“I did,” she said, still weak, still struggling with every word. But her skin was less pale than it had been, and there was life returning to her eyes. “I am the one who needs to apologize.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
“Oh, we both know that is not true.”
He smiled at her, wanting to kiss her to show how much he did not care about what she had done. “Let us not talk about this now. I am here, and that is all that matters.”
She was still lying on her back. She was still so frail, without the strength to push herself up or move more than an inch or two. But she was able to meet his eyes, and where he could see the smile that reached them, he could also see the question that sat behind them.
She watched him, that question growing. She licked her lips, grimaced as she shifted, and then she slowly pulled her hand away. Ronan gasped and went to take it, but she held it back.
“Ronan, I know this might not be the time but…” She hesitated, pain on her face that had nothing to do with the fever. “But we have been here before. We have danced around this moment somany times, and each time we do, I am left more confused than ever.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know how you feel about me,” she said. “I know how much you care. But what I do not know is why you struggle the way you do to admit such things. And not to me but to yourself.”
“But I don’t,” he assured her. “I mean… I did. I know that I have only confused things, Thalia. But that is of the past. When I heard what had happened to you, I realized how wrong I have been this whole time. I realized that…” His heart was beating, nerves building inside of him. Fear threatening to wrap itself around him and keep him from saying the one thing he was desperate to say. “I… I love you, Thalia. I have for some time. Foolish me, it is only just now that I am willing to admit it.”
He expected her to beam. To admit the same love. Rather than that, her brow tightened, and she continued to look at him with that same brimming question.
“That isn’t good enough,” she said.
He balked. “What… what do you?—”
“Tell me why.”
“Why I love you?”
“No…” She chuckled softly. “Tell me why it is so hard for you to say it. You have been hiding something from me, Ronan. I know you have. And until you tell me what, I don’t know if…” Her chin began to wobble. “I don’t know if I can ever trust you, for what is to stop you from changing your mind again?”
“But I won’t!”
“Then prove it.” Slowly, with what looked like great effort, she groaned and pushed herself up so that she was sitting. There, she looked down at Ronan who was still on his knees, refusing to back down because this right here was what their relationship had been all about.
She was right, of course. Ronan was indeed hiding from something. His past, why he was this way, and why he refused to love or dared to trust himself to another.
For so long, he had used this past of his like a wall to hide behind. He had used it to justify his actions. To defend against those who questioned why he was so removed and withdrawn. Really, he had used it to hide himself, always saying it was for the good of others, knowing it was because he was terrified to reveal his darkest secret… the shame he had lived with now for years.
He could feel Thalia watching him. Pleading with him to tell her. And where just a few days ago, Ronan might have stood up and walked out, convinced she would never understand, he knew now that if there was one person in this world who would understand, it was Thalia.
More than that, he wanted to tell her. She deserved to know, and it was only once she did that they might they be free to love as they both deserved.
“No doubt you have heard the rumors about me?” Ronan began. He cast his gaze away, finding that he couldn’t look her in the eyes as he spoke.
“Rumors?”
He chuckled darkly. “They vary, of course. But most pertain to that of my more… violent nature. As if the reason that I hide myself away is because it would be too dangerous to allow me among more civilized people.”
“Oh. Well… I always assumed that they were more a result of how you lived. Rumors used to explain what people don’t understand.”
“That is partly the case,” he admitted. “But all rumors start somewhere. I did not hide myself away because I wanted to, Thalia. I did it because I thought I must.”
He waited for her to say something, but she remained silent. Still, he could feel her watching him, the nerves building as she likely started to consider the consequences of what she was about to be told.
“It is a cliché to say so, but my father is where my story begins…” Ronan grimaced and he felt that familiar sickness deep in hissoul, that which always came when he was forced to picture his father. “I doubt a crueler man existed in this world, at the very least one who enjoyed torment as my father did. His soul was twisted and malicious, such that he enjoyed causing misery and hurt for no other reason than it made him feel powerful.”
“That is awful,” she said dutifully.
