Page 103 of Tempted By Poison

Anita says nothing else; she stays quiet despite her sunken shoulders and her eyes diverted to the floor. She allows me to wash away the suds and usually, she would probably tell me to fuck off, but she doesn't. She stays.

Until she breaks the silence again. “I haven't spoken to my mother since I was eighteen.”

My gaze flicks back to her, and she is watching me again. “Because of that, we aren’t close, but once upon a time, we were. There was a time when things were simple.” Her fingers find the wet, wavy strands of her hair as a somber grin curls the edges of her mouth. I say nothing, but my ears are open because it's a rare case when she speaks of anything when it comes to her parents. For some reason with us, the mention of our family is just too traumatic.

“I remember her attempt to teach me the names of different flowers, including the scientific names. It was the worst thirty minutes of my life, but like you...those are the memories that I cherish now. I may have lost contact with her, but not the knowledge she gave me.” Her eyes drift away. “Any mission that I would go on, if I saw a flower like a daisy, I would say Bellis perennis.” She peers back at me again. “She's the reason I know of which toxic plant to use for my dagger.”

“The Datura flower,” I say, and she whispers the name in unison.

She places her hand back on my chest and glides her soft palm across the old wounds. The mere touch causes a surge of electricity to beat my heart again. “I love roses more than anything, but there's something about daisies that keeps me intrigued. I think the meaning of it, perhaps. Bellis means pretty and perennis is everlasting. Nothing truly lasts, but the memories that we hold are stuck with us forever until the day we die. Whether good or bad.”

She steps closer, although we are close enough, the tips of her toes touching mine. “I’m not sure what happened with your mother, but I can see how much it hurts you, and I need you to know that you are not alone, I may not be an expert, nor share the same memories, but I am here for you, Ronan.” Her slick hands glide up my chest and she cups my jaw. “I’m here for you because someone needs to be, just like you are for everyone else.” She leans in and places a kiss where the drum of my heart pulses faster. Then she exits the shower, leaving me there, alone with my thoughts.

***

Istroll out of thebathroom with my towel wrapped to my waist, and by then, Anita is at the side of my four-poster bed, attempting to apply the cream Dr. Rio provided to her ribs. I go into alert and fill the space between us, immediately grabbing the tube from the bed. I feel like hell. I've been so wrapped up in my shit that I didn't think to help her dry or get her dress. She doesn'tneedmy help, but it brings me pride when I do.

The cold cream settles in my hand as I lift her shirt to rub the cream over her satin-like skin. The rest of the time in the shower, all I could do was stand there and think about her final words.

I’m here for you because someone needs to be.I have Mal, I have Boone, I have my team...I have my academy, and yet no one knows the suffering I endure alone. It hurts even when I try to forget.

“My mother.” My throat tightens, and I use me moisturizing her back as an excuse to not look her in the eye, so she doesn't see the strain in my face, the visible pain wheneverminha maecomes into the picture. The good memories of her I can handle. The bad...It's too much. “When I was nine, she died suddenly, and a part of the story is true.” I swallow, and my eyes flicker away. “But the truth is she committed suicide, and I’m the one who found her after she fell over the banister in our home...and bled out to death from slitting her wrist.”

A scattered breath releases from me, and I have to pause to collect myself. This is the first time I’ve ever spoken about this. I’ve been trapped in my own black box containing the one thing that no one knows besides my father and me. Not even Cruz, at least that's what I thought.

Anita turns around to face me and I nearly grab her, so she doesn't see me this way, in grief, unable to breathe with ease because of the memory of my mother resurfacing. She doesn't pull away from me, and she only looks up at me with a sweetness in her brown eyes making my shoulders slump. My lips part as another breath spills from me and that heavyweight falls from my body.

“I’m here,” she whispers.

I swallow the rock lodged in my throat. “Richard was right about one thing; it was selfish of her because she left me. She—she left us.” I breathe harder, and it takes her being here to not grab onto the strands of my hair and pull until the roots pop.

“Come.” Anita takes my hand and guides us to the bed. She slowly lays down on her back, and she brings me along with her. I don't question what she's doing, my body silently moves with her in a sunken trance, feigning for her safety, and for her to understand me in the best way that I could produce. Next thing, my towel unravels from my waist and drops to my feet before I climb in and lay beside her.

My head finds a place in the crook of her neck and my arm lay on top of her waist bone, so I don't put any pressure on her ribs. My dick presses against her thigh as she wraps her long leg around my calf to keep us bonded like a chain.

“What else,” she whispers as she threads her fingers through my damp hair.

I close my eyes from her tender touch. “My mother was always laughing or smiling. She never showed signs of distress or mental illness. Maybe I was so blinded by the sunshine from her rays that I didn't see the dark cloud looming behind.”

For years, I pretended I didn't have a bittersweet feeling when it came to my mother, but I do. It's not because she killed herself, but because she left us in the hands of a man who was a monster beneath his disguise and it tamed only when I was old enough to stand up for myself. Cruz was lucky, since I was always the one who got the shit end of my father. I wouldn't have wanted that any other way. If I had to burden the blows, then so be it. “I blamed myself for a long time. Maybe if I'd made it before she picked up the razor, she'd still be here.”

“It's easy to blame yourself, but don't. Whether you would have stopped her then, she likely would have found a way regardless.”

“Then I would have made it my mission to stop her every fucking time until she saw how much it was worth living for us.” A thick lump builds in my chest like an explosive charge, and my words catch. I squeeze her thigh as my hot, scattered breath fans against her neck. Were my brother and me not worth living for? The younger version of me makes himself known, the part of my past that I threw in a wooden box and strapped it with bolts and heavy chains.

The graze of her hand on my jaw and her dulcet coos does something deep to my soul. It shifts everything.Everything. So, I hold her tighter while I listen.

“I’m so sorry you had to experience something so traumatic as a child. You were so young and even then, that must've been so hard for you to witness. I’m sorry.”

I squeezed my eyes shut because it was hard. It was the worst thing I have seen in my life. The silence between us stretches until she sighs. “But you can’t help someone who has already made their choice. Maybe it can help you to understand that whatever she was experiencing, she no longer suffers from it. It wasn’t you, Ronan, but something much deeper than you can fathom. Mental disorders are an illness, not a mood, and when untreated, things can spiral drastically.”

Maybe she's right. My mother's sweet smiles come to mind. The smile that made me trust that everything was going to be okay. Yet, it's the ones who pretend everythingisokay are the ones who suffer the most.

My teeth grind, and I open my eyes, looking at nothing in particular. “Do you think she was weak?”

She shakes her head. “No. I think she was as strong as she could be. That doesn't make her weak, it just makes her human.” She runs her fingers through my beard in delicate strokes. “From what you have told me of your mother, I do believe she cherished you and your brother. And that's all that matters.”

That's all that matters.

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