Chapter 316: Six weeks
ARIA
I hated him.
I hated him for always taking, for always deciding, for stripping me of every choice I had left. First when he ended us... ended me... with nothing more than a handful of cruel words, and now, again, scooping me out of that bed like I weighed nothing, like my protests meant nothing, like none of his words cut deep, even though he could barely look me in the eyes while talking that day.
It wasn’t just control. It was worse. It was the way he always played hero, the way I let him... always arriving, always rescuing me, as if that was the only way we knew how to exist together outside of the ruined sheets. And God help me, I despised it. I despised how dependent I’d become, how I waited for him even when I told myself not to, how every time I fell, part of me prayed for his shadow to appear in the doorway.
What was worse than pathetic? Whatever that word was, that’s what I felt. Because no matter how much I wanted to spit in his face and shove him away, I didn’t want him to stop. I didn’t want him to stop coming for me. I didn’t want him to ever stop reaching out.
I told myself I hated his arms around me, hated the steel trap of his hold, but the truth was, I hated myself more for finding comfort in it.
By the time we reached the car, my fight had already drained out of me. Niko was waiting, posture sharp as always, but when his eyes landed on me, something faltered. Just for a second. Pity. That look that crawled under my skin and burned.
I wanted to scream at him not to look at me like that. Not to see me as broken, not to see me as less. But what else was I? Pathetic. Pitiful. Always needing help. A graveyard in human skin.
I hated pity more than I hated Kael’s control. At least Kael’s control made me feel alive enough to push back. Pity only reminded me that my whole existence was one long tragedy.
I slipped into the front seat without a word. Kael’s voice cut through, low, commanding, as he exchanged the keys with Niko and issued orders I didn’t bother to follow. I didn’t care where we were going. I didn’t care what came next. I just wanted to stop existing.
I pressed my head against the cool window, the glass anchoring me, and let the silence swallow me whole.
Not to punish him. Not even to resist.
But because I had nothing left to say. Nothing left to give.
That boy in my dream flickered behind my eyes again, unrelenting. A child I never knew. A child with his eyes. The ache clawed through my chest so sharp I almost wished Kael would stop the car, open the door, and leave me by the roadside so I could bleed my grief out in peace.
But he wouldn’t. He never did. He’d keep coming back. And I... God forgive me... I didn’t know if I wanted him to stop. Even though I was still too much of a coward to say it to his face.
So I stayed silent. Staring at the blur of the world outside the window, drowning in it, hoping it could swallow me too.
My silence was loud enough for both of us.
But what else could I do?
The hum of the car, the muted blur of the city slipping by, all of it vanished under the storm inside my chest.
Six weeks.
That’s what the doctor had said. Six weeks I’d been carrying Kael’s child without even knowing. Six weeks and I’d been seeking alcohol like water, hoping for it to numb the pain gnawing at me, stumbling through nights too blurred to remember, punishing myself for sins that were already eating me alive. My father begging for forgiveness while bleeding out.
But I did this. I killed what was inside me. His child. My baby.
The thought cracked something open inside me again. My heart split, bleeding grief that refused to clot, and with every new wave of it came the memory of the dull cramps that still throbbed in my abdomen, the soreness deep inside me, the constant, awful emptiness like a cavity where something used to be. My body reminded me even when my mind tried to bury it.
I pressed my hand against my stomach, gently, like I could hold the ghost of it there. But there was nothing left to hold. Nothing but the sharp edge of loss.
And God, it was different. This grief didn’t sit like the others. My mother’s death, I’d stuffed it down until I almost convinced myself I was fine. My father’s, I layered regret on top of it until it turned into a kind of numbness. But this... this cut deeper. It was the cruelest irony, to lose something I didn’t even know I wanted until it was ripped away. My eyes burned with tears unshed.
Because even though I never thought I’d be a good mother, even though I doubted everything about myself, I still wanted to dream. To imagine, just for a second, what it would have been like.
Now even that was gone.
By the time the car slowed, I hadn’t even noticed. I was too far under. It wasn’t until a soft knock against my window startled me that I blinked back to the present. Kael was there, outside the car, his expression unreadable in the dim light of the airport’s awning. He opened the door for me, silent, steady, as if waiting for me to decide if I’d move at all.
I didn’t trust my legs to carry me, but I stepped out anyway. One step. Two. My body was brittle, fragile, threatening to collapse beneath me.
I didn’t make it to the third before Kael scooped me up again, arms iron-strong around me. My protest rose in my throat, but it died there, smothered by exhaustion and the heavy ache of grief. I didn’t fight him this time.
Instead, I buried my face in the crook of his neck, hiding from the lights, from the people, from myself. His scent was sharp, familiar, and it hurt almost as much as it soothed.
I hated him for always carrying me.
I hated myself more for letting him.
But right then, in that moment, I couldn’t do anything else.
So I clung silently, face hidden, trying not to unravel completely in his arms.