And that was why I couldn’t give her up. Just thinking about her was a balm to my spirit.
Placing my conundrum to the side, I spent the rest of the day buried in my computer until it was time to make dinner for the woman whose very presence would erase everything else from existence.
Tori’s fingers ran a pattern over my stomach before tracing the scar on my side as she often did. I knew she was curious, could sense her hesitation every time she touched it. With another month having passed, I’d continued to separate my heart from my mission. Refused to give Tori my secrets and avoided speaking of her when I talked to Liv. Keeping the two parts of my life separate gave me a semblance of peace. A way to pretend the inevitable wasn’t waiting for the right time to send my house of cards tumbling. When I was with Tori, it was easy to live in the fairy tale, to believe I could have my happily ever after, and I lived every moment with her like I would, denying the reality that sat outside of that bubble.
"Glass," I said, thinking I could let her in just a little to appease her curiosity.
She lifted her head, but I continued to stare at the ceiling.
“I fell through a glass window when I was sixteen. Mostly superficial wounds, but one piece got me good.”
“How did you fall through a window?”
I sucked in a breath, not sure I was as ready as I’d thought I was. She scooted up and turned my face to hers. Cornfield blue questioned me, and I brushed my fingers over the corner of her eye.
“It was more of a push,” I admitted. Her brows scrunched as she waited for my explanation. “I told you my past holds darkness.” I turned my body to hers, pushing a strand of hair from her face. “That you are the light in my dark nights, luna mia.”
She gave me a small smile, her gaze expectant.
“I was four when my father raised his hand to my sister for leaving her dolls in his office. He didn’t allow us to play in his office, and she had snuck in, forgetting to bring her dolls out when my mother called her for lunch.” Going back to that time only reminded me of the hatred that had festered for years. “I jumped in front of her. She was older, so it was stupid, but I hated how hard he was on her. Even at that age. And when I saw it, I reacted.” Dropping my sight to her neck, I forced myself to relive the moment, to go back to the start of it all. “He punished me instead. Smacked me so hard, I hit my head on the table and ended up with stitches.”
The horror reflected in her eyes when I met them was why I had never admitted it to her. I’d never told anyone. Only Liv knew the truth.
“From then on, I received punishment for every infraction Liv did as well as my own. Bruises were commonplace. I was a boy, so others brushed them off as rough play. The scar on myside is the last one he gave me. I was sixteen. It was a month before my mother died.” Before he had driven her to take her life. Unable to protect me, she had slowly spiraled, and he had ignored the signs of her depression until it was too late.
“I talked back to him, told him how much I hated him. He lost his temper and punched me. We had these long windows in our living room. Floor to ceiling. My mother loved to stand and look out of them in the winter. To watch the snow fall on the deck.” It hurt to talk about her still. She’d been gone eleven years, but I could still picture her standing there, wrapped in her shawl and telling me how winter was the way God cleansed the earth while I played at her feet. “He kept yelling for me to get up and fight back, and I wanted to. I wanted to so badly that I didn’t dare move or I would have killed him. He still saw me as the little boy who had stood up to him, but I wasn’t. I was bigger than him, had been playing sports for years and had muscle. When I didn’t move, he dragged me up and shoved me so hard I broke through the window and ended up in the hospital getting stitched up again.”
Tears had gathered in her eyes, and I hated it. They weren’t pity tears, not from Tori. She was soft-hearted, and the thought of my pain drove those tears. It only made me love her more. She smoothed her hand over my cheek, and I turned my mouth to kiss it.
“He only lifted his hand to me once more before I stopped him.” It was after our mother’s funeral. When I blamed him for her death and his reaction had been to smack me. I’d caught his hand, telling him if he ever lifted a hand to me again, I would walk away from him and never return. I was his heir apparent, my only saving grace. “He never raised a hand to me again. I just wish I’d stood up to him earlier.” It might have saved my mother, lessened her heartache.
A tear fell from Tori’s eye, and I wiped it away. “Please don’t cry, luna mia. It was years ago. In the past.”
“I’m so sorry, Gabe. You told me you kept your secrets for a reason, but I never imagined…no child should go through that.”
“Shhh.” I stopped her with a finger to her lips. “It’s in the past where I need to leave it.” Otherwise, that darkness threatened to drown me. It flickered in my periphery, threatening to escape, but Tori kept it content to keep away.
Her eyes flitted between mine, and I took her face in my hands. “Now you know one of my secrets. I promised I would tell you when I was ready. Eventually, you’ll know them all.”
“Are they all this bad?”
“Some, yes.” Her mouth twisted, and I wanted to wipe away the concern she now carried for me. Tipping her chin with my finger, I told her, “But you turn them all to ash when I’m with you. I have no worries, no past. Only a future with you and your smiles.” I kissed the corners of her eyes, kissing away the rest of her salty tears. “No more tears.”
My mouth traveled down her face until I reached her lips. “Get some sleep, and I’ll take you out to breakfast in the morning.”
“Or we could stay in bed all morning.” She gave me a ruthless grin.
Pulling her into my arms, I kissed the top of her head. “I like that idea. I’ll never turn down breakfast in bed.”
She snuggled further into my hold, her hand resting on my waist. “I love you, Gabriel Hughes.”
“I know and I love you, luna mia.”
It didn’t take long for her soft breaths to fall into a pattern that told me she was asleep. I held tight to her, knowing there might come a time when I wouldn’t have her there and knowing I would never be the same if she weren’t.
Chapter 9
Tori
