle of the night, I see Xander standing near the edge of the bed, unable to sleep after what happened. He turns to look at me as if he has all the time in the world. For the first time in what feels like forever, it’s just us. There are no ghosts, no footsteps in the shadows, no voice in my head whispering fear. The night feels quieter than any I can remember. I turn to the side, flicking on the lamp. The lamplight paints the room in amber, soft and alive, and I realize this is what peace must look like—fragile but finally mine. I don’t know how long I just breathe, letting the quiet settle inside me like fresh snowfall.

Peace feels foreign, like wearing someone else’s coat.

For months, I didn’t even trust silence. Silence used to mean danger.

Silence meant I wasn’t allowed to speak.

Silence meant he was thinking.

Now, silence means freedom.

Xander’s presence doesn’t fill the room the way Damian’s did, looming, penetrating, suffocating.

Xander simply exists beside me.

Steady. Grounded. Real.

It strikes me now that healing isn’t loud.

It’s not big grand gestures or timelines or checklists.

Sometimes healing looks like lying in bed with someone who doesn’t need to own your air to feel powerful.

Sometimes healing is the absence of fear.

For the first time, the quiet isn’t a threat.

It’s a beginning.

“You’re staring,” I tease. Xander’s mouth curves into that dangerous smile, the one that promises I won’t walk tomorrow.

“I’ve waited too damn long to have you like this. No distractions. No fear. Just mine.”

My breath catches in my chest, and something deep inside thrills at the word. Mine. He grabs my ankles, pulling me to the edge of the bed so fast that I let out an audible gasp. His hands on my ankles are rougher than a lover’s touch; they’re the hands of a man who has rehearsed the shapes of me in his head until they feel like destiny. There’s an intensity in the way he watches me, the kind of attention that could burn or salvage, depending on who holds the flame.

His obsession is the mirror of my own. Where I once shrank, he enlarges; where I hide, he claims. It’s terrifying and intoxicating all at once. He tells me he has waited, how long becomes irrelevant, and the weight of that waiting folds into the moment like gravity. I catch myself measuring him back. Is he fierce because he loves me, or because he cannot stand the idea of losing what he thinks is his? The answer is both. There’s a dangerous tenderness in a man who would let the world burn to keep you, and there is a tenderness that can steady you when the world is already on fire. I hold my breath and choose to trust the tenderness.

My legs dangle off the side, body open to him, vulnerable and exposed. But this time, it isn’t weakness—it is power. Power used to mean control. His control over my decisions, my body, my breath.

Now power feels like choosing to stay instead of being trapped.

I used to wonder if I’d ever reclaim my body.

I’d stare in the mirror and feel like a stranger lived beneath my skin, a version of me shaped by someone else’s violence.

But here, with Xander looking at me like I hung the constellations… I feel ownership returning to my bones.

Not ownership through possession.

Ownership through autonomy.

My heartbeat isn’t a warning bell anymore.

It’s a declaration.

It was my choice to give him this.

“Color?” he asks softly, eyes locking with mine.