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I slide onto the bed beside her, gently scooping her up in my arms, and holding her trembling body tight against mine. Her tears soak through my T-shirt, and she doesn’t flinch away from me like I expect her to.
She doesn’t fight me or tell me I’m an asshole like she should. She welcomes me, with a relieved sigh that brings tears to my own eyes because I don’t fucking deserve it. I stroke my hand through her long, thick hair, squeezing her so tight that I feel when her racing heart starts to calm.
“It’s gonna be okay,” I say the words I should have said to her that night. The words I should have been saying to her every day since.
“I’m here now, and as long as I’m alive, I’ll never let you go again.” It’s a promise that I mean with every pathetic scrap I’ve got left of my soul, and one I can only hope she’ll accept from me.
I kiss her forehead, and savor the familiar taste of her skin against my lips again.
“I got you, Shaniya,” I repeat those words over and over again, until her shaky breaths turn into soothing deep ones, and the pain inside me eases up just enough for me to close my eyes too.
I dreamed about him last night. He charged through one of my nightmares and broke me out of it. He finally heard my cries and came, making all my pain go away.
I’ve dreamed the same dream before, it’s usually what ends my nightmares. But last night was different. It felt real, so real that I don’t want to open my eyes and face up to reality.
I feel crushed in the nicest of ways, there’s an unfamiliar sense of warmth surrounding me, and that scent of cigarettes and alcohol, laced with a little gasoline fills my nostrils.
The fingertips that soothe over my cheek don’t belong to me, and when I snap my eyes open and I see his deep chocolate ones staring back at me, I have to blink to make sure I'm not hallucinating.
“Mornin, darlin’,” he rasps, in that low, rough voice that instantly settles me.
“Are you really here?” I ask, bringing my hand up to stroke his stubbled jaw, and he nods back at me.
“And I ain’t leaving,” his lips press against my palm.
“Troj, I—”
“I don’t deserve for you to forgive me, Shan,” he interrupts before I can finish. “The way I’ve acted is unforgivable. And I ain’t ever gonna forgive myself for it. But you're the other part of me, and I believe what your people say about your soul not being whole until you’ve found the other part of it. You’re my person. You’re the other part of me, and I just didn’t know how to fix you,” he explains with tears filling his eyes. My heart takes up all the space in my chest as I watch them drip onto the pillow his head rests on.
“This was all I needed,” I whisper back at him, noticing that I’m only wearing a cotton nightdress. I never imagined I’d be able to let a man close to me again, let alone touch me. But I crave the comfort of Troj’s hands, they seem the only thing that can make me forget.
“I’m sorry I didn’t give you that.” He tucks the stray piece of hair that's fallen from my plait behind my ear.
“I think I needed to learn how to heal on my own,” I admit as his fingers trail over my cheek and slip across my lips. We’re so close our noses are almost touching but it still doesn’t seem like enough.
“You should never have had to.” His hand lowers into his pocket and I look down at the leather pendant he pulls out.
“You wanna hear a story?” he asks, and curiously I nod back at him.
“This was made by a woman to be given to the man she was in love with,” he starts, threading the leather between my fingers and wrapping it around my hand. “I don't know much about them, other than the fact the people they cared about didn’t think they belonged together, and there were barriers between them.”
Troj’s story sounds painfully familiar.
“But those two forbidden souls defied the rules, and they made a miracle together. They created something so fuckin’ perfect, that only came to be because their love was real enough for them to take a risk.”
Tears build in my eyes when I think about my mother and the man she loved.
“I’m so shit at telling stories,” Troj shakes his head, and laughs at himself.
“Carry on, please. It’s beautiful,” I urge him on, wiping away my tears.
“Unfortunately, their story ended there. But another one started the day a guy saw a girl by a river and knew she was the only one he’d ever want.” His nose touches mine and his thumb strokes my cheek, reminding me of how we used to be.
“That girl stayed in his thoughts night and day, he broke rules just for a chance to get a look at her, all before he even knew her name. And then when he got the opportunity to help her and unite their people, he was prepared to die for the chance of a future for them.”
A lump forms in my throat when I think about that night and the worry I felt knowing he was fighting.
“He was brave, he fought, and when he won he felt invincible. Then something happened that caused him more pain than he could withstand. And when his girl needed him most, he failed her because he focused too much on that hurt inside him. He wanted to make the people who caused it all pay, and he couldn’t stand to see her hurting because he knew that deep down it was all his fault.”
