Page 47

T rauma numbs you. It carves out the parts you can't survive remembering. My mind built shelters of forgetting. But now Oakley was knocking, gently, relentlessly, and those hidden parts of me were breaking loose, slicing through me like blades. Those gentle taps had pulled these memories free—every touch forcing me to face the truth of who I was, and who I could never escape.

Never truly remembering when it all began, the only thing I remember is when it ended.

Mother flinched every time she saw me, cursing the air I breathed. I was the sole cause of wiping every smile off her face and every tear that fell from her eyes. The man who took advantage of her was a family friend, leaving her with me as the consequence.

Every time she looked at me, I was his face staring back—the stranger who ruined her life. I was a living, breathing reminder of everything she'd lost.

Paying for the sins of someone I never knew. After learning of my mother's pregnancy at only sixteen, her parents sent her away from Greece to a religious camp in the States to be purified. Divine Diligence was where they sent us. I was only a toddler there and have few memories of the place. After escaping, I questioned why she bothered to take me with her in the first place. She could have easily left me behind.

If she had, I might not be the monster I am today.

We stayed on the streets most nights after we escaped. Mother would dumpster dive for our necessities. Rainfall was all around, the sky above us black. We had been drenched when an older man approached us.

"Come with me," he said. "I have room for the both of you."

Mother jumped at his offer, wanting to get off the streets.

He had a wife. I still remember the wrinkles that traced around her eyes when she smiled. Taking my small hand in hers, she led me away. Mother was taken upstairs with the man who took us in, the sound of the door slamming echoing in my mind. The nice old lady stayed with me, giving me snacks and playing games with me.

Three days went by before I saw my mother again. Sitting in the kitchen with Mrs. Wilson, who had made me pancakes, the footsteps sounded. My mother entered looking different than she had. Sunken black eyes, pale skin, and her hair all messed up. She didn't even look at me.

The same thing happened again. Mother would vanish for days at a time while I was left with Mrs. Wilson. She cooked and baked whatever I wanted, played games with me, and made sure I was clean. She was the first stability I had ever had in my life.

I remember how she'd let me lick the wooden spoon after mixing pancake batter. The way she nodded when I got every drop was magical—like I'd accomplished something important. Each time she ran my bath with the bubbles that smelled like lemons, I thought it meant I was special that day. Good boys get baths, I'd tell myself. If Mrs. Wilson gave me a bath, it meant I deserved to be clean.

I wished Mrs. Wilson would keep me forever. She felt like safety, like warmth. But even her gentle smiles couldn't protect me from what lived upstairs. Sometimes I'd catch her watching me with sad eyes when she thought I wasn't looking. Maybe she knew what was happening all along.

Everything would change once Mother got an apartment. I don't remember much about it other than my first ever bedroom. A room all to myself. Mother began to smile more when we lived there. She treated me better. I was well fed, had toys, and was clean, just like Mrs. Wilson had done for me.

Mother had taken me back to see Mrs. Wilson. She said she had a friend for me to play with. I was so excited I didn't sleep the night before. Going into the house, my face lit up at seeing paints set out, paper, water cups with what felt like thousands of brushes to use. The other boy smiled. I don't remember his name.

I had this stupid idea back then. If I drew her pictures good enough—really good ones with perfect colors—maybe she'd stay home more. Maybe she wouldn't go upstairs with the men anymore. I practiced until my small hands cramped, certain if I just drew perfectly, she'd choose me. Every shaky brushstroke whispered prayers that maybe, finally, I'd be enough. If I was good enough, if I painted hard enough, she would come back. Every time she left again, I'd think, "I just need to draw better next time."

As I mixed paints to create the colors I needed for my painting, I mixed black and red together, then purple, then brown. The color looked familiar to me. It was the same color as the circles on Mother's arms. Smiling, I took the brush to my skin, which was packed with the color, and made dark circles on my skin.

"What are you doing?" Mrs. Wilson's voice was not like it usually was.

"I look just like Mommy." She looked different, and I didn't know what her face meant.

As I grew older, I realized that even Mrs. Wilson had limits. She knew her husband was raping women who had no options in life. Recalling several people always coming in the house each week with clipboards, they always asked me questions. Not knowing how to answer any of them, except one.

"Does your mother treat you well?"

