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?t you think? We made it through.”
My pupils dilate, responding to his nearness as I desperately try to understand him. “I could have hurt you and our babies. If they had been there in the room with me, you would have found their lifeless bodies between the broken rubble. What are you doing, Logan?”
“Why don’t you let me show you?” The infuriating man raises his eyebrows in challenge. “It’s time for the clothes to come off,” he whispers in my ear, his warm breath tickling my skin.
Confused, I shake my head at him. Not knowing how to take his behavior, I lose my patience, and start walking towards the exit. I want to cry myself to sleep until I get lost in the dreams. But he catches me around the waist, bringing me to the changing area.
The thought of being naked in front of him petrifies me the most. Here, I won’t be able to hide my soft belly pooch hanging loosely, and breasts decorated with blue veins. My legs and butt hold all the signs of a recent pregnancy. I can’t make myself face his scrutiny. This perfect man has a flawless body, heart, and soul.
To stand naked in front of him makes me frightened to see his disgust and revulsion. I better remember him without that imagery etched in my brain. I can’t let him see me without my guards up. I’m appalled by the thought of giving him a glimpse at the abyss inside me. The monster’s hiding there, making me become someone I loathe.
“Cassandra, have faith in me, please?” I want to give him everything I have, even if it is my dignity that he wants. I close my eyes, afraid to see his reaction, keeping the last guard up, hiding me from him.
I start with my top, grabbing the edges and pulling it over my head. Then I take off my boots and socks, discarding them further away from the pool. As I place my hands on the button of my jeans, his hands close around mine. Startled, I yelp.
“Let me help you?” His whisper is intimate as his body brushes my back from behind, making me sway with all the emotions assaulting me. He turns me around, but I keep my eyes shut. Logan lowers my zipper, and then unhurriedly slips my jeans down my hips and legs, making me lose balance. I grab onto his shoulders for support. Nevertheless, even with my eyes closed, he doesn’t stop, but instead, takes both my hands and leads me towards the pool, pausing at the edge.
“Look at me,” he softly demands. I can’t contain my fear of seeing myself through his eyes as I have no shields left to hide behind. My tears start to leak from my closed lids.
“I can’t…” I whisper as my body starts to tremble.
“Let me see you, don’t hide.” His finger pads catch my tears, wiping them away. I find the last thread of will and force them open.
Wild eyes are watching me, yearning to connect and taste my misery. I want to close the distance and protect him from his stupidity to fill it with love. Logan tries to swallow his growing desire.
As our foreheads connect, he picks me up, so I have no choice but wrap my legs around his waist. The feel of his naked flesh on mine makes me dizzy with the need to enjoy this contact.
With no warning, he launches us into the pool. Our weight drags us down, submerging our bodies in the aquamarine water. He holds me by the waist until we reach the surface. My heart wakes up from the stupor it had been in and starts to gallop.
As I break the surface, I look at him with surprised round eyes. “What are you doing?”
“You’ve said goodbye to our children today, like you were never going to see them again.”
I stay silent. I just watch him shake his head in frustration as I try to comprehend where he is going with this. “I saw your eyes, Night, after the storm had passed. They were filled with anguish, fear of me, and mostly with surrender. Did you think that I will hurt you?”
I lower my eyes, not knowing if I should let him know the truth.
“Why?” he asks, but I can’t force the answer past my lips. “What was running through your head on the way here?” His appalled face, laced with disappointment, causes an ache in my chest, as I remember all I have done.
“I tore apart our home, Logan. I was blind with rage. I didn’t see you until after. You were bleeding, and your hands had been fisted at your sides, as if you were holding yourself back. What I was supposed to think?” My tears are silently running down my face, mixing with the warm pool water.
“I was holding myself back because I wanted to pull you into my arms and hold you through that storm, Night. I wanted your agonizing screams to stop. You see this as the worst thing that you did, and I see it as the most remarkable thing you ever let me see. With no walls, no barriers, there stood a woman that changed my life.”
He is delusional.
His eyes reflect the water in the way that makes me think of them as jewels with a soul of their own, watching me with emotion that slays me to pieces. Logan wants to close our distance, and I want to shove the ocean between us to protect him and my children.
“Do you know what? I believe that you should let your emotions be freely in charge in your life, so that it won’t be able to cause this kind of destruction. You hold them suppressed in a steely prison that is not meant to be locked away.”
He is rattling me to my core with his kindness and empathy towards me. As he speaks, I feel like he’s building me up, although my walls dissolve while he strips me bare.
“I know that you still feel anxious. However, know that it reflects not what you are but what you feel inside. Embrace it, stop trying to be normal. Let yourself feel devastation, even if it’ll bring you to your knees.”
While he speaks, I’m shaking with relief as my body tries to digest everything he is saying. My throat closes off, my eyes becoming too heavy to hold open. “Are you still listening, Night, because we have to do something. There is left one more thing to do.”
Before I can ask what he means, he quickly pulls me down, under water that surrounds my eyes and fills up my throat, choking me from the inside. I claw at him to let me up for air, but his hands remain locked around my waist.
Shocked in disbelief, I start to push and fight him with a burning need for air. Then he lets me up. I choke and gasp for oxygen to fill my lungs. Panicking, I try to get as far away from him as I can.
