Darius is in the greenhouse, standing motionless among the rows of frosted herbs and sleeping blooms, the icy light of the snow-glossed panes painting his silhouette in shards of silver. He doesn’t turn when I enter, doesn’t speak when the door clicks softly behind me, doesn’t flinch when my footsteps crunch lightly on the gravel floor. But I know he hears me. He always does.
“I need to talk to you,” I say, my voice steadier than I feel, though my arms instinctively wrap tighter around the shawl draped over my shoulders like armor. “And not later. Not when you’ve cooled off or decided it’s safe to pretend nothing happened. Now.”
He still doesn’t speak, but I feel the way his presence shifts, like a wolf scenting something too delicate to chase but too vital to ignore.
“I’m not doing this to hurt you,” I continue, stepping closer until I can see the faint tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers curl tightly around the rim of the terra cotta pot he’s pretending to tend. “But if we’re going to have anything real between us—anything at all—I have to be honest. All of it. Even the parts I’ve tried so damn hard to forget.”
He turns then, slowly, like the weight of what’s coming is something he can feel pressing down on both of us.
“I met Holden when I was twenty-four,” I begin, each word precise, like I’m laying bricks in a fragile bridge between our shadows. “He was charming in that polished, Ivy-League, makes-you-laugh-with-your-guard-down kind of way. And he saw me. Or I thought he did.”
I exhale through my nose, heart pounding, but I push forward.
“It wasn’t like the movies. There were no red flags waving in the wind. Just quiet moments where his hand lingered too long on my waist when I reached for a wine glass, or how he always knew just the right thing to say when I was feeling small. At first, it felt like magic. Like someone had finally found all the soft pieces of me I’d hidden away and kissed them into something beautiful.”
Darius’s brow furrows, his mouth a grim line, but still he says nothing.
“But the things he loved about me... slowly turned into the things he wanted to erase,” I say, the tremble creeping back into my voice now. “He asked me to wear longer skirts. Said it was classy. Told me certain friends were a bad influence, that they made me less focused, less refined. He didn’t like my job at theclinic because the hours were long and the pay was low. ‘You’re better than this,’ he’d whisper. ‘Let me take care of you.’”
I pause, my throat tightening. “And I let him.”
For a moment, it’s like time stills. The only sound is the whisper of wind against the glass and the faint creak of wood contracting in the cold.
“I told myself I was lucky,” I whisper. “Lucky to be chosen. Lucky to be loved by someone so educated, so powerful, so wanted. But over time, I realized I wasn’t his partner. I was his reflection. A version of me he could shape and dress and dim until I barely recognized the girl in the mirror anymore.”
I finally look up at him fully.
“The first time I tried to leave, he found me before I made it two towns over. He showed up calm, composed, not a hair out of place. The motel clerk apologized tohim. Said I looked upset and scattered, said Holden had a right to worry. And then Holden walked me back to the car like nothing had happened, one hand on my lower back like a leash.”
Darius growls low under his breath, his eyes glowing faintly with restrained fury.
“I stayed,” I say, my voice nearly breaking. “Because I didn’t have money or friends. Because I didn’t have myself anymore.”
“Then one night, this job offer comes. No fanfare. Just a plain email. Remote care. Generous compensation. Private employer. And suddenly, it felt like someone had cracked a window in a room I didn’t know was suffocating me.”
Darius’s gaze sharpens.
“I saw a door,” I continue. “And I ran through it without looking back. I didn’t pack much. I didn’t leave a return address. I wiped my phone, didn’t use my cards. I thought—I really thought—I’d finally escaped.”
My voice falters.
“But he found me anyway.”
The fury in Darius’s stance could level a building, but I raise a hand gently.
“I’m not telling you this because I want vengeance. Or even protection,” I say. “I’m telling you because it’s the truth. Because I won’t build anything new on a foundation of lies. I’ve carried this with me for so long, buried it under shame and silence, and now... now you know.”
Darius breathes heavily through his nose, nostrils flared, body taut with something too big to be named.
“I told you everything,” I say, stepping closer until there’s barely a whisper between us. “Every jagged edge. Every mistake. Every humiliation. I gave you the worst of me, Darius. Not because I wanted you to fix it. But because I want you toseeme.”
His eyes are dark and molten, flickering with a thousand thoughts I can’t name.
“So now it’s your turn,” I whisper. “If you want me to trust you, to stay here—not as a nurse, or a house guest, or some terrified runaway—but as someone who matters to you... I need you to tell me your truth.”
The air between us crackles.
“I don’t want the scraps,” I add. “Not fragments. Not warnings without context. I want to know what’s inside the shadows. All of it.”