I always said the same thing. "My mommy is the best."

As soon as they left, it was like a switch flipped on my mother. Jekyll and Hyde almost. As time went on, she drank more, more strange men came over. The safety of my bedroom walls disappeared as the shouting got louder, closer to me. It wasn't long before those walls were smashed down, exposing me to the evil that roamed on earth.

Mother's rage burned hottest when their eyes lingered too long on me. She'd hiss accusations as if my small body was a threat. The more attention they paid me, the more she seemed to hate me.

It was the middle of the night when my door creaked open. A giant shadow entered my room. I remember thinking someone had come to tuck me in, like Mrs. Wilson used to do.

"Hey there, little man," he whispered, his breath smelling strange. "Your mama said I could tuck you in."

I didn't understand why he sat on my bed. I clutched my blanket, confused, not liking this stranger. That confusion didn't last. The man stumbled closer, pulling his pants down.

It became a routine. Night after night, my childhood dreams slowly vanished into pleas.

The next time it happened, I pretended I was somewhere else. The third time, I stopped pretending anything at all. After a while, I stopped counting. The men who visited my room became like the weather—something that just happened, something I couldn't stop. I learned to go away inside my head. To make my body small. To be quiet. This lasted for what felt like forever, even after we moved out of the apartment to the house Prez found me outside of.

That was until one night it was my mother who barged in. Stomping over to my bed, she gripped my hair in her hands, dragging me from my bed. Screaming, I kicked out but was met with a hard kick to the ribs as she cursed at me.

"Shut your dirty fucking mouth."

My chest tightened, strangling sounds escaping my throat, eyes burning with tears. She dragged me all through the house as she clutched onto my hair, her eyes darting wildly, movements twitchy, words tumbling out between hysterical laughter and sobbing gasps, finally taking me down to the basement. Throwing me onto the floor, she looked around wildly.

"Mommy?" She got in my face, spit flying from her mouth.

"I said shut your fucking mouth." The back of her hand connected with my cheek, sending me backward. The sound of my head hitting the floor rang out, warmth spread beneath my skull, thick and slow, soaking into my hair.

"You just can't let me have anything, can you?" Her voice was hollow, given up on everything. "You stole them all. My family, my home, my boyfriends. You stole my whole fucking life!" Her eyes were wide, her body jittery as she loomed over me in the shadows.

"You stole everything," she sobbed, fingers shaking as she threaded the needle. "I've had enough of you and your fucking mouth." She reached into her pocket and pulled something out. Dropping down over me, she put her full weight on my small body.

The next few minutes were a blur. She said more horrible things as she restrained me, her fingers twiddling with something. I noticed the thread was blue. It was a pretty blue. It reminded me of the sky.

My eyes went wide as she brought the needle up to my face. I could hear her breathing—fast little pants like she was excited. I smelled alcohol and something sweet like candy on her breath. The needle caught light from somewhere, a tiny silver flash. Her free fingers pressed my lips together as she jabbed the needle through my bottom lip, followed by my top lip.

"Please," I tried to whisper through clenched teeth, tasting blood. "Mommy, please." But the needle punctured deeper, silencing my begging forever. Maybe this would make her love me again.

Maybe this was what love felt like.

Maybe if I bled enough, she'd see I was worth keeping.

I could only feel the pull—dull, dragging—etched itself into memory. Tears leaked down my face but stayed trapped between my sealed lips, unable to escape, burning with salt where the thread penetrated. Each puncture dragged through my lips, her sweat dripping down my face like rain from hell. She tightened each stitch slowly, deliberately, pulling thread taut through my skin, leaving me gasping, choking, praying for the torture to end. Every stitch dragged slowly, endlessly through flesh. Pain blotted out the world, leaving only her laughter echoing in my skull.

The swirling feeling in my stomach began. I wanted to throw up. I struggled underneath her, but she just applied more pressure. She didn't release me until she had finished what she'd dragged me down here for. She had sealed my lips together with a total of eight stitches.

I opened my mouth to scream, but I couldn't open my mouth anymore. Only muffled whimpers escaped, trapped behind bloody stitches. My lungs seized, heart hammering so violently I thought it would burst.

Mother clapped and laughed, eyes alight as if she'd accomplished something beautiful. "Perfect," she whispered, "finally quiet."

