“I’m your wife,” I reminded him, leaving out the part where it was all temporary and pretend. “We may not have taken vows, but I promise to keep your secrets, if you promise to stop pretending you’re made of stone.”
He sat up, holding me in place as he shifted to leaning against the headboard. My hands went down his chest to steady myself, but I felt the goosebumps rise on his chest beneath my fingertips. I started to move my hands but he grabbed them, holding them against his skin.
“I’ve had nightmares since the night I killed my parents,” he whispered, his eyes locked on mine like he was waiting to see discomfort or disdain at his words.
“Your parents died in a fire.” Even if I had only been a kid when it happened, the whole town and surrounding areas knew what happened to the Brooks.’
“They ran back in that house looking for me,” he growled, reminding me that I didn’t know his version of the story, just what I had heard.
My jaw dropped a little but I nodded, letting him know I understood. I just hoped he kept talking, kept telling me whatever haunted him in his dreams.
“They thought I was asleep in my room. I should have been asleep in my room. But I snuck out to fuck around with a girl. We were in the woods about a mile from my house. I heard the sirens, I knew something was happening. But she pulled on me, begged me to stay. She told me that if I left her after everything we had done, she’d hurt herself in shame.”
My breath caught as his words sunk in. I could understand the blame he felt. The heartbreak. The anguish. And my heart broke right along with him.
But I also knew I had asked him for his truth. He was trusting me to handle it, not to fall apart, so I sucked in a deep breath and nodded at him to continue.
“Had I run toward the sirens, I could have gotten there before my parents went back in. I could have shown them I was safe. But instead, I let them burn while I let some girl I’d never even see again manipulate me.”
“That doesn’t mean their death is your fault,” I reasoned, almost begging him to believe me.
“That moment has shaped every aspect of my life since. From the moment I walked out of those woods and saw the house on fire, to running across the field toward my brothers, to being held back by someone I couldn’t even put a face or name to. A stranger. Yelling at me that I cannot run into that burning house. That I couldn’t save them.”
“While you were asleep, you said that if you stay they will burn,” I told him hesitantly, hoping it added context to what he was telling me now. “Was that what you were dreaming?”
He shook his head as his jaw ticked with frustration. I knew I’d overstepped, I shouldn’t have assumed or even asked, but I wondered what part of his story brought on the nightmares. Right as I started to back away and slide off his lap, he grabbed me once again and pulled me closer.
“My nightmares start while I’m in the woods, and I am trying to tell her I have to leave, that the sirens are close. She reaches for me, holding me in place no matter how hard I try to run home. In reality, she couldn’t physically hold me back. But her words were meant to control me and they did. I believed her when she said that if I left her, she’d hurt herself, and I wasn’t willing to let that happen.”
“So your nightmare is always the same?”
“Her face, the way she’s holding me, laughing, while I try to run. I tell her to stop, not to touch me, to let me go. That is always the same.”
“What’s different?”
“Every moment of my life since. Always being in control. Never letting myself be manipulated. Sex, yes, but I’m never intimate. Never kiss anyone. Never look in their eyes. And I walk away easily.”
I wanted to tell him that healing was possible. That he didn’t have to carry it all alone. That moment between us was more than intimate, he was already pushing himself past a barrier he had put up for himself, and he didn’t even realize it.
But I wasn’t exactly the poster child for emotional growth. I barely made it through my own shit. I may have been younger when my mom left, but the pain from her not choosing Dad and I stayed with me for all these years. I didn’t have nightmares like West did, but I had scars. Invisible ones that still ached when I pressed on them too hard.
West’s breathing slowed. As if just saying the words out loud had loosened something inside him. He wasn’t fine, but there was a calm settling in his body, and it wrapped around me.
I wanted to ask more. Push a little. Dig into everything he’d been holding back. But I didn’t want to break the moment we were in. Something about it felt too still. Too sacred.
I glanced at the clock.
6:04 AM.
Our flight back to Georgia was at nine.
It didn’t feel like enough time. None of it did. Not the night. Not this trip. Not this strange, messy, beautiful thing that was unfolding between us. The more time I spent with West, the more I wanted. Like he was a book I couldn’t stop reading, and I already knew I’d be heartbroken when the last page came.
I looked back at him. His head was tipped against the headboard, eyes closed, lashes casting shadows across his cheeks. But his hands were strong and steady, still gripping my hips, holding me in place like he wasn’t ready to let go.
I shifted slightly, thinking maybe I should move. Let him sleep. Give him space. But the second I did, his eyes popped open and locked onto mine.
“Don’t move,” he whispered, voice gravelly and low. “This feels good.”
