Page 47 of Back to You
“I don’t need a caretaker,” I whispered.
Seba exhaled, shaking his head. “That’s not what I’m trying to be.”
“Then what are you trying to be then, Seba? Enlighten me, please.”
His eyes held mine. Unwavering. “Mariana, don’t you get it? I want to be everything for you. I want to be the person who cares for you. The one who takes care of you, not because you need me, but because I need you. I want to be the one who holds your secrets, your safe place, the man you can count on. There isn’t a single damn thing I don’t want to be for you. If you just let me. If you just open up and admit that what we had didn’t end the night you left. That we’ve been frozen in time, waiting for each other. Let me be everything for you, Mariana. Please. I beg you. Let me be yours.”
And that undoes me. Tears begin streaming down the sides of my face. “Seba, there’s more that I need to tell you.”
Seba watches me, his hands resting on the counter, his body still, like he knows if he moves too fast, I might bolt. What he doesn’t realize is that I can’t bolt. I’m rooted here. With him. “You don’t have to tell me,” he says quietly.
My throat closes. I don’t know how to say what I need to say—what he needs to know if this is ever going to become anything. I don’t know if he’ll look at me differently once he does. God, I hope not. But I know that I have to tell him.
I’ve spent so long pretending it wasn’t real, ignoring the memories when they surface, convincing myself that if I just keep moving, it can’t catch me. But it’s here now. Waiting. Seba doesn’t speak. He just waits. Patient. Gentle. Unmoving. The most patient, gentle, loving man.
I exhale, slow and shaky, pressing my palms against the counter. “My ex-husband…” I don’t realize how hard it is to say it out loud until I do. The words sit in the air like lead. Too heavy. Too real. “He used to hurt me.”
Seba goes still. Not just physically, but something in him sharpens, locks into place. But he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t do anything that might stop me from finally saying the words I have never said out loud.
“At first, it started out small,” I whisper. “He’d want me home by a certain time. Want me to keep my location on, just so he could ‘feel safe.’” I let out a brittle laugh. God, how many times did I believe that lie?
Seba doesn’t move, but I feel his pulse thudding through the air between us.
“After I married him, it got worse. He began to isolate me from everyone, claiming that it was to keep our marriage sacred. That the outside world wouldn’t understand a love like ours, that they’d be jealous, that they’d try to break us up.” I swallow hard, my nails digging into my palms. “He had people follow me.”
Seba’s breath hitches.
“He would tell me where I’d been, who I’d spoken to. And if he didn’t like my answer…” My voice catches.
Seba stiffens.
I force the rest of the words out. “He constantly called me names, told me no one would ever want me. That I was disgusting, a pig. A waste of space.”
Seba’s hands curl into fists.
I should stop now. I should stop because if I keep going, if I say the rest of what I have to say, there’s no taking them back. But I can’t stop, because he has to know. “Then, he began to hit me.”
Seba’s entire body locks up. Like he’s been frozen solid. Not a twitch, not a breath, not a single sound. The anger rolls off him like waves crashing against the rock.
He doesn’t shout, doesn’t swear, doesn’t throw anything. He just stands there, still, silent—like he knows that if he moves, if he speaks, he will break something.
“And I stayed,” I whisper.
Seba squeezes his eyes shut.
“I stayed for years. Even when it got bad.” I stare at the countertop, shame creeping up my throat. “I thought it was my fault,” I admit. “I thought if I just stayed small enough, quiet enough, obedient enough…it would eventually stop.”
Seba shakes his head. A slow, subtle movement. Like he can’t bear to hear it, but he forces himself to listen anyway.
“But it never stopped,” I murmured. My fingers curl against the counter. “It only got worse, so much worse. To the point where I didn’t know how I was going to survive.” I swallowed hard, my voice barely above a whisper. “And then…he died.”
Seba’s eyes snap to mine.
“He went out drinking that night,” I say, voice hoarse. “I was so relieved to have some space from him—but also terrified because I knew what it meant. Drinking always made it worse, and in the morning, he’d play it off like he didn’t remember, like he wasn’t himself when we both knew that wasn’t true.”
I swallow hard, “But that night, he overdid it. Drank too much. And, of course, he didn’t call an Uber—he never would. He was too proud of that. So he got behind the wheel, rammed his car into a pole, and died on impact.” Seba exhales, slow and measured.
I take a trembling breath. “Thank goodness he didn’t hurt anyone else.”
