Before I walk away, I brush my hand across her back with three taps of my fingers, and give her a close-lipped smile to ask,Are you okay?
Natalia returns the gesture as if to say,Yes.
I’ll just have to believe it for now.
CHAPTER 5
Natalia
Rowan might be my knight in shining armor, but I don’t want a man to save me, and I don’t need one to. If anyone is going to save me it’s going to beme.
But sitting next to me, Rowan smells good enough for me to want a truce—for me to let him save me from tonight. Even though I should call it all off and tell him he can go home. He doesn’t have to be here to save me from my dads—the two people I should not feel like I need saving from.
Their question is still incomplete, but I knew the multiple endings.Are you still going to therapy? Are you still taking your medication? Are you still serious about the bakery? Are you sure you don’t want to travel with us?
“Are you still…” is a dangerous prefix, and I do not have my defenses in order.
“He’s really charming,” Daddy says. “I’ve always liked him. Does he make you happy, Natty?”
Truth be told, I keep reevaluating all the reasons I think I hate Rowan A. Asher. I thought maybe it was because he’sjust…him. Or maybe because I’m tired of men ruining my life and he has the potential to do so. Catastrophically.
Rowan Asher is the man you fall easily in love with. The man you fantasize life with because he’s the kind of man you make beautiful kids with, move to a house in the suburbs with, and get a golden retriever with. He would build a treehouse and cook dinner and install a pool in the backyard…
I think, now, it’smeI hate.
I am not easy to fall in love with, and I’ve accepted that. I’ve only just barely fallen in love with myself earlier this year after extremely excruciating, intensive therapy. I finally likeme—sometimes.
I learned to love my natural, curly hair, the natural rasp in my voice, and that I’m short with a figure I can’t believe I used to hate because, to be frank, I have aphenomenalass.
And even thoughI’mnot perfect, I cannot afford to risk someone ruining it. Someone storming in and having them become the catalyst of my downfall—stealing more pieces of me.Again.
I can’t believe I allowed someone to rob me of the best parts of myself. I amsunshine.I’mamazing.I’m a great fucking person and I let people take that from me. I lethimtake that from me.
Never again, never again, never again.
Gaslighting and fighting and telling me I should watch what I eat. Taking me to a pizzeria and telling the waiter I’m going to have a salad because I have to watch my weight—all before I can properly take a glance at the menu handed to me.
The motherfucker is going to hell for breaking me.
I won’t be broken again. And if Rowan broke me, I don’t think I’d come back from something like that.
I’d never recover from him.
So I tread lightly. The next person I let myself love has to be endgame.
I love me and I’m happy. But I amterrified.
“Yes.” I finally answer Daddy’s question. “He does.”
My dads fall into their own chatter that I dissociate from. I think about all the other things I’d rather be doing, but there’s only one:nothing.I’d rather be in my bed, in the dark, with Binx curled up beside me, doingnothing.Alone.
It’s the hand that comes around my waist that pulls me back into reality, flipping a switch that reminds me that I’m technically alive. “Natalia,” he says in my ear, his breath coaxing a shudder. “Sweetheart, are you okay?”
“Hmm?” I blink rapidly a few times. “Oh. Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Mhhm.”
“Do you need a break?”
“I’m okay.”
