I was ashamed enough to blurt out, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have?—”
“No,” he rasped, his gaze dropping to the shadowed notch of my throat, gaze unfocused, as if he was remembering his ugly words, as if they echoed in his head on a loop. “I deserved that.”
I’d thought it would make me feel better…toseehis guilt and regret.
But it didn’t.
My shoulders sagged, tears welling up in my eyes. His hands left my stomach, and I felt a rush of cold air flood in to replace them. I felt the loss. I felt him pull back, pull away, and I cursed that small part of me that hadwantedto hurt him.
“You’re healing,” he said finally. “It’s only natural that these wounds rise to the surface. Truthfully, I deserve a lot more of your anger and you’ve been more gracious than anyone I know.”
It spliced my heart in two to realize he waswillingto take anymalice that I could give him, as if that was part of his punishment, his penance. That he expected it.
But he was wrong. It didn’t fill me with any satisfaction. Just the opposite in fact.
This can’t happen again,I thought. No, Idecided.
Why continue to punish him, to make little digs to try to hurt him as much as he hurt me, when it wasmychoice that I was here?
After all, my future was stillmineto decide. I would share our child, of course, but just because I was pregnant didn’t mean I had to share mylifewith Kaldur.
Once, I would’ve given anything for that reality to come true.
Now? I didn’t know what I wanted.
But just knowing that I was in control made me feel more at peace.
“It won’t happen again,” I told him firmly. “I’m sorry.”
The resentment would eat away at me. I wasn’t going to let that happen.
Kaldur’s blew out a sharp breath. He shook his head, looking at me like I was a stranger he was trying to understand, to piece together. “You really are a pure soul, aren’t you? I don’t understand it sometimes. Then again, I’m a worse person than you.”
“I don’t want…” I trailed off when my throat tightened. “Growing up, I lived in a place where all I saw was resentment. And bitterness. I understood it too, because what child wouldchooseto be parentless? What child wouldn’t be angry at sharing a room with dozens of other children, who all had stories and secrets and tragedies of their own? And when children are hurt, they like to hurt others. Because itfeels goodto make others suffer like you, so you’re not alone anymore. And at Wrezaan’s, we all felt alone.
“And I…I was lucky because I had Luc, who wasn’t like any of the others there. He helped me understand that I could choose to be like the othersorI could a different life. A better one. And Ichose differently. I’ve seen what resentment can do to people. A lot of those children just turned out to be miserable beings. Some didn’t, but a lot did.”
Kaldur’s gaze was knowing. “That’s why seeing Luc in Laras hurt you.”
“Yes,” I said, my shoulders lowering. “Because he’d turned out just like many others had. And it broke my heart. A part of me wondered if there was any point, if I should give up like him too.”
Panic flared through Kaldur’s gaze, his wings lifting.
“But I didn’t,” I said. And I was proud of that. “I still want to be who I’dchosento be, all those years ago.”
Kaldur’s expression nearly broke my heart all over again. It was an intense thing, one that made me hold my breath, the world sliding to a stop around us.
And it became clear to me that I still cared about him, deeply. That wasn’t a terrible thing, to care for someone.
But it still made me feel a little heartbroken. My heart felt like a jagged thing, trying to stitch itself back up.
“How did your stories play into this?” he wanted to know.
That dragged a soft smile from me, despite my other musings. “I thought that maybe I could help give the children something nice, a distraction, an escape. We were taught how to read and write, but I was one of the only ones who enjoyed the lessons,” I said. “So I started practicing by writing down stories. Luc helped me come up with them too when I was stuck. Together, we created Kavelyn’s adventures, and I read a portion of what I’d worked on every night to the others. Well, the ones who wanted to hear. Those were nice moments.”
“It made the children happy?”
“Some of them,” I said. “As for the drawings…Wrezaan had this landscape painting on the wall of our room. And Ilovedthat painting. I would stare at it all night, and it was the first thing I’d see in the morning. My bed was right across from it.”
