Cillian rests a warm hand on my exposed thigh. “You don't have to tell me.” God, I needed him to stop being so...him.
“I'm fucking terrified.” Tears burn at the backs of my eyes, and I manage to blink them back, swallowing down a few spoonfuls of soup as a distraction.
“Of what?”
I snort something like a laugh, keeping my eyes on my bowl. “Everything.” I move a carrot around my bowl for several long moments until Cillian takes it away, setting it beside his own unfinished soup on the coffee table.
The table that he built for me.
My teeth sink into my lip, hard enough to sting.
“Hey,” he coos, reaching over and pulling my lip free. “It's ok.”
“Is it?” I snap. I tuck myself as far as possible into the corner of the couch, needing distance from his tenderness. “Because I'm not an expert, but I do think living out of boxes for several months—not because you want to but because you can't manage to bring yourself to do anything about them—is sort of not ok.”
He doesn't react, just leans back agains the opposite arm of the couch, voice level. “I think you may be being a little hard on yourself.”
I scoff, “You would.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you're too fucking nice and...stable and well adjusted,” I spit out like an accusation. The rest falls out of my mouth in a torrent. “It means I'm an asshole for coming within six feet of you because I'm a goddamn hurricane of a person, and you don't deserve to be in the path of my disaster.”
My chest aches. I'd been holding that in for the last two months, pushing it away, letting myself get comfortable around this man and the life he'd welcomed me into. But I couldn't keep letting this continue without being honest.
“Who made you believe that?” The severity of Cillian's tone forces me to meet his eyes.
“Experience,” I admit. One only had to look at my history to see it. Constantly in motion, never settling. Well, until David...
“Bullshit,” he rumbles, expression hard. “That's something someone sold you.”
“Maybe.” I shrug, feeling the fervor from my earlier outburst fade, replaced with a heaviness that seems to weigh me down. “Doesn't mean they're wrong.”
How do you function?That was the first thing David had asked when he saw my studio space in the apartment I'd been living in for about two years.
What's the point?The question was asked when I'd said I didn't really intend to sell my art.
Hurricane Toni strikes again.Any time I did almost anything he disagreed with.
“Look at me.” Cillian reaches for me, cupping my cheeks. “There is a difference between a disaster and a force of nature.” His expression is intense, laced with determination and something softer. “You are a force, not a disaster. And if some people are too stupid to realize that, it's their shortcoming. Not yours.”
Speechless.
I am, for possibly the first time in my life, rendered truly speechless. Devoid of words, all I can manage is to sit here, slightly slack-jawed.
“I...” He rubs his beard, pulling back. “I just...You deserve to see yourself the way—” He cuts himself off, sighing before looking back at me. “You deserve to see yourself as you are, and not through the lens of someone who's trying to make you feel smaller for their own sake.”
My hold over the emotions that have been threatening to pour out of me since Cillian showed up on my doorstep thisafternoon finally slips. Tears spill down my cheeks. A small sob breaks through before I can catch it.
“Toni.” In a split second, he closes the space between us, calloused fingers delicately brushing the tears away. “I didn't mean to?—”
I shake my head, words tumbling out. “No. No. It's not—You. You're wonderful. And that was possibly the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” I try to get myself to stop but only manage a choked cry. “I'm not, I don't usually—” I cover my mouth.
Without another word, Cillian gathers me in his arms, cradling me against his chest. All better judgment flees me, and I cling to him. “I've got you. Let it out, doll.”
And I do. I give myself over to the tears. Letting all the stress, fear, and anxiety that built up over the last several months out.
Cillian doesn't shush me or try to feed me empty platitudes. In fact, he doesn't say anything at all. He just holds me, an immovable object for my storm to crash against.
