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7
A WARRIOR OF CAIN
The planesof his face glowed through the flickering flame. It was altogether possible the small light travelled far enough that he could see the glisten of my tears.
“They say it’s unsafe to light candles on a boat,” I said. It came out crackling, like I was recovering from a throat infection.
The man I’d been pining after for twenty-four months stood five feet away, regarding me like he hadn’t broken me open, then salted the wound by popping up right at the moment I’d given up.
The firelight carving of him changed as he shifted. “That’s the first thing you want to say to me?”
Theo might as well have used those words to flip a switch.
I strode forward and slapped him. Before he could recover—or so much as lift a hand to touch the stubble I’d just scraped my palm across—“Howdareyou? Do you have any idea—” I hitched, my breaths suffocating. “You left me. I haven’t seen you in years because you decided to walk off without any kind of—”
“Scarlet.”
“I was in ahospital—” My pitch rose, my chest heaved, and his profile became as watery as the ocean surrounding us.
His hands fell onto my shoulders. “Scarlet—”
“Your brother shot me, I nearly got my best friend killed, and all I had to hang onto was you. Do you know what that was like? To be feeling your hand one minute and dozing off thinking I was safe, then waking up to an empty chair? An empty hospital room?”
Theo’s grip slid to my elbows, but I yanked out of his hold. “Don’t touch me.”
He held on tighter.
“Don’ttouchme!”
“Listen—”
“I loved you!” I heaved the statement out as if it were actual, bloody tissue loosening from my lungs.
Theo pulled me closer, though I still fought. “I know.”
I smacked at his chest, then curled my hands into fists and punched at his torso. “I fell in love with you and you didn’t care. You left. Youleft.”
“I had to.”
I kept pummeling. My expression was twisted into all kinds of grief, rage, sheer adrenaline. Having him near, a tangible person to hit—like I could reach into his chest and hurt his heart the way he’d sucker-punched mine—was something I’d been hoping to do but never actually believed he’d allow me the pleasure.
“Calm down.”
His voice remained low. Theo didn’t dodge from any of my scattered, hurling fists.
“Don’t you tell me tocalm down,” I hissed between swipes. “As far as I’m concerned, I can do whatever the fuck I want because you’ve given me two years to think about it.”
“This is what you pictured?” He ducked against a well-aimed swing at his temple.
“It’s what Idreamed.”
He straightened. Gestured to his chest. “Then come on. Hit me all you want. Hurt me until you feel better.”
I choked, sobbed, the hand I held in the air falling to my side. Theo let me shudder, allowed these moments to contain a background percussion of grief.
“Let me touch you,” he said softly.
I shook my head, crossing my arms. God knew what I’d do if he pulled me against him, if I were able to bury my face in his neck the way I’d ached to do in the middle of the night, under cold sheets that weren’t mine. When the nightmares came.