She jumped and clapped as she watched me struggle. Bending over, she pinched my nose together.

Dark. Blinding. Can't breathe.

My body buckled under her as she took air away from me. Need air. Burning lungs. Chest on fire.

My vision closed in. Blackness coming. Heart hammering. Animal sounds trapped in my throat.

Dying. I'm dying.

No air.

No air.

No. Air.

When she finally let go, I sucked air through my nose. She was laughing. Blowing me a kiss, she left me in the basement.

Maybe if I stayed very still now, she would see I was being good. Maybe if I didn't cry, she would stop being angry. I thought if I was very still, if I didn't scream, maybe she would finally see I was good. Maybe she would love me again if I was quiet enough. Maybe this was just another test.

Time broke down in the dark. Hunger was the only thing left that had a voice. It became my home for the next six years.

The leaks in the pipes became my comfort. The ground became my friend. Sometimes I'd fingerpaint with my blood on the walls just so I would have someone to talk to.

Then one night, everything changed. Footsteps echoed down the stairs to the basement. My mother's shrill voice begged him to stop. A loud crack came as he slapped her. "I told you to shut the fuck up."

A large hand grabbed my shaggy hair, pulling my face to his. "The fuck happened to your mouth, boy?" The man looked away back to my mother. "Did you do this, you crazy bitch?" Reaching into his pocket, he brought out a knife, cutting the stitches open one by one. Air flooded into me. I coughed as it hurt to take a breath in. Before I got the chance to do anything, the man was gripping my hair again.

"Use me!" She begged, sounding crazed, voice raw, breaking with pathetic desperation. "Not him. He doesn't deserve you—he doesn't deserve anything!"

He tsked. "Your son is better than you."

I scrambled around for anything close to me. My fingers closed around the bat like it had been waiting for me.

Too busy unzipping himself while screaming at my mother to leave, he didn't see it coming. I stood as quickly as my tired body would let me and swung my bat in his direction. Using all my strength, I aimed for his knee. He buckled as he cried out in pain. "You little fucking shit!"

Moving to the other side, I did the same thing to his other knee. As he stopped, he lunged forward for me. Once again, I raised the bat and brought it down on his head. I swung again. Bones cracked. Blood spattered. He fell. I struck harder, faster, fury consuming every part of me. My hands slick with his blood, the bat slipping in my grip, but I wouldn't stop. Couldn't stop. My body took over while my mind screamed for more. Until his head was gone.

After, I just stood there. Shaking. Waiting for something. Punishment? Relief? I glanced toward the stairs, thinking maybe she'd be proud. Maybe now I'd finally hear "good boy." Afterward, I stood there panting, eyes wide, blood dripping from the bat, waiting—pathetically waiting—for Mother to say she was proud.

Silence. Nothing. Empty. Dead.

I thought maybe I'd feel good, but I just felt hollow. Dirty. Something was wrong with me. Maybe this was why Mother hated me—she knew what lived inside me all along. Part of me expected to hear her clapping, like she had when she sewed my mouth. Part of me thought maybe now, finally, I'd done something right in her eyes.

When the silence returned, it wasn't victory I felt—it was emptiness. I thought I'd hear her clapping again. Instead, I only heard myself breathing—and even that felt like a mistake. I stared at my blood-covered hands, realizing I'd finally become what she saw from the start: a monster.

I waited. Breathing hard. Blood in my mouth. Would Mrs. Wilson still think I was good? Would she still let me lick the spoon?

Footsteps. "My turn—" Another man came down the stairs, stopping dead in his tracks when he saw me bloodied with a body in front of me. He tried to escape, but I caught up to him. Bat breaking his ankles, before his ribs, then his skull.

Two men were dead. Would Mommy think I was brave now? Would she finally protect me?

I waited for her voice. For her footsteps. For anything.

When the silence returned, it wasn't victory I felt—it was emptiness. No applause. No smile. No arms to hold me. Just silence so loud it filled the room like smoke, choking everything it touched.

My eyes went to the stairs, expecting to see Mother there. Waiting for her to praise me.

The stairs were empty.

"Mom?" My voice was garbled through torn lips. "Mommy?" I called into silence, voice small, broken. Still hoping, even after everything, that she'd come back. That I hadn't been abandoned again.

