Page 102 of These Tears

‘What if I really suck at it?’ I ask. ‘Not everyone’s good at things.’

He doesn’t hesitate. ‘Then you try until you get better.’

My hands go still in the middle of folding the jumper that spilled out of the bag. The fabric hangs limp in my grip as I slowly lift my gaze towards him.

His back is now fully turned to me. The line of his spine is straight as a ruler, the muscles in his arms bunching, then releasing as he considers which attire best suits tonight’s particular brand of torture.

Until you get better.

I reach for a strand of hair and twirl it between my fingers in thought.

He said it as if it’s the only possible outcome. As if failure isn’t in the game at all.

The puppy flashes through my mind. A six-year-old boy. One mistake away from another cruel lesson.

‘What usually happened when you failed?’ I ask, making the words come out carefully.

His hand stills for barely a breath. So does everything else on him. Then he folds the pyjamas once and sets them aside without a word.

When it’s clear he’s letting my question die in the crackle of fire, I move because he does. We cross paths as I aim for the bed and he heads towards the shower room.

Crawling under the covers feels like dropping into my own grave.

The sheets are warm, but gooseflesh rises on my skin from the tension and the dread of what’s coming.

I pull the duvet higher, trying not to think of it as a shield – because it’s not. He’ll be under it soon. I do my utmost not to breathe in the scent of him woven through the bedding. Firewood. Musk.

I know enough now to suspect I haven’t yet seen the half of it.

When he’d mentioned his demons, my mind had gone all kinds of places. Twisted ones. Sexual ones. Terrifying ones. And after reading those few chapters earlier… right after what he told me tonight, it feels as if I’ve thrown a rock into a pond and it made no ripples at all – as if that little rock is about to cause something worse.

Still, my thoughts keep rewinding. Back to his declaration that we share everything. The more I run my fingers along that idea, the less outrage I feel.

I expect it to burn.

It doesn’t.

Which is… troubling.

Because nothing has changed. I am still trapped. He is still the man who brought me here. The fact that some damaged part of me can find pockets of solace in this horror does not make it tender.

It makes me afraid of myself.

It could just be my frightened brain whispering its own seductive lies, building cathedrals out of cages. I’ve seen mirages before, romanticised things that should’ve been red flags. This time, I’m determined to keep the facts close to hand.

What are they?

Abandonment issues, for sure. Not just mine – though his are on an entirely different level.

And then, uninvited, his voice comes back to me in words from the London airport, ‘Stay with me. That’s all you need to do right now. Just… stay. With me.’

I settle deeper into the pillow, curling on my side to face the fire. The mattress is too soft, the warmth too coaxing.

Stay with me…

Did he mean just in that moment? Or was he asking something else?

I rub my face hard with both hands, groaning into my palms.