“It’s still early, but if you need me, I’ll happily perform my duties as a mother and nothing else today.” I smile sadly and take a step forward before wrapping my mother in a tight hug.
I stay there, held in the warmth of her embrace for a long time. That’s what gives me the strength to make a decision. I can’t keep letting these feelings rot my chest from the inside.
“I’ll see him, Mom. You can let him come up.”
“Are you sure? I can send him away with a broom if you want.” The laugh that escapes me at the image is genuine.
“I’m sure. You can let him up.”
***
Nero finds me standing beside the bed when he enters my room. His eyes examine every inch of me—from the comfortable pajamas to my swollen eyes and red nose—lingering a bit longer on the last two.
“If you came to keep fighting, please come back next week, because I’ve already exhausted the tear supply I had reserved for this,” I feel the need to say when the silence stretches too long.
“Fuck,Little Fae!”
He growls, taking two steps toward me, but I step back two as well, keeping the distance between us. That makes him stop. “I just need to touch you.” The words are an unmistakable plea, and I let out a dry laugh, hoping it sounds as hateful as the ones I was forced to hear leaving his lips last night.
“That’s quite a change from yesterday.”
“I was an idiot.”
“Please, go on.”
“I’m not going to be a hypocrite—I don’t like that you hid things from me, Nina, but—”
“I never lied to you,” I interrupt. “I may have omitted information, but I never lied to you.”
“Half-truths are fully told lies, Nina, and I won’t apologize for that certainty—but I will for everything else. I’m sorry.”
His voice softens on the last two words, and I lower my head, staring at the floor. He’s right. I’d love to stand here playing the offended party who did nothing wrong, but I can’t. When I look up again, though, I don’t find accusation on Nero’s face—I find the same misery I’m sure is written on mine. “I was impulsive and I was an asshole,” he says quietly, but clearly enough that there’s no doubt what he means.
“You were.”
Nero rests one hand on his hip and brings the other to the back of his neck, rubbing it there. He turns his face away and a humourless smile stretches his lips.
“The idea,” he says, looking back at me, “that it was so easy for you to hide something that could pull us apart, when I can barely breathe with you away from me, pushed me to a limit I’m not proud of,Little Fae.”
I hold my breath as his confessions spill from his mouth. My heart, once tight and erratic, turns completely unhinged as I blink at Nero, wondering if there’s any chance I misunderstood his words.
He bites his lip and tests taking a step toward me. When I don’t retreat, he takes another, then another, until only a foot of space remains between us.
“There’s no excuse for the way I treated you, Nina,” he whispers, slowly leaning his face toward mine, as if it’s impossible for him to restrain himself now that there’s no longer a whole room between our bodies.
His words lift part of the weight from my chest, but the other part—the one I can blame no one but myself for—refuses to leave, at least not before I make my own confessions.
I turn my face away, escaping his gaze, as I admit, “I know I’m not innocent in this, Nero. I should have told you sooner.”
“You should have.”
“I was scared,” I confess—to him and to myself. “I was terrified that telling you the truth would put an end to a story I shouldn’t even have allowed to begin. I just—”
He interrupts me, closing the distance with a single step and cupping my cheeks with both hands, forcing me to look at him despite my shame.
Most of his fingers slide into my hair until only his thumbs are stroking my face. I blink, focusing my eyes completely on his.
“I’m sorry,” I finally ask as well. “I should have told you sooner. I know I should have. But I didn’t want to admit to myself that my desires had changed. I spent so much of my life focused on my plans—the idea of giving them up for—”