I called for her like some stupid little kid. Like she hadn't just tried to kill me. Like she'd ever once come when I called. She was gone.

I prayed her footsteps would come back for me. That we could be a family again. That she would give me a second chance. That I wasn't a monster—I was her son.

What would I do without Mommy?

I stumbled out of the house that night into the pouring rain, holes in my lips as blood poured from them, my hands not letting go of my bat. The rain hit the open wounds on my face like a thousand knives. The rain washed the blood from my chin in thin pink streams, but couldn't clean the dark crimson still dripping from the bat. I stood there in the rain, blood running down my chin, bat clutched in my grip, throat working to form words that wouldn't come. His voice wasn't angry, but gentle—like Mrs. Wilson's.

I didn't trust gentle anymore.

Orphaned twice—once at birth, once by the only person who was supposed to love me.

Until a stranger's voice floated next to me.

"Hey kid. Where's your momma?"

"Prez found me that night," I said, reaching out to brush her tears away. The pad of my thumb caught a tear as it tracked down her cheek. "I've been free ever since."

A sound erupted from Oakley's throat, her body folding forward, a cry ripping from deep inside her—a sound of such pure anguish it seemed to tear her apart, leaving her gasping, clutching at the empty air like she could reach into the past and save me.

Oakley's eyes shimmered with unshed tears, the delicate skin underneath reddened and swollen. Her bottom lip quivered as she reached up to my face. The pad of her thumb stroked small circles against my cheekbone—one, two, three—the steady rhythm, a lifeline I clung to as I drowned in memories. The subtle motion reminded me I wasn't back there—I was here with her.

We sat in silence heavy with things we couldn't say. Her tears eventually slowed, tracks drying on her flushed skin. Mine never came.

They hadn't in years.

"It wasn't your fault," Oakley finally choked out, the words splintering in the air between us. Fresh tears spilled over, scalding her cheeks. I watched the salt trail to the corners of her mouth where she'd bitten it raw.

I stared past her, my gaze fixed on some distant point beyond her shoulder. My breathing had gone shallow, rapid—the only external sign that I was anywhere else. The concept of blame, of fault, meant nothing to me. There was only what happened and what didn't.

"You see what survived." My fingers tightened around hers until I felt the small bones shift beneath her skin. "Not what was worth saving."

For a moment, Oakley went completely still, her breath catching in her throat. Then, like a dam breaking, she surged forward, arms wrapping around my neck. Her body collapsed against mine, the full weight of her grief pressing into my chest. I felt each sob as it tore through her.

Slowly, my arms encircled her, palms pressing flat against her back. We stayed locked together like this, her heartbeat thundering against my chest.

She pressed her forehead to mine, our breaths mingling in the air of our bakery. A tear slipped between her lips, salt mixing with the words she fought to form. "I can't erase what they did to you." Her voice cracked on the final word, the sound of something irreparably broken. She pressed her forehead harder against mine. "But you're not alone anymore."

The promise fell from her lips like blood drawn from a wound. Her fingers curled around the nape of my neck, tangling in my hair, holding me in place as if afraid I might disappear. A tremor ran through me, violent enough for her to feel.

The dim light of the room suddenly seemed too bright, every detail of her face thrown into sharp relief—the disarray of freckles across her nose, the flecks of gold in her jade irises. My hand rose, muscles twitching with effort, to touch her face. My fingertips ghosted over her tears, hovering just above her cheek as if afraid to make contact.

"You're the only one who can hurt me." There was something different in my voice—something that hadn't been there before.

A small sound escaped her, not quite a gasp, not quite a sob. Everything else had been taken from me—my body, my voice, my choices. Everything was forced upon me—except her. I had chosen her, stolen her, killed for her. She was the single thread of normalcy in a life woven from other people's cruelty. The only thing I'd ever wanted badly enough to choose for myself.

Escaping Mother was the only other choice I made for myself.

Oakley's eyes, wide and glistening, her hands moving from my nape to my face. Her fingertips hovered just centimeters from my lips, a question in the space between us. I gave the barest of nods, barely a movement at all. Her fingers finally made contact with my mouth, tracing the pattern of scars.

I fought the instinct to flinch away as she explored the evidence of cruelty etched into my flesh. Each small pucker and ridge where the needle had punctured, where thread had pulled tight. My chest rose and fell rapidly, lungs working against the weight of memory.

