Page 53 of Chalk Outline

I interlace my fingers behind my head and gaze at the full moon as the waters ripple angrily below us. I scan the horizon to my right, watching the fierce waves crash onto the surface.

A storm is coming.

“I lived in the circus.” The words slip out, and suddenly, I’m sharing everything while omitting key details to keep my identity hidden. “I was fifteen,fifteen. If I hadn’t killed him, it would’ve been much worse. The circus was hell, and it turned me into… a killer.”

As I tilt my gaze upward, Winona stands directly in front of me. Awe glimmers in her empathetic eyes, and my body urges me to jump across the gap and hold her in my arms.

“Then, I met someone who brought heaven to me,” I finish.

Something inside me cracks open, as if she had pulled back the curtain I had drawn over myself for years and finally seen me naked for the first time.

Small tears like diamonds cling to her lashes, and I want to reach out. Wipe them away. Taste the salty drops, as if they are a prism distorting her light freckles. I want her, no matter how much it hurts me. It always hurts in ways that are out of our control.

My chest tightens.

“She healed something in me that was broken long before I met her. She revived my dormant heart. I kept these secrets because I didn’t want to burden her with my dark past. It didn’t matter anyway; it was behind me.”

“Was it?” Winona’s breathy voice drifts, still cutting through me. “If you needed to talk to someone, she was right there, probably waiting for you to unpack what was racing through your head. It’s an opportunity to be transparent and communicate with your partner. It may take time, but maybe part of your healing process happens when you heal together. You learn to open up and share. Your bond tightens. Yourintimacy blooms. When you bury the truth, you disguise yourself. And you deserve to be free.”

“So, I was wrong to keep it from her?”

“I don’t know. I can’t judge. You did what you thought was right. If it were me, yourburdenis ours, and we carry it together. Proudly. You did nothing wrong, Jason.“ Her sharp words slowly drain the tension that had clutched my bones for years. That tangled knot inside me finally snaps, and I feel like I can breathe for the first time in three years. “For the record, he deserved to die, and you deserved to live.”

A smile slowly works its way across my face, still hidden behind the mask.

That’s right.

You get it.

“If your husband were here, what would you say to him?” I ask, needing to know that myself.

Radio silence.

“Talk to him. Tell him how you feel,” I encourage. She wants transparency, and I want the same.

She glances around her—first at the couch, then at the ocean in the distance—before she presses the button and says, “I love you.”

My heart nearly stops.

“I love you more,” I murmur to myself.

“And I hate you at the same time.”

Our eyes meet again, locked onto each other.

Even when I bled to death, it didn’t hurt me quite like this.

That is pain.

In its raw form.

I feel completely helpless, so close to her yet so distant. All I want is to win her back and be the man I used to be with her. She knows the real me, not the monster I was forced to become.

I clench my jaw, knowing I deserve it. Pulling the pack of cigarettes from my back pocket, I grab one and light it quickly.

“You broke our promise.” Her voice is harsh. Loaded.

I swear I didn’t.