Page 114 of Sins of the Hidden

"You think this is love, but love doesn't come with threats." Her voice rasped, anger completely taking over. Tears slid down her face, nothing like Mother's tears which were always mixed with makeup. "It doesn't come with witnesses laughing whileyou fake vows to someone unconscious." Her laugh was low and bitter. "I was never yours, V."

I remembered Mother unconscious on the couch, her boyfriend arranging her body more comfortably "more comfortably" while I watched from the hallway. When I'd tried to wake her, he'd said, "Let her rest. She trusts me to take care of her."

Trust.

That was what it was—Oakley had trusted me.

But I wasn't like those men.

I would never leave Oakley broken and alone.

If Mother had been wrong—then everything I'd built was crumbling sand. I didn't leave. I didn't hurt her—not physically. That has to matter.

If this wasn't love, what the fuck was it?

She stepped closer, her voice barely above a whisper now, "You can take my freedom. You can pretend this is love." Her shoulders squared, the smallest shake running through them. "But you'll never, ever have me willingly. I'll always be your captive. Never your wife." She shifted her weight onto her back foot, already halfway gone. "Coercion is not the way to love."

Our eyes locked, neither of us looking away, the truth of what she'd said expanding to fill every corner of the room.

For one blazing moment, I saw us as we truly were—not the romantic fantasy I'd crafted, but a captor and his victim. The look in her eyes wasn't love or even fear, but something completely new–defiance. Nothing like Mother's eyes when she stopped fighting her boyfriends, when she accepted that surviving was the only option. This was different.

I followed as she moved away from me toward the bedroom, watching as she sat on the edge of the bed. Her eyes fixed on the wedding band, twisting it around her finger until blood welled faintly.

"You should shower." Bathing always calmed her down.

She rose without acknowledgment, creating space I couldn't enter. In the bathroom, she closed the door. Moments later, I heard the shower running. Through the crack beneath the door, I could see her shadow on the floor, unmoving. Steam curled under the bathroom door, a veil separating us.

I pressed my fingertips to the door, imagining her on the other side, washing away my touch. Then the sound of muffled sobbing reached me. I leaned my forehead against the bathroom door.

She wasn't surviving me.

She was enduring me.

There was a difference.

But… what if there wasn't?

When she emerged, wrapped in a towel, her eyes were red but dry. Through the swollen skin around her wedding band, blood had beaded. She moved to the dresser, pulling out one of her nightgowns—the softest thing she owned.

Mother had owned something similar once—a pale blue cotton nightgown that she said made her feel like herself again. Before it was torn from her by hands that claimed to love her. I would never tear Oakley's softness away. That was how I knew my love was better, purer than what I'd grown up seeing. I would keep her whole, even as she fought against the safety I'd built around us.

She climbed into bed, turning away from where I would sleep—choosing to sleep on the very edge of the bed just to get away from me. Shrugging my cut off, I lay beside her rigid form, my palm hovering over the curve where her neck met shoulder. I often slept this way—fingers resting lightly on her skin, her pulse beneath my touch through the night. If I concentrated, I could sync my breathing to hers, could almost believe we shared one body, one soul.

As I watched her breathing even out in pretend sleep, an ugly truth slithered through me. Something in Oakley's defiance tonight scratched at a locked door in my mind. What if there was another way to love? The thought terrified me more than her hatred. Because if she was right—if this wasn't love—then I had no idea what was. And without that, I was nothing but the monster she accused me of being.

I wasn't the monster in her story—I was the one person who would never abandon her.

I didn't want to break her. I wanted to love her the way no one ever taught me—without bruises, without fear, without making her small just so I could feel big. I wanted to unlearn everything I'd ever seen called love and build something new.

No one ever taught me how to hold something gently without leaving it cracked. I tried. God, I tried. But everything I touched, I ruined. And by the time I realized I was hurting her, she wasn't flinching anymore—she was fading. Not running. Not fighting. Just...disappearing from the inside out. And I was still standing there, calling it love, like that would be enough to bring her back.

Mother always stayed. Because she didn't believe she could leave. But Oakley didn't need my fists to fear me. She didn't need bruises to break. She could vanish tomorrow. She still had the power to leave me. And I'd do anything to stop her.

I shifted closer, careful not to wake her. My thumb brushed her wrist lightly, feeling her heartbeat flicker beneath the skin—steady, defiant. The rhythm mocked my certainty, whispering the question I'd spent my whole life avoiding:Could love ever exist without fear?

I wouldn't be like them.

But I wouldn't let her go either.

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