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“I took a few days off from classes to get over the worst of the nausea and dizziness. Aslan stayed by my side. Frankly, he suffocated me with care. He never let me out of his sight. He leapt to his feet each time I shifted on the couch as if he could personally deliver everything I needed to heal and heal swiftly.
“He brooded while I spoke to Teddy and spent the afternoon sketching up another biosphere concept, and practically jumped down Honey’s throat when she called to check on me.
“Everyone saw the overprotective man at his wit’s end to keep me healthy and alive, but only I saw the floundering boy who’d never dealt with his grief. Grief that drowned him in a terrible way the moment he heard the word fatal.
“He tortured himself with researching glaucus atlanticus. He snapped at my parents when they called to discuss my recovery. He punished himself for not being there to protect me, when really, it wasn’t his duty to protect me. Not from life itself. It was his duty to love me. To be faithful and caring and supportive, but it wasn’t his responsibility to stop me from existing. To prevent things from happening just because sometimes those things hurt.”
“Let me guess...he didn’t agree,” Margot said. “He’d rather burn the world to ash than risk losing you.”
I sighed sadly. “Some might say that was unhealthy.”
“Undoubtedly unhealthy.” Dylan nodded. “But also, understandable.”
I looked at the swirling coffee in my cup. “I really did try to free him from his pain. I was there for him if he wanted to talk. I was there to wake him from his nightmares with kisses and sex, using our physical connection to bring his mind back to me. But ultimately, he had to be the one to stop running from his demons and accept them.”
“His demons being his blood?”
My eyes shot to Dylan and his very poignant remark. “You’ve been listening closely.”
He half shrugged, swallowing a hot mouthful of espresso. “Like I said, I’m good at reading between the lines. You mentioned that Aslan never got over his family’s death because of his guilt. He carried their death all his life. He believed he was the reason they were fleeing in the first place, which meant he never fully embraced who he truly was because in order to do that, he had to embrace the parts of himself that came from his true father. The very man who was the reason for all that loss and guilt and grief.”
Goosebumps darted down my arms as my heart grew heavier than I could bear. “You’re right. About everything. If only Aslan had trusted himself as much as I trusted him, then he might finally have been free.”
Free.
That word mocked me the moment it fell from my lips.
He’d been free.
For eight wonderful years, he’d been free with me.
But that freedom was almost at an end.
Tears welled, bruising my eyes like they always did whenever I thought back to that night in the hospital, the many nights after when Aslan would wake, roaring with misery and mayhem, fighting off ghosts, seeing a nightmare where I was gone, and he had nothing.
I’d grown used to his unconscious outbursts.
My veins had bled dry on multiple occasions when his nightmares caused him to scream my name and not his dead sister’s.
In his sleep, he showed me the depth of how much he loved me and how much that love destroyed him. His dream-terrors revealed how tragically entwined we were, and I hated that we weren’t playing a game when we said our hearts beat as one.
It was undeniably true.
When his hurt, mine hurt.
When his thundered, mine galloped.
When his stopped, mine never restarted.
Oh God...
I wasn’t ready.
I’m not ready...
Goosebumps scattered down my entire body.
My chest collapsed in on itself.
My bones throbbed with tears I’d swallowed back, year after year, slowly filling up my body with a salt of my own making until I fermented in sadness.
I-I don’t think I can do this.
My hands trembled, spilling my coffee all over my soft pink blanket.
“Hey. Nerida. Hey, it’s okay.” Dylan leapt to his feet and plucked the cup from my trembling fingers. Placing it on the mango wood coffee table between us, he inched around it and sat beside me. We sat in my favourite place in this house—surrounded by glass and scrolled metal work of the huge conservatory. A seahorse fountain babbled in the corner and lush tropical plants seasoned the air with sweet blossoms. This room was a paradise, yet it seemed like an absolute travesty as I struggled with what came next. What Aslan was about to endure. What I was about to endure. What had ultimately destroyed us.
I hunched and did my best to gather my strength, but a keening noise escaped me.
Dylan sucked in a worried gasp. He hesitated a moment before wrapping his arm around my fragile shoulders. “It’s okay. Everything is okay.”
