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“I suppose if you can’t feel the pleasure of love, you would see it only as a curse and torture.”

“What pleasure is there in love?” The image of her moaning on the altar flashed through my mind. “Or are you talking about sex?”

She laughed. It was a brief, quiet laughter, but I promptly added it to my catalogue of things about her that would surely torment me with longing while I tossed and turned in my bed the next day.

“No, Kurai, I didn’t marry for sex.”

I noted the sound of my name coming from her and stored it in my memories, too, to replay it over and over when she wasn’t with me.

“Love brings a wide spectrum of pleasures,” she said.

“And with the right person, it feels wonderful to be in love. It felt right with Dylan at the beginning too. We were so young when we met, just kids really. My mom passed away early, and I missed her terribly.” She flinched, clasping her hands in her lap.

“But Dylan was there. With him, I didn’t feel lonely.

He always thought of something to do. And he loved big gestures that he said were supposed to make me feel special. ”

“What do you mean by big gestures?”

“Like he would buy a thousand roses and lay them over the stairs and along the path to the school bus for my birthday. Or he’d bring a huge bunch of pink balloons with For Ciana written on them and release them in the school atrium on Valentine’s Day.

The custodian had no easy way to get to the balloons so high.

So he just left them for almost the entire week until the helium escaped enough for the balloons to come down.

And every time Dylan and I walked through the atrium or up the stairs, he’d grin smugly and shake his head, saying, ‘The things I do for you.’”

“Did you enjoy these grand gestures? ” I asked.

She tilted her head, casting her gaze upwards in a moment of reflection.

“Well, I didn’t hate them,” she admitted.

“I felt flattered to have everyone’s attention.

Now, when I think about it… And I’ve been thinking a lot lately.

” She gave me another one of her flitting apologetic smiles.

“Now I know it wasn’t love on his part. All his grand gestures were always public.

He did it for the admiration of the crowd more than he did it for me.

I was just a prize he collected like one of his numerous sports trophies.

As a smart, po pular girl, with lots of friends, bright prospects, and a family tragedy in the form of a dead mother, I had lots of boys asking me out, but of course I had to fall for Dylan’s blue eyes and dimpled smile.

Intentionally or not, he also got all my friends on his side by doing all those public displays of affection.

Everyone was saying, ‘Aw, he loves you so much. Look at all the things he does for you.’ I heard it so often, I believed it with all my heart too. ”

“Is that the typical courting process for humans? Grand gestures?” I had no idea why I asked that. What the fuck did I care about the human’s mating rituals? But everything about Ciana fascinated me. For some inexplicable reason, I had to know all about her past too.

“Typical?” Ciana seemed to consider it. “I’m not sure.

I have little experience with dating. Dylan was my first and only boyfriend.

But from my parents, I learned that a man didn’t need to be big or loud when expressing his love for a woman.

Sometimes, small, intimate actions are more valuable and probably far more sincere.

But…” She heaved a breath. “When Dylan said that he loved me, I believed him. And when he asked me to put my college plans on hold and move with him to the city after my graduation, I felt excited for our new adventure together. My father died shortly after, and I felt so utterly alone in the world. Dylan said I would never be alone as long as I had him. He was so good at finding just the right words when I needed something to hold on to. He said we were together, just the two of us against the entire world. He said I didn’t need to worry about college or even looking for a job, that I could take as much time as I needed to grieve and recover while he went to classes and worked for his dad’s company at home in the afternoon. ”

“Did you marry him?”

“No. Not right away, but I always wanted to have a family—a husband, kids, a dog, a cat or two. You know, the whole thing. At first, I thought it was unbelievably kind of Dylan to offer to look after me like that. Now I know that was just another step to make me wholly reliant on him. Without the education, I had few options outside of my life with him. Without a job, I had no people I could talk to and no money other than what he gave me to buy groceries. When he offered to get married shortly after, it wasn’t accompanied by any of his grand gestures of before.

