Page 103 of Severed Heart

“Oh, the fuck you didn’t. You asked us all to because of the way you’ve treated and punished yourself, but I’m the one whowantedto know. You’ve left those letters and pictures out in plain fucking sight for years for anyone to see. Didn’t you ever once stop to think I might get curious?”

We stare off for long, tense seconds. Seconds in which I’m too mortified to speak as he carefully weighs my reaction.

“I think deep down you wanted me to know, and that’s why you’re not as angry as you want to be right now. So, I’m not going to let you make me feel like shit for giving a fuck about the woman who has literallysaved mefrom some of my darkest hours over the last two years. Who has strengthened me during the worst time of my life while suffering every day in her own fucking skin. I cared, I still care, so fucking much, and so I read them because I had to know.” He swallows. “Now that I do, I can’t for the fucking life of me understand how any man could look at you, get the best parts of you, look into your eyes, touch your beautiful body, and fucking hurt you like that.”

He swallows again, and I feel the pain in his words, his eyes. I can feel it from him, as I always have. I’ve felt it through our shared looks in the dark—through our whispered confessions. I recognize now we’ve been more to each other than teacher and student for some time, and our relationship shifted well before today, though I can’t pinpoint when. But he’s been taking on my pain while confronting his own for much longer. From the beginning. Right up to the first day when he fixed that buckle on my suitcase because he knew it meant something to me. My eyes spill over in defeat as he forces me to realize and confront what I’ve known for some time now—that he’s managed the impossible and now resides as part of the beat in my chest.

“Delphine, if I apologize to you right now for prying into what hurt you, it won’t fucking be sincere because I had to know. Had to... and I hope, someday, that you’ll trust me enough to tell me the whole story.” I lower my eyes, and he tips my chin, leaning in so close his lips nearly touch mine. “But until you do, I’ll be staring into your goddamn house every night that I’m capable. To make sure you know that I won’t let anyone hurt you like that ever again. With the hope that your soldier makes you feel safe because that’s all he wants. Well, not all he wants,” he whispers roughly, “but now he’s made that clear, too.”

He tracks the tears trailing down my cheeks and considers them before gently brushing them away.

Shame fills me as he inches even closer, and I stiffen in recognition that I want it—that I want him closer. That I, too have been thinking about him differently. Never with this much attraction before, but enough to shame myself. That I search my window every night for him, feeling safer when I see his silhouette across the street. That I feel beautiful and cared for by the way he listens to me. That I have felt more myself with him than any other since Celine. But whatever this attraction is, I won’t allow it to destroy the peace I have with him. Or his peace.

“I will not risk our friendship for this. Whatever you think you feel—”

“Oh no, you fucking don’t,” he snaps. I meet his eyes only to see rejection and hurt shining in them. “If I don’t get to say anything more aloud, you sure as fuck don’t get to dismiss and deny what hasn’t even been spoken but is so fucking obvious between us. At least in the bright light of fucking day, right? Because we both know what happens between us in the dark, the looks we share before you close your eyes haven’t all been innocent. At least not in the last few months.”

“Get out,” I barely manage to say.

“No, whateverI think I feel,” he scoffs, “you feel it too, and it’s been worth every minute of the wait to see you recognize it.”

“Wait for what?”

“For our season,” he declares.

“What season? You are leaving.”

“You can’t be serious. You’re going to use the one thing you fuckingtrained me to doto try and push me away?”

“No soldier of mine would ever be so fucking foolish.”

“Me becoming a Marine is not what we’re talking about anymore.”

“Yes, it is.” I can’t stop the shake, I can’t stop it, and I lash out as he notices it with his prodding beautiful eyes. “If you are going, go now. I won’t help you with this any longer. I will not—” I shake my head. “This is a mistake.”

“All right,” he snaps as a fire lights in his eyes, “if we’re lying about the nature of this fucking argument, then I can’t agree with you. I’m sorry. I’ll always be the soldier you made me first and foremost, but we will have that future,” he declares with arrogant confidence. “The one we planned.”

“You lie to us both,” I declare back, ducking out from under him. “Get out.”

He remains steadfast, tone unflinching. “Love may have lied to you in the past, but I’m not them, Delphine. You know I’m not. You trust me. This is just your fear talking.”

“Please leave,” I order weakly, my weakness for him leaking from my every pore. “Please, Tyler. I need space.”

Perplexed, he stares over at me, chest heaving for long seconds as I cower.

“God dammit!” he barks, and I jump in response before he stalks out of the kitchen. Snatching my pint, I jump again when he slams out of the front door. Reeling, I sink against the refrigerator, letting my selfish tears fall, hating myself for what I’ve done to him and for what I feel.

For what I want.

For the truth that now beats clear in my chest. For the truth he spoke aloud, one that I avoided the second the whispers started in both my head and my heart. The whispers that told me that he not only brought back a trust I believed myself incapable of ever having again, but also other emotions and feelings I had long declared myself immune to.

Happiness.

Contentment.

Adoration.

Longing.