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“So not your fault. Whatever he did, it’s on him. Not you.” Then, almost soundlessly, hesitantly, he adds, “And maybe not me either.”
My voice, on the other hand, is completely loud and vehement. “Yes.Notyou, Reign. It’s not on you. You don’t deserve that. You don’t deserve to be betrayed like that.”
Something changes on his face then.
His expression gets rearranged. His eyes both melt and become determined. Like they were back when he was talking to my parents about his intentions.
He rubs his thumbs over my cheeks. “I believe you.”
I step back then.
I get out of his embrace. I put some distance between us.
Four steps worth of distance.
But then I decide I need two more. So I move back two paces further.
And all the while I’m moving back, I watch him.
I watch his fists tightening up at his sides. His eyes narrowing. His Adam’s apple jerking with a swallow. His features becoming all kinds of brittle and pained.
While I hate to see him in pain like this, I also have to take a moment to myself.
I also have to prepare myself for whatever comes next.
I believe you, he said.
But I don’t know what he means by that. Does he mean now, today, what I just said? Or does he mean all the other things that I’ve wanted him to believe?
So with my heart hanging from the ceiling, hanging in the balance between us, I whisper, “You came.”
“You called,” he says, without missing a beat, without making me wait even a single second.
A lump forms in my throat at the answer.
The one I’ve wanted him to give me ever since I became his.
Even so, I lift my chin and stay strong. “I didn’t. I-I couldn’t. Your phone… It was —”
“Dead,” he says, his eyes direct and frank. “I think, at least. Haven’t looked at it all day. Didn’t even think to look at it all day. It took fucking hours at the fucking hospital and my brother wouldn’t get off my back and then… Then I came here.”
I look at his haircut. His clean-shaven jaw. His tie.
That rose.
Swallowing, I whisper, “To apologize to my parents.”
“Yeah.”
I fist my hands as well. “Is that… Is that all?”
“No.”
“Then w-what else?”
At this, he makes me wait a little bit and I think it’s because he has the same problem now. Like I did before. Where I had so many things to say, so many things that were clawing to come out. He has a lot of things too, to say, to get out.
It both scares me and thrills me.
