In his silence I imagined twenty different outcomes. A dozen things he could say. Some that would break my heart. Most, really, that would break my heart. But a few that would give me hope. That would give us a foundation that we could build on. My heart pounded and tears burned in my eyes and I didn’t know how to keep breathing when he was breaking my heart into pieces.
Say something, Ronan. Say anything. But say you love me, too.
Silent, he turned and walked out.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ronan
I love you.
I’d never heard those words. Da certainly wasn’t going to say them. The priests were constantly talking about the Lord’s love, but those animals had no love in their hearts. There’d been lasses before, but when I got the sense they were thinking those words, I gave them the heave. The closest, I imagined, was Caroline. What I felt for her when she brought me here, had been a profound gratitude. A nearly painful urge to please her. And look where that got me. At best the emotion was useless, at worst it seemed manipulative. A burden.
I love you. I love you so much, Ronan.
I got Jacob and Zilla out of the apartment after a dozen last hugs between Zilla and Poppy.
Poppy’s hands were shaking and she looked worn thin. Worn all the way through. Zilla noticed and she gave me a good glaring as she walked out the door.
I locked up the door behind them. I could feel Poppy in the room, over by the windows, trying not to watch me with her heart in her eyes. She teemed with emotion. Vibrated with it. Being in the same room with her was uncomfortable, like one of the priests’ little tortures. The smack of rulers across our knuckles.
But I didn’t want her to stop. I craved this pain. Hungered for it.
“I’m sorry,” she said into our silence. “I shouldn’t have just blurted it out like that.” You can’t take that back. You said it twice and you can’t take it back. “We can just pretend—”
I turned and she stepped back, away from me. Scared by whatever expression my face was wearing. “Pretend what?”
“That I didn’t say it.”
I wanted to be savage and clear it all up. Take this unbearable heat between us and make it cold. Make it all familiar, like. Comfortable. But I was tired of watching the light go out of her eyes. I was tired of being the thing that hurt her.
I was tired of the cold.
“Zilla said you only love things that can’t love you back,” I said, reminding her that she had no business loving me.
“Zilla is wrong.”
Her fucking will to believe was painful to witness. And I’d somehow caught it. I was infected with it. With this…hope. And I didn’t know what to do with it. Except try to pull it out by the roots, and somehow I couldn’t even do that.
“I’m going…” Poppy looked around, down at the box and then the very dark windows. “I’m going to get some sleep.”
“Aye,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.
She walked past me to her bedroom and I clenched my hands in fists so I didn’t reach for her. I flinched at the snick of the bedroom door shutting.
More coffee, because I was exhausted too, and I sat down at the table with the bankers box. I started pulling out files, organizing them by subject. Houses. The campaign. His will.
In the back of my brain, I must have been ready for it. Her screaming.
At her first shouted, guttural no, I was on my way to her.
I found her on the bed caught in another nightmare. Tears on her face.
I touched her shoulders, trying to pull her from the dream but she fought me.
“Ronan!” she screamed.
“I’m here, lass,” I said and pulled her into my arms. She was cold and shivering and fighting me like I was holding her back from what she needed to get to. But the moment she woke from her dream, she quieted. Every muscle still. Tight.
In my gut I knew what she was doing. Bracing herself for pain.
“You were dreaming,” I said.
“Yeah, I… I don’t remember. It’s…gone now.”
Were you dreaming of me? I wanted to ask. Was I causing you pain?
She leaned back and I saw the flash of her brave smile in the dark room. “You can go,” she said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“You’re not,” I said, settling back against the headboard, my arms still around her. She was stiff, but she didn’t move.
“Relax,” I said. “It’s all right.”
Slowly, carefully, she began to melt against me. And the pleasure it gave me was nearly obscene. I’d never been anyone’s comfort. I was the bringer of nightmares. Not what kept them away.
“I keep dreaming about the girl in the shop,” she finally whispered, her hand slowly stretching out to lie flat against my chest. Right over my heart.