Page 124 of Broken By Silence
I reach for her, fingers brushing the fabric of my shirt where it slides off her shoulder, and she shivers.
“You’re quiet,”she says.
“Just thinking,” I lie… well, partly, because how can I tell her that I’ve somehow become more obsessed with her than I was before?
“About what?”
“Are we okay?” The words are out before I can stop them, rough and raw. My heart is a clumsy, heavy thing beating against my ribs. I can’t look at her, so I stare at my own hands.
Lottie doesn’t answer right away, and the silence stretches. I hear the soft rustle of her blanket as she moves, and then her bare feet appear on the floorboards in front of me. Her big toe, painted a pale, delicate pink, nudges against my boot.
“Look at me, Roman.”
It’s not a request. It’s a quiet command, one I’ve spent a lifetime learning to obey. I force my head up, my gaze traveling the familiar path from her slender ankles, up the gentle curve of her calves, past the way my t-shirt hangs off of her, to finally,finally, meet her eyes.
Brown. Flecked with gold and honey. The same eyes that used to watch me with fear, then with a cold, impenetrable wall of hatred. Now, they’re just… soft.
She studies my face, her gaze tracing the lines she knows by heart. The lines I got for her. My pulse hammers at the base of my throat.
Two days. It’s been two days since I stood and vowed to love, honor, and cherish her, and made her my wife.
The word still feels foreign.
Forbidden.
But every moment is overshadowed by the ghost of my father. Of what he did to her. Of what I did afterward. The bullying. The cruel words I parroted from him, trying to shove her away because her pain was a mirror I was too cowardly to look into. I was just a scared kid, trying to survive him, but that’s no excuse.
It never will be.
And now, standing before me, she’s seeing it. Her eyes trace the largest serpent, the one whose head rests just beside my eye. Herhand lifts, and I flinch. An old, involuntary reaction. Her fingers stop, hovering an inch from my cheek.
“Can I?” she whispers.
I can’t speak. I just give a jerky nod, my throat too tight for words. Her fingertips are warm. They brush against the ink, tracing the tattoo. A shiver, hot and cold all at once, racks my entire body.
Her touch feels like absolution and judgment all at once.
Do you feel the shame seared into me?I want to ask.Do you see the penance? Do you see how sorry I am? How much I love you?
She doesn’t say anything. She just feels the raised skin, the permanent reminder of my past, ofourpast. Her thumb gently strokes the spot under my eye, and I have to close them, overwhelmed by the tenderness of it.
“You asked if we’re okay,” she says, her voice so low it’s almost part of the evening quiet.
I can only nod again, my eyes still squeezed shut, braced for the blow.
“We’re more than okay.”
The air leaves my lungs in a rush. My eyes fly open.
She leans closer, her breath warm against my cheek. “The past is over, Roman. You’re not him. You never were. And I don’t see him when I look at you.” Her voice drops to a whisper, a secret just for me. “I see my husband.”
Husband.
The word, in her mouth, aimed directly at me, breaks something open. A dam inside my chest I didn’t even know was holding back an ocean. The ache I’ve been carrying for years—for her, for us, for the kids we used to be—finally cracks. A single, traitorous tear escapes, tracing a path through the ink on my cheek.
She doesn’t wipe it away. She just watches it fall.
I reach for her, my hands finding her waist, and she doesn’t hesitate. She slides into my lap, a fluid, natural motion that steals the last of my breath. Her fingers thread through my hair, not gentle now but possessive, and she presses her forehead against mine.
