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“Why doesn’t matter. It’s simply how it is.”
The irritation digs its claws deeper into my skin. “Do you never ask why?”
“I do when it matters.”
“Well, the why of this matters to me.” I stop my wheelchair next to him and look up. “You say you and your brother have no relationship, but I see the way you look at him sometimes when you think no one’s looking, like you want to talk to him and figure out whatever mess happened between you two. You notice that I want to dance and find a way to make it happen. You say you’re not capable of feeling even as you demonstrate that you are on a regular basis. I don’t understand why you keep insisting otherwise.”
Silence falls between us, broken only by the distant sound of traffic. Then, at last, he speaks.
“Gavriil and I have never been close. He thinks that’s because I chose not to forge a relationship with him, that I’m incapable of doing so. He’s right. But at one time, I wanted things. Family, a friend.”
Foreboding forms a hard ball in the pit of my stomach. “What happened?”
“When Lucifer told me I had a brother and that that brother was coming to live with us, he also issued an ultimatum. He told me that if I attempted to befriend Gavriil, he would make life extremely difficult for both of us.”
The awfulness of what Lucifer inflicted on his sons slices through me.
“I imagine it’s the same speech he gave my mother. When I was around five years old, she withdrew. Turned into a cold woman who never showed me an ounce of affection. For the longest time, I assumed it was me.”
Five. When he was five years old and lost the love of the one person he still had in his life.
“I was so angry with her that I shunned her. She eventually moved to Madrid, and only visited occasionally until she passed right before I graduated from university. It wasn’t until after her death that I realized Lucifer had probably given her the same talk he had given me about forging a relationship with Gavriil.”
I press my lips together to keep the tears at bay. This isn’t about me. It’s about Rafe and the horrible manipulations of a cruel, selfish man who forced him into this state of existence, one where emotions had been suppressed to the point he now believed himself no longer capable of experiencing them.
He moves away, just a couple steps, but clearly putting distance between us. He sits down on a lounge chair and leans back with a casual arrogance.
“Contrary to popular belief, I am capable of feeling. But I’ve lived so long in this space devoid of emotion that even when I do feel something, I don’t know what to do with it. Usually,” he adds with a slight smirk, “the emotions are not positive ones. A flash of fury. A burst of anger. Emotions that are better left under wraps.”
I approach the lounge slowly. As I look closer, I see the subtle signs of how deeply the past is gripping him. The tightness in his jaw. The pulse throbbing in his temple. The cold flatness in his eyes that now seems more like a man trying to hold himself back than someone who simply doesn’t have a heart. That he left the gala and came back home after his disagreement with Gavriil is a hint that he cares far more for his brother than he’s ever allowed Gavriil to see. Perhaps even more than he’s admitted to himself.
I put the brakes on my chair and slowly ease myself from it onto the end of the lounge. I scoot closer to Rafe, bracing myself for him to tell me to leave. But he doesn’t; he simply watches me. When I’m close enough, I reach up and lay my fingers on his temples. He stiffens beneath my touch, then gradually relaxes as I start to massage his skin.
“Sometimes I dream about my accident,” I murmur as I rub at the tension beneath the skin. “How frustrated I felt that Mom was spending all of her time with Katie. Even then, she tended to focus on one thing or one person, pour most of her attention on the new baby. Maybe that’s why my father was always working. My grandfather and aunt barely paid him attention. Neither did my mother. He had nothing but work.” I shift my fingers slightly, continue to rub soothing circles as I talk, the activity calming me hopefully as much as it’s comforting him.
“I remember seeing Mom asleep on the couch. I knew Katie was in her room napping. Mom had promised me that she would take me outside to play that afternoon. But she told me the same thing the day before, and it hadn’t happened. So I went out on my own.”
I smile slightly. “We lived in a beautiful stone house. We weren’t that far out of Dublin, only thirty minutes or so. But to me it felt like we lived in the wilderness. There was a stone wall at the back of our yard. It dropped off on the other side down to a creek. I remember my heart slamming into my ribs when my foot slipped. I remember a sharp pain that cracked through me right before I slipped into a blissful blackness. My next memory isn’t until a day or so later, when I woke up in my hospital room to my parents arguing.”
I can hear the echoes of that argument. The fury vibrating in my father’s voice. The helpless anger in my mother’s.
“My father was accusing my mother of not watching me closely enough. My mother was accusing him of not being around enough to help, let alone care about his family. When they realized I was awake, they stopped talking. It’s the last time I heard them say anything about the accident, unless we were talking about a surgery or physical therapy.
“To this day, they blame each other. I know my mother also blames herself.” I pause, swallow hard. “Her tendency to become hyperfocused turned into hypervigilance. That turned into control. Controlling where I went, what I did. Everything to keep me safe.” Despite my anger, I feel a twinge of sympathy. “She once told me she would never fail me again. Toss in my feeling guilty that I disobeyed her in the first place and went out to play when she was asleep, and you have a family that has been living on guilt and blame for the past twenty-one years.”
“Is that why you stayed?”
I can feel the hum of his voice beneath my fingers as I continue to massage his skin.
“A large part of it. I felt responsible. For years, I went along with what my mother said because…” My throat tightens. “I wanted redemption. If I listened now like I hadn’t before, maybe one day I would make up for all of the trouble I had caused.”
“You were a child, Tessa.”
“I was.” I mentally push away the guilt that tries to surge up. “Something I’ve come to accept. I made a mistake. So did my parents. Although I can’t blame them for all of it. I didn’t stand up for myself.”
“Again,” Rafe repeats as his eyes capture mine, the intimacy of our locked gazes making my breath catch, “you were a child.”
“Until I wasn’t.” I smile sadly. “Guilt and fear kept me trapped just as much as my mother’s control issues and hypervigilance.”