“How long?” Rowan asks quietly, almost like he doesn’t really want the answer.
“The first time I did it I was fifteen,” I answer quietly, allowing him the opportunity to forget the whispered confession.
His hand around my hip tightens. “Why?—”
“I got home that day and the house was empty,” I say. “This one girl was making fun of my dads and I was alreadyreally sad. I found Daddy’s razors he used to shave with, you know the ones you replace the…thing…with?”
Rowan nods against my head, his arms winding around my body.
“I found them in the bathroom just before I was going to get into the shower. I wondered what it would feel like for a few minutes and I just sat there staring at it until… until I did it.”
His hand caresses down my left arm until it wraps around my wrist, pushing up the sleeve of my sweater. I stare down at where his thumb brushes over the skin, moving back and forth.
“Here?”
I nod and the weight of his head on mine is gone. Rowan brings my wrist to his lips, pressing a soft kiss over the pale lines, leaving his lips over them for a moment as though they will heal and fade beneath his kiss.
Slowly, I turn in his arms and when I face him, the blue of his eyes is stormy and red-rimmed. “Rowan?” I breathe.
I pull my wrist from his hold and put my palm to his cheek.
“You can’t fix me,” I whisper. “I have to do that—you said it yourself and you were right.”
“But I don’t see anything to fix,” he whispers back. “I don’t see anything broken.”
“Maybe not on the outside, but on the inside?—”
“You’re beautiful,” Rowans says, his hands coming to cradle my face. “Especiallyon the inside.”
“No, Rowan… I?—”
“Fixing and healing are different things,” he says tenderly. “You’rehealing.”
“I’m trying.”
“And that’s enough.”
“Will it always be though?” I ask, but my heart isn’t prepared for the answer.
“Trying is always enough.”
“I had therapy today,” I blurt in a whisper. “And we were talking about…my bag.”
“Your bag?”
“Mhhm,”I hum with a nod.
“What about your bag?” His brows pinch together.
I swallow before I give him my secret. “I keep things in it. To make me feel comfortable.”
“Sweetheart, your therapy is yours. You don’t have to talk about it with me.”
“I know,” I squeak. “But I know your secrets. And you know mine.”
“You’ll keep mine safe?”
“As long as you keep mine safe too.”
