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My head layson his chest, and when I listen close enough, I’m able to hear his heartbeat. The warm water of our second bath tonight aids our sore muscles and tired bodies. Waking up to him after falling asleep without him held a different meaning this time. I was used to that—going to bed without him and being woken to make love before falling back into slumber. But this time, it was a call for each other. A desperate need to solidify our relationship. There was an emptiness that we both felt and so badly needed filled by one another.
“I feel different,” I say finally.
“So do I.”
“What do you need from me?” I ask, sitting up.
“Everything.”
“That’s not telling me, Nico. I need to know what this means for us.”
He smiles, scooping water from the bath and pouring it on my shoulders.“What do you need to know?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I am so scared and confused and feel different.”
“Good or bad different?”
“Both.”
We stay silent for a moment.
“Seeing you in the rink today… that is what I have with you.”
“What?” I question. A talent? I’m perplexed.
“The way you feel free on that ice is how you make me feel. I feel free when I’m with you. Even when you’re pissing me off. I’ve never felt more like myself than I do now, and my world is flipped upside-down as we speak.”
That may have been the kindest, most romantic thing I have ever heard.“Did I flip your world?”
“Yes, but in a good way. But my business is being fucked with. I am spiraling out of control, because I am distracted by you. You are the only thing that has ever consumed me so fucking much that I’m literally putting my entire outfit in danger. Don’t you see the power you wield?”
I don’t know how to take that.
“My parents told me to find love one day, and I laughed in their faces. Now, I’m in love, and I’m eating my own fucking words, Emelia.”
I turn and place my back on his chest. Every time he speaks, I lose my words. It’s as if there’s nothing I can say that makes sense.
“My parents never loved each other. I know they didn’t love me, so I never knew what love looked like.” My hands graze over the top of the lavender suds. He hums a light response, and I continue.“He cheated. He hit her. He hit us kids. Then he taught my brothers how to be the same way. I don’t think I even heard the words ‘I love you’ growing up.”
He kisses the top of my head.
“I thought what I had with Damian—”
He cuts me off then.“Do not bring him up, Emelia. I already gave him enough passes. If you dare tell me you loved him like you do—”
“I don’t love him, and now that I feel what I feel for you, I know nothing ever came close, and that scares me.” I don’t chance a glance over my shoulder. Instead, I keep my eyes ahead and stare at the tiled wall.
“Did your brothers hit you?” he asks, and I choke back a sob. I don’t want to cry anymore, and I especially don’t want to give those tears to my family.
“Yes. They started hitting me after my father began hitting them.”
Nico grips my shoulders and growls, “Tell me one reason worth keeping those sick fucks alive, Emelia, because my will to let you choose is hanging by a thread.”
I bring my knees up as I sit up and wrap my arms around my thighs.
“Because I want to believe there is love there. I want to believe my family can love me.” I do sob then, so hard. Wasted tears or not, my pain is real, and it eats at me, carving away pieces of my heart every single day.
“Emelia.” He leans forward and kisses the top of my spine. “They don’t deserve you. And you deserve real love. You deserve to be treated like a human and not a caged animal.”
