Page 226 of These Tears

I can hear the effort in the rasp, though. Something I probably wouldn’t have even noticed before.

‘Moving fast,’ he adds. ‘We haven’t discussed anything properly yet.’

It is the wrong thing to say in a room full of family eager for celebration. And then there is the tiny, inconvenient detail – our engagement is a complete and utter lie.

I lower my gaze and breathe through the stone on my chest.

Inga brightens as though Elias has given her permission rather than delay, launching immediately into how weddings in their family used to be done – food enough for everyone, old silver brought out for the occasion. Another cousin counters with the outdoor place near a ridge.

Anders grunts out an opinion. Sunna laughs. Elias deflects. Voices overlap, warm and eager and harmless, but the sound begins to thin until just pressure remains in my ears.

They start ringing.

The room shakes and tilts gently around the topic, and Ron’s phantom weight tightens around my finger beneath Elias’ hand.

‘Help me with the wood,’ he suddenly says, and I hear him only because he sits closest.

I follow without meaning to, labouring across the hallway and almost looking behind to see if I’d left my toes behind.

He hands me my coat as I put on my shoes, and we take the back exit, past the mangled door that he tied to the doorframe with wire so curious eyes wouldn’t witness the wreckage within.

We don’t stop moving until the warmth and the voices of the house have dispersed behind us.

He guides me towards the stacked logs at the side of the cabin, one hand light at my back, then leans against them as if he only brought me out here for a task and not because he felt me coming apart.

For a few seconds, silence is all he gives me.

I put a few feet of distance between us, rolling the damn ring again.

The softness shudders across his cheeks and bleeds away. His eyes cool. His mouth settles into that hard, beautiful line I know too well, and the man who kissed me in the kitchen disappears behind the one who survived by anticipating every blow before it landed.

‘You need to learn to keep the mask on,’ he says quietly.

I twist at the waist to look at him. ‘The mask?’

His gaze cuts to the house behind him. To the windows already glowing gold against the snow where the evening begins to drag. To the silhouettes moving behind the glass, laughing and eating and planning a wedding that will never happen.

‘When people are watching,’ he says.

The sound that spits out of me is not far from disbelief. ‘They’re your family, Elias.’

His jaw flexes.

‘The people closest to you,’ I press, heat rising through the panic. ‘We’re lying to them. About us. Me. You. Everything.’

His eyes turn severe. ‘Sometimes lies are the only reason people survive.’

The words detonate furiously inside me.

His eyes close. The sight of him retreating anchors me before my anger spirals off. Because he’s back in that horrid limbo where every hand is a threat, every truth ammunition and every open door only another way for someone to sneak in and cause chaos.

His arms fold tighter, weight shifting away from me one damned inch at a time.

My outrage loosens instantly. Enough for me to cross the small distance between us.

He goes still, opening his arms for me as I step into him. I wrap my own around his waist, giving him time to refuse, then rest my cheek against his chest.

Beneath the thick fabric, his heart is far from steady despite what his face claims.