Page 66 of Enticing the Elf
“You haven’t forced me to do anything,” I remind him gently, and he grimaces.
“That only makes it worse. Healthy relationships don’t start like this, Eoin. We’re both old enough to understand that—to know better. I never should have agreed to a challenge. You don’t deserve to be tested when you haven’t done anything to make me doubt you.” He shakes his head. “You don’t deserve to be tested at all. This was… wrong, and I’m sorry I put you through it.”
I take a moment to consider what he’s said and what hehasn’t. I don’t think he wants to break up, but guilt is cloudinghis judgment. “Why did you agree? If you’d stuck to your guns, we would have been over weeks ago.”
“Yeah.” He smiles sadly. “That’s why I agreed. I didn’t… I don’t want us to be over, Eoin. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my life. More than I will ever love anyone else. If I think about waking up to a day where you’re not in my life, it makes me not want to wake up that day.”
Fear clutches me, but I ignore it. He’s not in danger. “I’m here for all the days you want me to be.”
Finally, he lifts his attention to me. “I’m so afraid.”
“Of me?”
“No. Never. But yes.” He pulls a face. “I’m doing this badly.”
“You’re fine. This has been worrying you.”
“Yes. I tried to keep it from you, but that didn’t work. So in the end, we both worried when I should have just…” He trails off with a restless gesture. “Some things aren’t easy to talk about. Especially when telling you might hurt you. Especially when they’re stupid and unjustified.”
Now we’re getting to the heart of things. “You’re mad at yourself. I never thought the day would come where you said emotions were stupid,” I tease, and miracle of miracles, I win a tiny smile.
“Neither did I,” he admits. “But right now, it’s so hard not to feel that way. I-I’ve said some unforgiveable things to you recently. You’re an adult and you know your own mind and feelings. You know what you want from life. Questioning that and forcing you to prove something you should never have to prove when I should have just trusted you… that’s unforgiveable, and I’m so sorry.”
I wait a beat to make sure he’s finished. “Don’t you think I’m the one who gets to decide what I can forgive? Just like I’m the one who wanted the chance to prove myself. I appreciate the apology—deeply and sincerely, I do—and I’m glad you agree thatyou should have trusted me, but I could have walked away then, and I didn’t. I wanted to fight for us in the only way left to me, and I’m not sorry I did.”
His eyes get wet, but before he can look away, I catch hold of his chin. “I love you, too, you know. So much that it’s bursting from me. So much that I would happily do anything you needed of me. I’ll say it again, Dáithí—I’m in your life for as long as you want me. If that means we face some hurdles while you work through your fears, I’m here for it.”
A sob bursts from him, but the tears don’t fall. “I’m afraid,” he whispers. “I shouldn’t be, but I am.”
“‘Should’ isn’t a word that applies to emotions,” I tell him. “You’re allowed to feel things, even if they’re not logical. What scares you? What do you need from me?”
He lets out a shaky breath. “It pisses me off that you’re being perfect right now and I’m… this.” He waves at himself. “An emotional mess.”
Startled, I cough to cover the laugh that wants to escape. “I’m not—actually, I’ll take that. I’m perfect.”
His elbow makes contact with my side, but not hard. “You’re supposed to say I’m not a mess. The perfect score just went down.”
This time I don’t bother to hide my chuckle. “Baby, you’re the most perfect person alive, including when you’re a mess. I love your mess and your emotions. They’re part of the whole package that’syou.”
The depth of love shining in his wet, wide eyes reassures me that we’re going to be okay.
“When I was young, I trusted the wrong person, and he broke my heart,” he blurts, then blows out a breath. I resist the impulse to demand who so I can race out to find the bastard and deliver him to Dáithí in chains. “It’s not… The story isn’t anythingspecial. That’s basically it. Logically, there’s no reason for it to still be affecting my life thousands of years later.”
“Logically, there’s no reason for emotions at all,” I point out. “But I wouldn’t want to give mine up, even when they hurt. The dark moments make the sunshine ones so much sweeter.”
He peers at me suspiciously. “You’re thinking about that kids’ movie, aren’t you? The one where all the emotions are people living in human brains?”
“Maybe.” It’s lived rent-free in my head since I first watched it. Caolan suggested it after I complained that understanding how kids’ brains work is too hard. Raðulfr visits with children a lot in his role as our leader, which means I have a lot of contact with them, too, but that never made it any easier. “The point is, I’m not judging you for still managing the aftereffects of something that hurt you deeply. Do you want to tell me the whole story? You don’t have to.”
“I know.” He gives a little sigh, then leans against me, voluntarily touching me for the first time since this conversation began. “I think I want to, though.”
A little more of the tension inside me eases. I put my arm around him and give him a little squeeze.
But as he speaks, the tension comes back. He’s right that his story isn’t anything uncommon, but that doesn’t make what happened okay. He may have been an adult at the time, he may have willingly consented to the relationship and all it entailed—except being cheated on—but it’s still clear to me that he was gaslighted by a predator. Alan saw something he wanted, was denied it, and then made it his mission to get it anyway on his own terms, whether Dáithí knew about those terms or not. Worse, though, is that when he didn’t want it anymore, he went out of his way to do as much harm as he could.
I wait until he’s finished. “May I hold you?”
The words are barely out of my mouth before he’s crawling halfway into my lap, my arms closing around him instinctively as he lays his head on my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, but I just give him a squeeze.