Page 313 of When a Soul Cries

Then I took a breath.

“I'm about to tell you something I've never told Roman.”

Her expression changed immediately. “Sugga—”

“And you're not gonna tell him either.”

She nodded slowly.

I looked down at my hands. “I was nineteen when somebody raped me.”

Sol went completely still.

The room changed.

All the laughter disappeared.

“I was at a party,” I continued quietly. “Somebody put something in my drink. I don't remember everything. Pieces. Feelings. Waking up knowing something had happened to me but not knowing exactly who did it.”

Sol's hand found mine.

I swallowed against the tightness in my throat.

“A few weeks later, I found out I was pregnant.”

Her eyes widened.

I didn't have to say his name.

She knew.

“Roman?” she whispered.

I nodded.

Tears immediately filled her eyes again. “He doesn't know?”

“No. Neither of my boys do. Roman knows I don't know who his father is. He doesn't know why.”

Sol squeezed my hand tighter.

“I spent a long time trying to understand how something so ugly could leave me with somebody I loved so much.” My voice cracked despite my best effort. “That baby didn't do anything to me. Roman was innocent. And from the second I knew he was mine, I loved him separately from what happened.”

Sol was crying now.

So was I.

I reached over and wiped her cheek.

“When Roman finally sat me down and told me what happened to you, he didn't tell me every detail. He didn't need to. He told me enough to understand that somebody had hurt you, that Halo came from what was done to you, and that you had chosen to love and raise that baby without ever putting the ugliness of how she was conceived onto her.”

Sol's eyes dropped, and her fingers tightened around mine.

“That was the day I understood why something about you had felt familiar to me from the beginning,” I continued. “Roman thought he was just explaining why you carried certain fears. He had no idea he was sitting across from a woman who knew exactly what it felt like to look at her child and know the worst thing that ever happened to her had also somehow given her the best thing.”

Sol's face crumbled.

I rubbed my thumb across her hand.