He just looked up from his phone while we were having dinner and said it’d be much easier for him to take care of me if we were married. I said no.”

“You did?” I asked, utterly absorbed by her story.

She sighed. “I guess, I already had doubts. Also, you see, I always wanted to have a big wedding in our small town with all my friends and family there. I used to have so many friends, Kurai. I loved crowds, and music, and laughter. And above all, I saw myself being exceptionally happy on my wedding day, but I feared I might not be if it was with Dylan. The doubt was small and buried deep in my gut, easy enough to dismiss, but I should’ve listened to it because that was when the manipulation really started.

He’d wear me out day after day, complaining about how much easier it’d be for him to continue to support me financially if I were his wife, how his family was upset that we weren’t married, how his friends told him that a woman unwilling to commit is just a gold digger.

He made me feel like a rotten, ungrateful person.

And eventually it started to make sense to ‘just get it out of the way’ and get married. ”

Was that how my stepfather convinced my mother to marry him, too? I suddenly wondered. There was no love between them. They weren’t bonded mates. But after my father’s death, she needed help to run the farm, or we risked losing it…

I tightly shut my eyes for a moment, banishing the memories away.

But they pounded against my skull, trying to get in.

Without realizing it, Ciana had opened something inside me that allowed the memories to invade my mind, and instead of leaving her to preserve my sanity, I shifted closer to her along the bench.

Maybe it was too late for me already? Maybe I’d lost my mind and there was no hope of ever getting it back now.

“I always wanted to have a wedding dress with the longest train ever,” she continued her story.

“I saw it in a movie once, and I wondered what it’d feel like to walk down the aisle with a train like that behind you.

It seemed grand, elegant, and fun.” Her smile seemed happy for a moment but then disappeared completely.

“Instead, I got married wearing jeans. Dylan reasoned that since it was a small ceremony with no guests whatsoever, there was no need to spend money on a dress that no one will see.”

“With your parents passing, did you not have any other family?” I asked, pained by the disappointment in her voice.

“I had an aunt, my mother’s sister, and her family, including my two little cousins whom I adored.

But they all stayed in my hometown, and Dylan allowed me decreasingly less and less contact with them, until he eventually forbade me to contact them or to speak to them unless he was present.

” She gazed at the fading bruise on her forearm.

“The beatings started about a year after the wedding. At first, I didn’t even recognize it as physical abuse.

He’d shove me out of the way or push me into the wall when he was angry, and I would dismiss it as an accident or even worse—blame myself for getting in his way.

He worked from home after classes, and I’d listen carefully for every sound coming from his home office.

If there was screaming and furniture shoved around, I knew someone on the phone had made him angry, and I was in trouble because he’d take it out on me. ”

“Why?” I fisted my hands so tightly, my knuckles ached.

She shrugged with a wince. “He’d always say that it was my fault, that I somehow failed to read the signs and calm him down, being infuriating instead.

He’d shove me to teach me a lesson to stay out of his way.

Or he’d throw a dinner plate at me to teach me to cook better.

Then he’d say he was teaching me for my own good, and I was a lousy student who needed to be punished constantly.

Afterwards, he’d apologize profusely. He’d crawl on his knees begging for my forgiveness.

He’d cry real tears, swearing that there is no life for him without me.

That we were meant to be together, just he and I against the entire world.

He’d pour me a bath, he’d ice my bruises, the bruises that he had inflicted.

He’d swear on his life that he’d never do it again. ”

“But he did, didn’t he? He kept hurting you, again and again.”

She nodded with a long sigh. “For a while, things would calm down, and I would believe that everything may be getting better. And then…”

She bit her lip. I saw how hard it was for her to continue. It was impossibly hard for me to hear it too. I was ready to fall to my knees to beg her to stop. But unlike me, who preferred to keep my memories locked and buried, Ciana seemed to need to purge them.

Maybe letting it all out made her burden lighter?

And if so, who was I to stop her? The best thing I could do for her was to listen.