Her fingertip caught on a particularly deep scar at the corner of my mouth, and my body responded with a small tremor. Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks as she traced the path the thread had taken.

"H-How old were you?"

"Seven." Just a number. But it ruined everything. "The first time."

"You were a child," Her voice broke on the words, tears flowing freely down her face, pressing her forehead to mine. Her fingers combed gently through my hair, the motion steady and grounding. My body responded beneath hers. My hands came up to frame her face, mirroring her hold on me.

"I don't—" The words caught in my throat, strangled by decades of enforced silence. Memories flickered—needle through flesh, mouth sewn shut, laughter. My voice, when it emerged, was stripped raw, barely recognizable as my own. "I don't know how to be human anymore."

"I don't see a monster," she whispered, our noses touching. Her breath ghosted against the puckered flesh where needle and thread had once sealed my voice away.

"I'm not a monster?" The question broke loose from my chest like a sob I'd spent my life containing, my voice carrying something I'd never allowed it to hold before.

"You're not a monster," her voice softened. "You're my husband."

Her thumb brushed the corner of my mouth where the worst of the scarring was, and I suppressed the urge to turn away, to hide the evidence of what had been done to me. I observed the shift in her breathing—the way her chest stuttered, the change where fear had lived.

Her gaze dropped to my mouth, lingering on the marks. The air between us seemed to thin, making it difficult to breathe. Her chest rose and fell in quick, shallow movements, the flush on her skin spreading from her cheeks down her neck.

She leaned forward, her lips hovering mere centimeters from mine, her breath against my mouth—felt like salvation, forgiveness, and punishment all at once. The anticipation was its own kind of exquisite agony, stretching between us like a thread pulled taut to breaking.

Her lips finally met mine, so softly at first I barely felt it—tentative, terrified—her touch ghosting over the ridged landscape of my scars. For both of us, this was the first time—skin against skin, no mask between us, nothing to hide behind. The first contact sent electricity down my spine, every nerve ending in my scarred mouth coming alive with sensation I'd never experienced.

Her lips were so soft. Everything I'd fucking dreamed about.

My hands remained frozen at my sides, fingers twitching with uncertainty. I didn't know where to put them—how to receive something like this. The gentleness was foreign territory, more terrifying than any violence I'd endured. Slowly, like moving through water, my hands lifted from my sides, hovering near her waist without touching, afraid I'd break the spell.

Her mouth grew more confident against mine, and I felt the shift—the moment her tenderness began to sharpen into something hungrier. She pressed closer, her lips moving with increasing urgency, and finally my hands found their purpose, settling against her waist with careful pressure, fingers spreading across the soft flesh there.

Suddenly, she was kissing me with desperation—punishing in its intensity, like she needed to hurt me to prove she could stand it. The moment her lips pressed into mine with renewed force, something feral and half-dead clawed its way up my spine—sharp, breathless, begging to be felt.

My body jerked beneath her mouth, nerves misfiring as my grip on her waist tightened reflexively. Being kissed like I was worth the softness she gave felt more brutal than anything I'd survived. It wasn't just unfamiliar. It was agony. Tenderness became a scalpel, slicing open parts of me I hadn't known were still alive. Places I'd buried so deep, even pain hadn't reached them—until her.

My mouth moved against hers like it had been waiting a lifetime, unsure, broken, but starved. I tasted grief—raw, searing, painfully sweet—like sorrow finally gasping for air after being buried alive. The kiss didn't just mark her, it engraved itself into the softest parts of her, deeper than memory, deeper than blood. It would live in her like a wound that never closed, something she'd bleed from every time she remembered what it cost us to feel this.

Her fingers found their way to my hair, tangling in the strands at the nape of my neck, pulling me closer with an urgency that stole what little breath I had left. The gentle scrape of her nails against my scalp sent electric currents racing down my spine, each touch lighting up nerve pathways that had been dormant for years.

She fit against me too perfectly—soft, trusting, all tender flesh offering itself to hands that only knew how to hurt. She pressed in like I was safety, not ruin, seeking comfort from the one person who could only give it by taking everything else away.

