I set the phone down again, the decision made. There was no point. No rescue coming. No cavalry on the horizon.
Just me and the choices I had left.
I was still sitting at the piano, the phone untouched beside me, when Rafe returned an hour later. He took in my expression, the untouched phone, the stillness of my posture.
"You saw," he said. Not a question.
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
He crossed to the piano, picking up the phone and slipping it into his pocket. He didn't ask what I'd found. Didn't press for details. Just stood there, a solid presence in the shattered landscape of my reality.
"Would you like to be alone?" he asked quietly.
I considered the question, weighing the instinct to curl inward against the sudden, desperate need not to be by myself with these thoughts, these realizations.
"No," I said finally, my voice barely above a whisper.
He nodded, taking a seat beside me on the piano bench. Not touching, not speaking, just there. Present in a way no one in my family had been for years, perhaps ever.
We sat in silence as the afternoon light faded to dusk, as shadows lengthened across the floor, as the reality of my situation settled into my bones with a finality I couldn't deny.
No one was coming for me. No one was looking. No one cared enough to question my absence.
The truth should have devastated me. Should have broken me completely. Instead, it settled over me with a strange sense ofclarity, of certainty. The last illusion stripped away, leaving only what was real.
And what was real was this: I was alone in the world except for the man beside me. The man who had taken me against my will, who had declared he would never let me go, who had shown me more honesty and, strangely, more care than my own blood.
"I'd like to go back to my room," I said finally, as the last light faded from the windows.
Rafe nodded, standing and offering his hand. I took it, allowing him to help me up, to guide me through the darkening corridors of the estate. His hand was warm and solid in mine, an anchor in a world that had suddenly lost all familiar reference points.
When we reached my door, I hesitated, not wanting to be alone but not knowing how to ask for what I needed.
Rafe seemed to understand without words. "Would you like me to stay?" he asked, his voice gentle, free of any suggestion or expectation.
I nodded, relief washing through me at not having to voice the request.
He followed me into the room, closing the door behind us. I moved to the window, staring out at the night, at the distant lights of a world that had forgotten I existed.
The tears came then, silent at first, then building to sobs that shook my entire body. I pressed my hand against the cool glass, trying to anchor myself as grief washed over me in waves—not just for my current situation, but for the illusion I'd lived with for years. The belief that I mattered to my family, that blood meant something, that I wasn't ultimately expendable.
I felt Rafe's presence behind me, close but not touching, giving me space to feel this, to process it, to grieve.
"I knew," I said finally, my voice raw from crying. "I knew they wouldn't come. I heard it in that meeting. But part of me still hoped... still thought someone would notice. Would care."
"I know," he said simply, offering understanding without platitudes.
I turned to face him, wiping tears from my cheeks with trembling hands. "Why did you give me the phone? Why now?"
He was quiet for a moment, considering his answer. "Because you needed to see for yourself," he said finally. "To move forward, you needed to know the truth. All of it."
"Move forward to what?" I asked, the question that had been haunting me for weeks finally finding a voice.
He stepped closer, his eyes holding mine with an intensity that made my breath catch. "To whatever you choose, within the parameters of our reality."
Our reality. The phrase hung in the air between us, laden with meaning. The reality where I was here, with him, indefinitely. Where no rescue was coming. Where the only choices left to me were the ones I made within these walls, within this relationship, whatever it was becoming.
"I don't know what I want anymore," I admitted, the honesty costing me less than it once would have.
