Page 121 of Between Passion and Revenge: Part Two

It’s safe to say, things won’t ever go back to normal.

Not after this.

Not after facing the knowledge thatStorm never knewabout his children.

I drop my phone on my chest, extinguishing the light. The darkness is like a familiar friend; the sounds of my children’s soft breaths are music.

And in the quiet and dark, Ifeel.

I let all the emotions I’ve bottled up, pushed down, stowed away in order to survive come forward.

Grief. Anguish. Longing.

Fear.

All of it swirls inside my chest, cracking open the bones there to expose my battered heart.

When I saw him sitting by the pool with Tempest—the child we created out of what I thought was deep love—I almost fell to the ground and wept.

Loss. There’s so much I’ve lost, we’ve all lost.

And it’s not fucking fair.

It’s not fucking fair that the kids had to go without, or that Storm never knew, or the hell I’ve gone through so I could survive and try to thrive.

This hardened shell I’ve created, this mask I’ve forged in order to make it in this world…I let it break away as one tear after the other rolls from my closed eyelids.

My breaths tighten and my face burns as I release sad tears. I don’t let them turn into sobs; I don’t let my pain wake my babies.

Instead, I allow myself to fully think about Storm. About us—what we were, what we could have been.

I let myself think about those beautiful, gentle moments between us.

I let myself exist in my memories and feel the warmth of his love, of my love—ofbeinglove. What I felt for Storm is the kind of devotion that changes DNA. It seeps into the crevices of the soul, filling in the negative space and growing roots.

When I loved Storm, I let it entangle with the very essence of who I am. I let my love change me into someone I didn’t recognize. Someone I came to hate.

But my memories are an unreliable narrator in the story of my life. I can’t trust them any more than I can trust the man who gave me the greatest gifts in my existence.

My sore eyes snap open at that.

Storm Sandoval is a liar. I can’t trust anything he tells me, and I can’t trust how he acts. Because eight years ago? Heactedas if he loved me. He made me believe the story.

But he didn’t mean a word of it.

You don’t know that.

I inhale and hold the air in my lungs, waiting until my lips begin to tingle before releasing the breath, trying to clear my mind.

“I love you, Shae. I’ve always loved you with the entirety of my soul; with an expansiveness that mirrors the galaxy. I would do anything for you.”

Those aren’t words from eight years ago. This is what he said days ago.

Days ago, when I laid it all on the line—when I purged my hatred and pain and devastation toward him and his actions.

And instead of trying to defend himself…he declared himself.

What do I trust? Who do I trust?