“What would be different?” he asked, his gaze returning to her.
Crystal swallowed. Her eyes flickered to the golden flames.
“Me,” she forced out, though she fidgeted with her fingers as she said it. “Do you wish I was different?”
“That is an impossible question,luxiva,” he told her, frowning.
“Just tell me,” she said. “I want to know.”
“I wish…” he trailed off, making a frustrated sound in the back of his throat.
“Cruxan.”
“I wish that you were not so determined to push me away.”
Her heart squeezed, but she already knew that. But him voicing it seemed to hurt even more.
His voice quieted as he said, “I wish that you would give this a chance. I do not know what we can be…but you do not either.”
Crystal swallowed, feeling the weight of this conversation.
“You would be asking me to give up my home, my sister, my ambitions,” she said softly. “If I gave this a chance and gave in tothis, that is what I would be giving up.Everything. Would you do the same for me?”
His gaze zeroed in on her from across the clearing.
“Would you give up everything and leave Luxiria behind for me?”
“If you asked it of me,tev,” he said, his eyes hard and unyielding. His certainty, the absolute certainty in his tone, made her breath whoosh out of her lungs.
“How can you be so certain of that? Ofme?” she asked, bewildered, blinking.
“Why is it that you believe you are not deserving of that certainty?” he asked, his tone frustrated.
Crystal saw it then, his anger. But it was a different kind of anger. It was anger directed at her, onherbehalf.
She wasn’t frightened of that anger. It was the opposite actually. She felt that anger seep into her and warm her, not make her feel icy cold.
“I don’t know,” she stumbled out.
“Nix, I think you do,” he replied, going back to skinning thevirvira. “You just wish for me not to know.”
Crystal’s breath hitched. When she opened her mouth, no sound came out and she helplessly watched him without knowing how to make whatever this was better. Without telling him about Leo, she didn’t know how to make him understand…and for some reason she didn’t want him to know about Leo.
She didn’t want him to know how pathetic and weak she’d felt, how frightened and ashamed she’d been during that time in her life and all the years after it.
At the same time, Crystal didn’t want that relationship to define her anymore. She wanted to put her past behind her, to move forward towards better things.
A part of her wanted to believe that Cruxan was one of those better things. She just didn’t think she had the courage to risk that.
A way to move forwardwasto talk about it, to air it out like a dusty, dark room that hadn’t seen sunlight in a long, long time.
She waited until Cruxan was finished with thevirviraand had washed his hands with one of the gourds. She waited until they sat quiet, listening to the sizzling meat and the crackling of the fire. She waited until she knew that if she waited anymore she would lose her nerve. Already, she had lost her appetite.
So, though her hands trembled so much she had to press them into the tops of her thighs, though her mouth was dry and her throat felt scratchy, Crystal said, “I have only been in one relationship in my life. And it was a terrible one.”
Cruxan’s gaze settled on her, pinning her in place.
Looking into his eyes, she admitted quietly, “His name was Leo and he abused me in every way he could. Physically, emotionally…and sexually.”
