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His body bowed and sobs burst out of him.

Again, he broke my fucking heart.

“I… I haven’t… come—”

Jesus Christ, I didn’t need him to finish that statement.

I sat forward and kissed him gently on the lips, shutting him up. I pulled back and looked into his conflicted eyes. “You did nothing wrong, baby. That was fucking awesome. Let me clean you up so we can go to bed.”

Romero might have seemed scary to others, but he obviously required a gentle hand when it came to lovers. I was more than okay with that.

I got out of bed and went into the bathroom where I grabbed a washcloth from the counter. I got it damp under the faucet and returned to my room. He allowed me to clean his release off his stomach without looking at me or speaking. I found it alarming but let him be.

I crawled back into bed with him after using the bathroom myself, and I pulled the covers over us. He’d pulled his bottoms back up and covered himself.

He’d also remained weirdly quiet.

I wasn’t going to force him to talk to me. I had trauma, and I understood it. Shit took time to process.

But there was no fucking way I was going to leave him alone or let him get away from me. I had my own shit to process, and I needed him right now too.

I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him into my body. His head rested on my shoulder, and I felt sick at the wetness his tears left on my skin.

Had I done something wrong?

My gut clenched.

“I know you don’t love me,” he whispered brokenly. “But for tonight, do you think you could hold me like I was someone you loved?”

I wanted to destroy something or someone.

“I love you, Rome,” I gritted out. “There’s no pretending on my part. Not ever.”

He cried even harder at that, and I held him through it until he finally fell asleep in my arms.

I didn’t sleep.

I couldn’t.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my dead wife and heard Romero’s sobs.

There were no sweet dreams in sight for me, only nightmares I couldn’t escape.

24

Dumb, Dumb, Dumb

Isobel

Sleeping so well was really starting to fuck with me. I didn’t know what to do with myself.

I had been plagued with the nightmares of what I had been through since I had first been rescued from that hole. I didn’t know how to handle the fact that I no longer had them. I should have been happy.

But I wasn’t.

I knew it was because of the dream catcher Finn had made for me. I loved not being sucked back into that horrible place every single night, but I knew that it would eventually build up and I would likely explode into a disgusting, emotional mess that was very uncomfortable at the absolute worst fucking time.

I couldn’t keep putting it off anymore. I needed to deal with it once and for all and just get it out of the way.