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The blow was physical.
“You killed him,” I choked out.
He didn’t reply.
Which was a reply.
“You had no right to do that,” I said, my voice broken.
“I had every fucking right,” he hissed, voice chilling by the second. “It was the only thing I could do to punish him.” He paused. “There were a lot of things I wish I could’ve done to punish him.”
My skin prickled with his cold and foreign tone. His ruthless tone. His war tone. “He didn’t need punishment,” I said quietly. “He needed forgiveness.”
My words brought about silence. Tense and dangerous silence.
And Heath’s fury tore through it.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he exploded, jumping from the sofa.
I stood too.
There was no more care, not now. No more Polly gloves, I found myself strangely relieved.
He started to pace. “The fucker hit you. Kidnapped you. Hurt you.”
As if his words brought back the reality, he stopped pacing to stand in front of me. His hand ghosted over the spot that was now healed and unblemished.
“Not just on the surface, but on the parts of you that don’t heal as easily as a bruise. That is a crime punishable by death.” His hand fisted beside my face and went to his side. “And you want me to believe, to fucking accept the fact that you think he deserved forgiveness instead of death?”
I smiled at him. Which of course, caught him off guard. When he got like this, like the man who had to use his anger to get him through the hardest of times, when he had to hurl his words out, pepper them with profanities in order to continue on the road he’d chosen, I doubted he often got a response such as this.
“I don’t expect you to understand it, Heath,” I said. “Nor am I going to try to convert you to my own state of belief. Because that’s not how I work. And even if it was, I should know that no one is going to convince you of all people, to change a pattern of behavior.”
I paused, wanting to touch him. Needing to touch him. I almost did. But the past stopped me. So I sucked in a breath.
“But I do want you to accept it. Certainly believe it,” I murmured. “Because if you know me half as well as you tell me you do, then you will know who I am.”
His gaze was softening, draining of that visceral fury as I spoke.
“So many people walk around with anger in their hearts,” I whispered, my eyes going to his chest, then back up to his eyes. “And that anger is warranted, of course. Because the world hurts every single person who walks across it, in some way or another. Some worse than others. And if you want to find one, there is a reason to be angry every single day. Every single second.”
That anger was creeping up my throat, even as I spoke. It was an effort, a great fricking effort to swallow it.
“People are going to walk around with anger in their hearts and I will not blame them or judge them,” I said. “We all deal with what we’re given the best ways we know how. The ways that we know will keep us standing, keep us inhaling and exhaling. For you, that’s a lot of profanities, yelling on occasion and a lot of intense and brooding stares.” I smiled sadly. “Even death threats. Violence,” I continued, no longer smiling. “You know me, so you know that I don’t believe in this. But I accept it. Because that’s what’s got you here, right here in front of me. Exhaling.”
I lifted my hand up to trail his beard, it was soft and scratchy at the same time. It was comforting.
He jerked at the contact, the first I’d initiated between us.
“For me,” I whispered, “it’s forgiveness. Because I can’t carry the weight of anger or hate. For me, I can’t stand underneath that. I have to forgive, or I can’t move forward. I can’t exhale.” I moved forward to touch my lips to his. “And right now, I’m really fricking glad to be inhaling and exhaling.”
He was taut, shaking with his exertion to let my lips move slowly against his. To let me control this kiss. The first one I’d initiated. It was gentle. Tentative. Slow. Sweet.
It was goodbye.
I stepped back, and he let out a sound of protest at the back of his throat.
“Why’d you do that?” he demanded.
I smiled at the proximity of the past right now. It was something I needed. “I wanted to see what it felt like to kiss you,” I whispered.
He jerked again. Like I’d stuck him. His eyes were on fire with heat, with everything. “No, Sunshine, wasn’t asking why you kissed me,” he growled, hands fisted at his sides. “Askin’ why you stopped.”
