Page 223 of Wild Then Wed
“You can talk about them anytime.” I watch his face carefully. “I mean it. Julia. Violet. All of it.”
His eyes flick up to mine.
“It doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t make me feel like there’s less room for me.”
He swallows, like he wasn’t expecting that.
“I actually like it,” I add, my voice quieter now. “That I get to know them in these small ways. That you trust me with them.”
He nods—barely—but it’s there. And his grip on my hand tightens
“Thank you,” he murmurs, eyes still on our hands. “You don’t know how much that means to me.”
There’s a small sigh, almost like he’s letting himself breathe again. Then, “Dom keeps telling me I should talk to someone. A therapist or something.”
I raise an eyebrow. “And?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t really think anything can fix me. Or fix…this.”
He gestures around the room vaguely, like it’s too heavy to name out loud.
“I don’t feel like dragging it all back up just to be told it’s all normal or I’m just going through some bullshit stages. I’ve lived it. Over and over. Talking about it won’t change what happened.”
I don’t rush to answer. He’s not asking for a lecture, he’s letting me into something raw. So I sit with it a second and make sure I’m not just filling the silence because it’s uncomfortable.
“I get that,” I say finally. “I really do. There’s nothing worse than re-opening a wound for someone who’s just going to nod and scribble notes and tell you how brave you are.”
He lets out a quiet huff.
“But,” I say carefully, “sometimes it’s not aboutfixinganything or anyone. Sometimes…it’s just about making space for the parts of you that don’t get a voice otherwise. And saying things out loud to someone who won’t try to make it neater than it is—sometimes that’s the only way it stops owning you, the only way it stops taking over your whole life.”
He’s quiet, but I can tell he’s listening. Then, softly, he asks, “If you were me…would you do it? Talk to someone?”
I nod. “Yeah. I would.”
“Why?”
I take a breath, press my thumb gently into the side of his hand. “Because I’ve spent a long time in my own head. And I know how easy it is to start thinking pain is yourwhole personality. Or that you deserve it. That’s where it gets dangerous—when you stop believing that you can be more than the worst thing that’s ever happened to you.”
“And I’d want someone to remind me that I’m still allowed to heal, in my own way,” I add. “Even if it’s slow. Even if it’s messy.”
He nods, slow and distant, like his body’s here but his mind’s still walking around somewhere else. His jaw flexes as he bites the inside of his cheek, thinking. Letting it all roll around in that head of his. “Can you just sit with me for a while?”
There’s no hesitation in me. None. “I’d want nothing more.”
So I do.
I stay right where I am—on the floor of a lavender nursery, surrounded by butterflies and broken dreams and something that’s starting to mend, just barely. I lean into him, my hand still wrapped in his, and I rest my head on his shoulder. He lets out a breath like he’s been holding it for years.
Neither of us says another word. We don’t have to.
The quiet doesn’t feel so heavy anymore. It feels safe. Like maybe there’s space now—for grief, for memory, for healing that doesn’t ask for perfection. The kind that just wants company.
I sit with him in that room—Violet’s room—until the sky outside shifts from gray to gold and the world, slowly, starts up again.
Chapter 39
WREN
