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I was staring at him.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Recipe: Salted Halvah Blondies
From ‘Dessert Person’
My heart didn’t heal quickly.
Some days it felt like it didn’t heal at all. That I was still bleeding out, dripping crimson pain all over my pink, polished bakery floors.
At the beginning, I lived for three seconds of every day. The three seconds just after I woke up, when my brain hadn’t caught up yet, when it still thought everything was okay. When I forgot that Ansel was dead.
Those three seconds were all I got. Then the pain came rushing in, so visceral that I had to bite my lip to stop from crying out.
I might’ve screamed, maybe, if he wasn’t there.
If Rowan’s arms weren’t around me, if his body wasn’t warm and firm against mine, maybe I would’ve screamed.
Or maybe I wouldn’t have. Because maybe if I started screaming, started vocalizing the pain inside of me, I’d never stop.
So, I didn’t scream. Didn’t cry. I sank into Rowan’s warmth, let him turn me onto my back, uncurl me from the ball I’d coiled myself into and make slow, brutal love to me.
His hands on me, him inside of me… nothing provided complete respite from the pain, but it made it hurt a whole lot less.
After the parking lot blowout, I felt different.
Not healed. I’d never be healed.
There would always be an open, bleeding hole inside of me. I wouldn’t ever feel happiness in the same way I had before.
But I also wasn’t going to sink into the pit of despair, despite how damn tempting it was. Then again, I couldn’t have even if I wanted to since I had friends who wouldn’t let me do that.
Rowan wouldn’t let me do that.
He was there. Always. His hands on my body, his mouth on mine, making me feel alive. Making me feel excited to be alive.
I did make a statement about Ronnie’s assault after he was charged. He didn’t make bail since there was no one left in this town to bail him out. He wouldn’t be behind bars forever, and maybe he’d come out angry, ready to blame me. But I didn’t worry much about that. I had Rowan.
We slept at his place often since it still hurt to be at mine. Not because of the memories I had of Ansel there. A place couldn’t hold memories. Only a heart could. Mine was broken. Shattered.
I just liked Rowan’s place because it was full of him. Because I could hear the ocean when we laid in bed at night. Because I could sit out on the patio at five in the morning, wrapped in a blanket, cupping a mug of coffee while smelling the salt from the ocean.
Rowan usually woke up when I got out of bed. The man was hyper-aware of me, but he didn’t try to keep me in bed. Didn’t try to talk to me. He must’ve suspected I needed that time in the morning.
Maggie, on the other hand, did not. She got up from her bed in the corner of the bedroom and happily trotted downstairs with me, pressed into my leg as I made coffee then settled at my feet when I sat outside.
Rowan came out eventually, as he always did, holding the coffee I’d prepared for him and left on the kitchen counter.
Most times, we didn’t speak. He just lifted me from my spot on the oversized wicker armchair and sat himself down, me half splayed in his lap. I didn’t know how this could be comfortable since I wasn’t exactly small, but he seemed to like it well enough.
“Want you to come to my family’s place for Christmas,” he murmured, breaking the usual silence that existed between us.
Thanksgiving had passed. It wasn’t much of a celebration, but it was something. We had dinner at my place, Rowan gently suggesting we host Fiona, Tiffany, Tina and Kip.
I hadn’t wanted to at first. I’d wanted the day to pass like any other. Wanted to curl up on the sofa with the lights out and a bowl of cookie dough. But even though a part of me wanted to do that, I wasn’t a wallower. That’s not how I worked. Rowan knew that.
Rowan knew I healed in the kitchen, with busy hands, with flour, sugar, butter. With friends who were really family surrounding me.
And he was right. Though it was a hard day, it was one that was filled with food, friends and love.
Rowan hadn’t mentioned his family or if they missed him on Thanksgiving. I hadn’t asked about them because I wasn’t strong enough to. But I knew they likely missed him. Because they sounded like the kind of people who had big family gatherings. And Rowan missed it.
For me.
“We don’t have to go,” Rowan stated in response to my silence, holding me tighter. “I want you to meet my family, want them to meet you, but if it’s too hard…”
