Page 109 of Late Nights & Love Lines
My mother’s painful indifference.
It’s all…gone, vanished into the abyss of my tortured mind.
“Row? Are you okay?”
I blink him into focus, but it’s as though his words have choked out all my fears. I’m not sure who I am when I’m not fighting through the trauma.
It’s just me, and him.
“Rowan, say something. I know I told you to absorb the words, but Jesus, I can’t even tell if you’re breathing.”
I nod. “I—I’m absorbing.”
His face lights up like a little boy at his first baseball game. “Good.” He leans in and presses his lips to my forehead, but he isn’t quick to pull away. His lips burn into my flesh as though he’s tattooing his love there, and from that one touch, the first flickers of hope I’ve had since I was ten years old take root in my heart.
When he pulls away, I’m still in a state of shock, but as he stands, he slowly releases my face, willing my gaze to follow him.
“Thank you for everything you do. Especially with Seren. I’ll never be able to express to you how much that means to me. It’s…” He scans every inch of my face, as though searching for answers before staring at me with a content grin. “It’s everything, Rowan. You are everything.”
Before I can say anything, he’s off the bed and opening the door.
“You’d better get ready.” His smile is disarming. “Stella and Tabby are on a mission, and I can only hold them off for so long.”
I nod, then shake my head, then nod again. I keep waiting for the noise that’s filled my mind for more than a decade to return but it…doesn’t.
My body moves of its own accord through the motions of getting dressed while I attempt to figure out what the warmth in my limbs means. I keep glancing over my shoulder as if those voices that have controlled me are lurking behind the next corner, but as I make my way down the stairs to the sound of nothing but my own heartbeat, I feel free.
I feel like myself.
And I don’t hate it half as much as I thought I would.
“Just come out and show us,”Tabby says, rapping her knuckles on the dressing room door.
For my part, I’m sitting on the small stool in the corner of my dressing room with my head between my knees, sweating like an ice cube in July in the Texas heat.
“Row?” Seren’s hesitant voice comes next. “My dad wants to talk to you.”
“Shit,” I curse. “Who called him?” The accusation shoots from my mouth before I can adjust my tone.
Seren’s hand waves under the door, holding her phone out to me. “No one called him, he called me.”
Grabbing the phone, I retreat to my corner. “What?”
His soft chuckle fills the small room, and I hit the button to take him off speakerphone.
“Things not going as well as you’d hoped?” he asks.
“I’ve tried on over ten dresses, Seb. I’m soaked in sweat from the sticker shock on these ridiculous gowns, and they all make me look like some sort of cupcake.”
“Rowan.” His voice is deep, commanding. “Didn’t the girls tell you?”
“Tell me what?” I sulk. When the heck did I turn into this girl—the one who seeks comfort from a man? Blowing my hair out of my face, I stare at the ceiling because even I can’t deny that simply hearing this man’s voice has calmed my racing anxiety.
Danger signs flash before my eyes. What will happen to my heart when this is over?
The memory of full-body sobs in the back of Junebug after I caught Jake fill me with a foreboding sense of dread that has my walls stacking up faster than the last few rows of Tetris.
“This entire day, from the dress, to shoes, to fucking flame-throwing and whatever the hell else it is that goes on for girls’ days are all paid for.”
