Page 51 of Ruined Vows
I look at her. Really look.
Her lashes are thick, her red lips look soft and supple, and her shoulders relax in a way that tells me she’s at ease with me. She contemplates what I’ve said.
“You’re right,” she agrees. “That’s profound.”
I’m elated with her omission. She agrees with me..This is a step in the right direction. We come from similar backgrounds, of course, I understand how our fathers stopped us from developing self-esteem. I know how skillful they are in twisting truths to control us. And they expected us to keep all their dirty little secrets. Yes, we’ve survived, but we have scars that aren’t readily seen. And those are more dangerous than the physical ones.
And suddenly, it’s not just attraction that is fueling my desire. I’m feeling something else as I stand next to her.
It’s anachein my chest. Like I want something that isn’t mine, but I’ll never be complete without it. It’s the thrill of wanting her and the anxiety that she might not want me in return.
Not only is my reputation on the line, but my heart and soul are too. Does she want me? Does she feel the magnetic attraction between us? Or is it in my head?
I don’t want to consider the fact that I might fail.
But for now, it’s only me and her, in a room of dogs, and they’re calm. It’s as if they know we’d never hurt them.
“You want one?” I ask, redirecting the conversation.
She scoffs. “What, a dog?”
“Yeah.” I give her a side-eye so I can see her face, and when our eyes meet, she smiles.
She raises a brow. “That, coming from a man who only had dogs that could kill on command?”
“Maybe I want to learn what it’s like to have one that lets me sleep without checking the door five times.”
Her smile fades, but not because she’s unhappy. It fades because shefeels it.
This moment. We’re sharing a part of our painful past.
We both come from places where love had conditions, and softness was punished. It’s as if our fathers wanted to tarnish our goodness because we represented something they could never be. Therefore, they had to ruin the light and goodness inside us.
We both understood that survival always meant keeping a close eye on our surroundings. We come from families where you keep your family close, no matter how dysfunctional they were, because it’s all we had. There was nowhere else to go. It was a lonely world, one that meant that we couldn’t trust anyone but ourselves. And we put up walls to protect ourselves.
It’s a terrible way to live, but it kept us alive. It was survival.
But right now?
She’s not watching anything. And for once, she’s not building more walls. And perhaps I made a few cracks in the walls she uses to protect herself.
And neither of us knows what to do with that.
I vow I’ll tear her walls down, brick by brick. I don’t care how long it takes. One day, she will see that I’m not the bad guy. And one day, she will be mine.
So today, I say the one thing I know she’ll believe.
“You deserve something that’s yours. Something that doesn’t ask anything from you—except that you love it back.”
Her breathing hitches. She pauses, at a loss for words. She places her hand over her heart. I know my words touched her.
“It feels good to give something that doesn’t expect a pieceof your soul in return,” I calmly state, knowing that my words have weight.
She stares at me.
And for a second, I think she might cry. But she doesn’t.
She whispers,“So do you.”
