Page 74 of Crown of Thorns

"It is." His hand moves up and down my spine, slow, no pressure in it at all. "Give me a minute."

I give him the minute. Then I get water and a cloth from the bathroom and clean us both up, and he lets me do that too, watching the whole time with an expression I haven't catalogued before and am not going to try to. When I come back to the bed he pulls the blanket over both of us without being asked.

After, I lie on his chest.

He's still shaking. Just slightly. Just enough to tell me that something cracked inside him and he doesn't quite know how to seal it back up.

I look at my hands. They're steady even after everything. They're steady because I've integrated the violence. Because I've made peace with what I'm capable of. Because I've stopped trying to be the woman I was and embraced the woman I'm becoming.

"I don't know who I am anymore," I tell him.

His arms tighten around me. "Yes, you do. You're a woman who can save people. You're a woman who can order protection. You're a woman who understands that love and violence live in the same space, and you're strong enough to hold both."

I close my eyes.

He's right. But he's also wrong. The woman I am is someone new. Someone without a name. Someone without a clear past because the veterinarian is disappearing faster than I can hold onto her. Someone without a clear future because I don't know what this path leads to, and I'm too committed now to turn back.

I'm the sum of two women colliding.

I'm the woman who saved a foal and the woman who ordered a threat neutralized.

I'm the woman who prays in churches and the woman who can understand necessity of pain.

I'm my own contradiction, and I'm learning to live inside it.

"What happens now?" I ask.

"Now we see if the Doyles believe you when you say we're stronger. We see if Roisín Doyle is brave enough to respect a boundary. We see if you can carry the weight of the choice you made."

"And if I can't?"

"You can." He says it with absolute certainty. "I know who you are, a rí-bhean. I've watched you become her."

I look at my hands in the dark.

Same hands that saved a foal in Galway. Same hands that ordered violence in Dublin. Same hands that just held a man down and took control while he surrendered completely.

I'm not sure which woman I am anymore.

But I'm sure that I'm all of them.

And I'm not sure it matters anymore which name I claim.

What matters is that I'm standing on my own. What matters is that I made a choice and I can live with the consequences. What matters is that I'm no longer waiting to be told who I am.

I'm making myself.

One decision at a time. One line crossed at a time. One version of myself discarded at a time. Until I become something new. Something dangerous. Something powerful.

Something that can't be undone.

Outside, Dublin sleeps beneath the stars.

Inside, a woman lies on her husband's chest and understands that the girl she was is gone forever.

And she's starting to understand that she's not sad about it anymore.

Chapter thirty-seven