Page 106 of Torched Spades

“One might call it fate.”

“I don’t believe in fate.”

“I thought every girl believed in all that fate, soulmate, happily ever after bullshit.”

“Not every girl.”

Johnny stirs beneath me, his hand sinking into the loose strands of long hair fanning across his chest.“I’ve been thinking… Everything you went through as a kid… Is that’s what made you become a psychiatrist?”

I nod, my cheek brushing against his skin. “Initially, it was to prevent what happened to me from happening to anyone else. I wanted to make a difference”—I wave my hand dismissively—“you know, ‘be the change.’ But somewhere along the way it became less about me and more about the misunderstood. Society is quick to label someone as sick or evil when, in reality, there’s just something misfiring in their brains.” I shrug. “Just because people do bad things, it doesn’t make them bad people.”

His hand stills in my hair, the muscles under my cheek tightening. “Do you really believe that?”

I think about the weight of my answer. This is not a simple conversation. He’s asking if I see him as the serpent, squeezing the innocence out of the rose until she’s a withered shell. A few hours ago, my response would have been very different, but after hearing that recording and Johnny filling in twenty-two years of missing pieces, I realize something…

You can’t blacken a rose that’s already dead.

Besides, I’m more of a wild violet.

“If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be in my bed, Johnny.”

His hand slides from my hair down my back and tightens around my waist. His body is tense as his chest rises and falls with a reluctant breath. “Becca?”

“Hmmm?”

“There’s someone I haven’t told you about.”

My heart stutters as an unfiltered conversation comes rushing back—one I’ve forced myself not to think about for fear of what it meant. But the gravity in his voice has my chest in a vise.

“Is it about that woman?”

“What?”

“The first time we were together, you told me about a woman,” I say, forcing the words out. “You said I reminded you of her. I could see the pain on your face when you talked about her.” Tucking my heart behind a locked door, I turn my chin and stare up at him. “She meant a lot to you.”

His eyes dull. “At one time, yes.”

“Does she still?”Please say no.

“In a way, I suppose.” His gaze lowers to where my fingers dig into his skin. I wait for him to pull away, but he doesn’t. His muscles tighten as he continues to stare at my pale hand draped over his bare skin.

“What’s her name?”

He seems to wrestle with answering, then looks away when he says quietly, “Victoria.”

"What ended things between you two?”

“She died,” he says so matter-of-factly I almost ask him to repeat it.

“What happened?” I whisper.

“It was her heart.”

“It stopped?”

Johnny glances up, the look in his eyes like a cold breath on the back of my neck. “It went up in flames.”

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