The kiss deepened, her tongue tentatively tracing the seam of my scarred lips. Granting her entry with a controlled exhale, her tongue sliding against mine sent a violent tremor through my entire body. The taste of her flooded my mouth—alive and impossibly sweet. I'd never tasted anything but copper and ash for so long that the flavor of her nearly would have brought me to my knees.

Oakley poured everything she couldn't say into that kiss—her grief over what had been done to me, her rage at those who had broken me, her guilt for not knowing, her love for what I had broken between us. I felt each emotion as it passed from her body to mine, a current of feeling so intense it threatened to stop my heart.

My hands moved from her waist to press deeper into the soft flesh there, the careful control giving way to something more desperate. Each stroke of her tongue against mine broke another chain inside me, the links snapping one by one, unleashing something I'd locked away so deeply I'd forgotten it existed.

Our lips moved together with desperate synchronicity, painfully tender—a raw confession without words, two broken hearts bleeding into each other. The world around us fell away, leaving nothing but the points where our bodies connected, where her heartbeat echoed inside my chest as if it belonged there. Time ceased to exist. There was only her mouth on mine, her hands in my hair, the way she tasted like salvation and damnation wrapped in one perfect, devastating package.

Pulling apart, our chests heaved, breaths uneven as if we'd run for miles. Her pupils were blown wide, nearly eclipsing the color of her irises. Her lips were swollen and flushed, glistening in the dim light. My eyes remained steady, focused.

This wasn't just a kiss. This was Oakley trying to stitch my broken pieces together with her mouth, knowing it would never be enough but trying desperately anyway. Oakley didn't realize she was my first kiss—with and without the mask. She knew that she'd never be able to erase the scars, no matter if she chose to love me, to forgive me.

Some wounds went too deep for love to ever fully heal.

Her hands stayed firm against my chest, holding me upright when I couldn't hold myself. Her strength flowed into me where we touched, keeping me tethered to the present when I might otherwise have dissolved into the past.

The silence between us grew heavy, laden with unspoken truths. Oakley's lips parted, hands moving slightly as she gathered her courage. I watched the subtle shift in her expression—the way her eyes darkened, how her throat worked around words that terrified her. Her chest rose and fell with quickening breaths, the pulse at the hollow of her throat fluttering like a trapped bird.

My heart maintained its rhythm in my chest. Something warm and foreign expanded beneath my ribs, pressing against my lungs until breathing became difficult. The admission rewrote something fundamental between us, shifting the power that had always been mine into something shared, something fragile.

Her thumb brushed over the spot my heart was supposed to be. "There's so much about you to love."

My fingers wrapped around her wrist, not to trap or restrain, but to keep her there, to hold her hand against the part of me she owned as if it could keep my heart beating and my lungs breathing. The question formed in my chest and reached my lips, clawing its way up my throat. I tried to push it back down, to bury it deep where all my other vulnerabilities lived, but it escaped anyway.

"Then why don't you love me?"

The color drained from her cheeks, leaving her pale and stricken. Fear of the damage her love could do—not just to me, but to herself.

She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again, words failing her. I watched her struggle, watched as she drowned. I wanted to believe that love could fix something in me, but I was learning love hurt more than it healed.

Maybe she was right. Maybe I wasn't the monster I'd believed myself to be all these years. Maybe I was just a man—broken, scarred, but still human somewhere beneath it all.

I just didn't understand why she couldn't love me anyway. Why couldn't she take the risk? Why, after everything, this was the line she couldn't cross? I'd survived torture, captivity, certain death—but this, her fear of loving me, might be the thing that finally broke me beyond repair.

"Just lie to me," I begged, my voice a controlled whisper. My hands moved to clutch at her shoulders, fingers pressing into her flesh with restrained desperation. "Tell me you love me. Just once. Just fucking once." My voice choked out, ruined and desperate. "Just let me believe I was something worth loving."

For a split second, her fingers curled weakly into my shirt, the gentlest of grips before slipping away, leaving me emptier than ever.

"I never realized my home could be someone's heart." The confession was pulled from somewhere deep inside me. "Don't take my home away from me. Please."

My eyes found hers, midnight pools suddenly exposed, vulnerability carved into features that never showed weakness. My jaw clenched with the effort of containing everything inside me, muscles working against what threatened to break loose.

The sight of that battle—of me fighting my own body's response—struck her harder than any blow. It contained oceans of unspoken truths—the lonely child with no voice, the boy who learned to kill to survive, the man who had only known possession, never love.

