I can’t breathe.
This is it, what I’d predicted from the beginning.
“I…” Ana mutters.
How do I stop her? I look around the room, for help. What can I do?
“You can’t go. Ana, I love you!” It’s my last-minute pitch to save this deal, to save us.
“I love you, too, Christian, it’s just—”
The vortex is sucking me under.
She’s had enough.
I’ve driven her away.
Again.
I feel dizzy. I put my hands on my head, trying to contain the pain that slices through me. My despair is carving a hole in my chest that gets bigger and bigger and bigger. It’s going to take me down. “No. No.”
Find your happy place.
My happy place.
When was it easier?
Easier to wear my pain on the outside.
Elena is standing over me. In her hands, she holds a thin cane. The welts on my back burn. Each throbbing with pain as my blood thrums through my body.
I’m on my knees. At her feet.
“More, mistress.”
Quiet the monster.
More. Mistress.
More.
Find your happy place, Grey.
Make your peace.
Peace. Yes.
No.
A tidal wave rises inside my body, crashing and breaking within me, but as it recedes it sucks the fear away.
You can do this.
I drop to my knees.
I take a deep breath and place my hands on my thighs.
Yes. Peace.
I’m in a landscape of calm.
I give myself to you. All of me. I’m yours to do with as you wish.
What will she do?
I look straight ahead, and I’m aware that she’s watching me. In the far distance, I hear her voice.
“Christian, what are you doing?”
I inhale slowly, filling my lungs. Fall is in the air. Ana.
“Christian! What are you doing?” The voice is closer, louder, more high-pitched.
“Christian, look at me!”
I look up. And wait.
She’s beautiful. Pale. Worried.
“Christian, please, don’t do this. I don’t want this.”
You must tell me what you want. I wait.
“Why are you doing this? Talk to me,” she pleads.
“What would you like me to say?”
She gasps. It’s a soft sound and it stirs memories of happier times with her. I shut those down. There is only now. Her cheeks are wet. Tears. She wrings her hands.
And suddenly she’s on her knees, facing me.
Her eyes are on mine. The outer rings of her irises are indigo. They lighten toward the middle to the color of a cloudless summer sky. But her pupils are expanding, a deep black darkening each center.
“Christian, you don’t have to do this. I’m not going to run. I’ve told you and told you and told you, I won’t run. All that’s happened. It’s overwhelming. I just need some time to think. Some time to myself. Why do you always assume the worst?”
Because the worst happens.
Always.
“I was going to suggest going back to my apartment this evening. You never give me any time—time to just think things through.”
She wants to be on her own.
Away from me.
“Just time to think,” she continues. “We barely know each other, and all this baggage that comes with you. I need. I need time to think it through. And now that Leila is…well, whatever she is…she’s off the streets and not a threat. I thought. I thought—”
What did you think, Ana?
“Seeing you with Leila…” She closes her eyes as if in pain. “It was such a shock. I had a glimpse into how your life has been…and…” She rips her gaze from mine and looks down at her knees. “This is about me not being good enough for you. It was an insight into your life, and I am so scared you’ll get bored with me, and then you’ll go, and I’ll end up like Leila, a shadow. Because I love you, Christian, and if you leave me, it will be like a world without light. I’ll be in darkness. I don’t want to run. I’m just so frightened you’ll leave me.”
She’s scared of the darkness, too.
She’s not going to run.
She loves me.
“I don’t understand why you find me attractive,” Ana whispers. “You’re, well, you’re you and I’m—” She looks at me, troubled. “I just don’t see it. You’re beautiful and sexy and successful and good and kind and caring—all those things—and I’m not. And I can’t do the things you like to do. I can’t give you what you need. How could you be happy with me? How can I possibly hold you? I have never understood what you see in me. And seeing you with her, it brought all that home.”
She raises her hand and wipes her nose that’s blotchy and pink from crying.
“Are you going to kneel here all night? Because I’ll do it, too!”
She’s mad at me.
She’s always mad at me.
“Christian, please, please. Talk to me.”
Her lips would be soft. They are always soft after she’s been crying. Her hair frames her face and my heart expands.
Could I love her any more?
She has all the qualities she says she doesn’t. But it’s her compassion I love most.