Page 53 of Wicked Salvation

Lucian’s grip on me tightens. “No, it isn’t.” I feel one of his fingers on my temple. “Well, it’s only obvious at night?”

“I don’t get what you mean.”

“You’re different at night…” his voice trails off, swallowed by a gust of wind. “Like you’re so tired of holding yourself together during the day that your mask slips.”

His words settle on my chest.

I know he’s right, but to admit it would be admitting that I’m doing a terrible job at existing, at living. “I don’t let it define me.”

Lucian adjusts me in his lap, enough for us to make eye contact. His green eyes are as warm as a cup of matcha. What do my eyes look like to him? A muddy brown probably—like a dirt road after rain.

“I don’t think borderline personality disorder works like that, Edie.” His gaze is so intense my stomach flips, and I have to fight the urge to look away. “It’s a part of you, but ignoring it doesn’t help much.”

“You talk like you know.”

“I don’t have it. My mother does.”

My thoughts grind to a halt.

This is the first time I’ve ever spoken about my diagnosis to someone who was willing to listen. When I had my first mental breakdown and got diagnosed, my mother dismissed it as dramatics—sending me away to a psychiatric hospital where the psychologists and psychiatrists weren’t much better. They treated me like I was some sort of monster.

Since then, I’ve never spoken about it.

Yet it’s always been there, like a shadow. Wrapping its fingers around my throat, infecting my heart with venom that makes me feel like a double-edged sword. Eleanor has an idea—she’s seen the medication, been on the receiving end of my splits—but I’ve never explicitly told her.

She’s never asked.

Nobody’s ever asked.

I’ve just always been the sensitive child. The one who cries at the drop of a hat, who can’t control her emotions until it’s toolate, who is always begging for forgiveness because I’ve never been able to live up to the expectations of those around me.

It’s almost as if Lucianknowsthat I want to run away. He holds me just a bit tighter, staring at me—forcing me to confront the feelings I try so hard to keep locked away. Tears streak down my face…again.

I’m tired of myself.

“Night time has always been when my episodes are the worst,” I whisper, more to myself than him. “When I was a kid, my mother used to wake me out of my sleep in the middle of the night to complain about how I’d behaved in the day.” A shaky breath. “The two times I was sent away, the walls were so thin that at night I could hear all the terrible things the staff would say about us, I could hear how they mistreated the other patients…and they mistreated me too.”

Mistreated is a light word.

Before Silas, I never had bruises—but my soul was cracked and shattered in more places than I could count. Now, what’s on the inside is just finally coming to the surface.

“You talk like you deserve it.”

“I do.”

Lucian’s whole body goes rigid. “My mother was in an abusive relationship as a teenager that wrecked her. Her mother died when she was young, her father was an absolute wanker.” The anger rolls off him like steam after a hot iron is plunged into cold water. “Her diagnosis was taboo. When she met my father, things didn’t change much at first. But now, she calls him her buoy.”

“Buoy?”

“He’s always there for her to hold on to when she’s drowning.”

The silence is thick with words unsaid.

I know what he means, he knows what he’s trying to say.

But we’re both too scared to say it.

My heart pounds in my ears, I can feel his pulse where his skin meets mine. There’s electricity in the air. Guilt makes my eyelids heavy when I realize that my heartbeat has dropped lower, settling between my legs.