"I want to love you," she finally whispered desperately, each word dragged from some deep, wounded place inside her. Tears spilled freely down her cheeks now, cutting silver paths through the grime and ash.

"You're choosing me?" My voice barely audible, flat as a heartbeat, containing a universe of disbelief. The question hung in the air between us, weighted with decades of rejection, of being seen as nothing but a body to use, a weapon to wield.

She pressed her lips to mine again, and I tasted salt and copper and something else—something that felt like redemption. My arms pulled her against me, desperate in a way I never was, my fingers pressing into her skin like I was afraid she'd dissolve, disappear, leave me alone in the darkness again.

She pulled back just enough to meet my gaze, her hands cradling my face like it was made of spun glass rather than the steel she'd always believed. My eyes were different now—not just steady, but changed. As if something fundamental had shifted behind them. The perpetual emptiness had given way to something raw and newborn, alert and focused all at once.

The final wall crumbled away in my eyes then. I—the man who felt nothing, who feared nothing—let her see everything. The terror. The shame. The desperate, clawing need to be wanted. To be chosen. To be seen as something more than the weapon I'd been forged into.

"You're the only real thing I have left," she whispered, voice breaking. "Because I don't even know who I am anymore."

My hand found hers, lacing our fingers together—scars against scars, brokenness against brokenness. Monster against monster. For that was what we both were now—creatures transformed by trauma, reborn into something unrecognizable to our former selves.

In a world where everything else had been revealed as lies, my truth was the only solid ground beneath her feet. In my arms, surrounded by rubble and blood and broken glass, she found the one place where she still made sense. Where we both did. Two broken things that somehow, impossibly, fit together to create something whole.

Her heart twisted in her chest, the agony visible in her eyes as the realization dawned—I expected nothing in return for everything I offered. That after a lifetime of taking what I wanted by force, I was now willing to give everything and ask for nothing. The irony wasn't lost on either of us.

Movement caught her eye—dark wetness seeping through the fabric of my sleeve. She shifted slightly in my arms, her attention drawn to the spreading stain. Her fingers reached out, concern overriding everything else.

"You're bleeding," she whispered. I loosened my hold on her, allowing her to take my arm as she moved to examine it more closely. She carefully pushed up the soaked fabric, revealing what I'd kept hidden.

Her breath caught sharply, a pained sound escaping her throat. There, carved into the inside of my right forearm, was her name OAKLEY, the letters jagged and fresh, still weeping crimson. I shifted my position, extending my other arm toward her without being asked. When she reached for it, I let her take it, watching her face as she discovered SUMMER etched into my left forearm, the cuts deeper, more deliberate.

"When did you..." Her voice broke, fingers hovering above the wounds, afraid to touch them.

The morning before her parents came over. I carved my reasons into my arms—Oakley and Summer.

Her eyes lifted to mine, swimming with more tears and horror and something else—a terrible understanding of what it meant to carve someone so deeply into your flesh that you carried them in your blood.

"Why would you do this to yourself?" She sounded horrified.

"You might never love me." I accepted reality. "But that won't stop me from loving you."

And I did.

I fucking loved Oakley.

She held me tighter, her arms encircling me completely, her fingers digging into my flesh like she could anchor me to life itself. The weight of what we'd shared, the intensity of the confessions, began to take its toll. I felt my strength ebbing, my body growing heavy against hers.

My weight began to settle into her gradually, a slow surrender rather than a sudden collapse. She felt the change, her arms adjusting to support me as I let myself lean more fully into her embrace. The physical surrender mirrored something deeper breaking loose inside me, something I'd held rigid for decades now allowed to soften, to yield.

Her body strained beneath mine but held firm, her arms tightening around my waist as she absorbed my weight. She caught me, arms supporting my dead weight, pulling me impossibly closer, holding me like she could somehow absorb the agony carved into my skin. I felt her tears soaking through my shirt, hot against my skin. The shattered pieces of us ground together into something almost like home—jagged edges cutting as they tried to fit, both of us bleeding into each other where the broken parts connected.

I was losing the fragile humanity she'd uncovered.

I wish she'd never taught me how to feel.

I finally knew what it was like to love somebody.

But I also learned the pain of them not loving me back.