Page 162 of Of Heartbreak and Harmony
I watch as she leaves, pulling the door shut softly behind her, and then I sink back into my pillow, aching and more exhausted than I’ve ever been. I close my eyes and feel my body relaxing, surrendering to sleep, but just before I drift off, one word flashes behind my eyelids.
Fiancé.
Torren is here.
I can feel him sitting beside me. I crack my eyes open and see him reading a paperback book. I clamp my eyes back shut and turn away from him. I will him to go away. I’m not ready to see him right now.
“Callie?” His voice is soft at first, but it grows more urgent. “What’s wrong? Are you in pain? I’ll get Kim.”
“No!” I blurt out the word, but I keep my eyes shut and my face turned away. “Can you just...can you just leave?”
I hear him suck in a surprised breath, but he doesn’t speak. I can feel his eyes on me, though. I hear his footsteps round the bed, so I turn my head the other way.
“What’s going on?” His voice is calm again. Reassuring. Soft, and patient, and so much more than I deserve in this moment. It makes me feel worse. “Why do you want me to leave, Firebird? What’s wrong?”
Tears start to leak through my lashes and trickle down my cheeks. I sniff. I attempt to calm my breathing, but all I see when I close my eyes is my own reflection... My half-shaved head of greasy, dirty hair. My dull eyes sunken into my swollen, bruised, lacerated face. My battered, useless arm. I’ve got an eight-inch-long incision on my stomach. I was wearing a fucking diaper.
And the one thing that made meme—my ability to play the piano—is gone.
If I can barely handle the reality of it all, how can I expect him to?
“I don’t want you to see me,” I whisper finally. “I don’t want you to see me like this anymore.”
He doesn’t speak. Instead, I hear him round the bed again, and he takes my right hand in his. “Why not?”
I don’t answer. I can’t even bring myself to confess it.
Because I’m ugly. Because I’m horrifying. Because I’m not worthy of him.
Because in the light of day, if he sees what this accident has made me —what my stupid, impulsive decisions have caused—then there’s no going back.
I’d rather break my heart before he can. It will hurt less.
When almost a minute passes and I don’t answer him, I feel his knuckle notch under my chin.
“Look at me.”
I shake my head.
“Firebird, look at me. Please.”
Slowly, I open my eyes, blinking to clear them of the tears that were trapped behind my eyelids. I look into his beautiful green eyes to find they’re shimmering with tears of his own.
“I am not going anywhere. I am in love with you. I am not leaving your side, and you have never looked more beautiful to me than you do right now. Do you know why?”
“Why?” I whisper as more tears fall.
“Because you’re alive.”
“But my?—”
“Listen to me, Callie. I love you. I loved you before this accident. I love you now. I will love you after you’ve healed, no matter what that looks like. You, alive and breathing, that’s the most beautiful thing in the fucking world to me. Tell me you believe it.”
I sniff and laugh lightly, the sound strangled and tired. “Okay. I believe it.”
“Never ask me to leave again, okay? Not because of that. Promise?”
His thumb, calloused and familiar, rubs over my jaw. A feather’s touch, and I lean into it. I let myself feel it and draw strength from it. I let myself believe him.
