Every. Single. Thing.
Every. Single. Memory.
Crashed, collapsed, crushed inside her.
She shattered.
She felt her shoulders shake, her chin quivering, the old tears on her cheek joined by others, and she tilted her head back, screaming her pain to the sky.
And it felt glorious.
She screamed and screamed and screamed until her throat felt raw, crying and thrashing, for minutes and hours she didn’t know. She cried and cried until she couldn’t anymore, until her breath got short and she began to hiccup.
The black hole opened wider inside her mind, asking her to fall into it again. It didn’t hurt when she went into the black hole, she didn’t feel the pain tearing at her when she was consumed. She slowly felt herself succumb, wanting the numbness it brought her, if only for a while.
“Shh. It’s okay, flamma. It’s okay. Shh. You’re safe.”
Words penetrated into her consciousness, a litany of words spoken right into her ears, pulling her away from the black hole.
She resisted, keeping her eyes closed, wanting the numbness.
“My beautiful girl,” the voice kept whispering, seductive in its call, alluring in its lure to reel her back in. “So soft, so vulnerable, so hurt. You hurt, don’t you?”
She did. She hurt, and she didn’t know how to heal. She’d thought it had gotten better, but it had been an illusion. Would she ever get better? Would it ever not hurt?
“I will set the whole world on fire before I let anything hurt you again.”
The dark promise full of violence made the black hole take a step back.
“Give me your eyes, flamma. I want to see the fire in them. Show them to me.”
The two forces warred within her, the black hole pulling her to oblivion and the devil holding her tight, refusing to let go.
And suddenly, her hands were free.
That sent her eyes flying open, the sudden loss of the touch that had been anchoring her imbalancing her.
She blinked as he stood. Bending to pick her up in his arms and nestling her close, he began carrying her back to the direction of the house.
Jolted from whatever mental state she had gone in, she hiccupped occasionally, slowly letting her mind come back down to reality, unable to understand her heightened emotions or her overreaction. And she had overreacted, hadn’t she? She had found him fully clothed with a naked woman and done the first thing that had come to her mind—run. She hadn’t given him the benefit of the doubt, hadn’t waited to calmly let him explain exactly what had been going on, hadn’t even stayed to let him get a word in.
And then she’d screamed like a banshee and proceeded to have a mental breakdown in the middle of nowhere.
She’d been doing so well, so much better. She just didn’t understand it.
Embarrassed that he’d witnessed something like this again, witnessed how broken and imperfect she was, she hid her face in his neck, her body trembling in the aftermath.
Their walk back passed in utter silence, and she took the time to steady her heart-rate.
They emerged near the greenhouse just as cold, fat drops of rain began to pour.
“Hold on tight,” he instructed her before suddenly turning her so she was over his shoulder. World tilted upside down, she held onto his jacket as he sprinted back to the house, the torrential downpour soaking them both within seconds.
He didn’t stop under the porch, simply opening the door and carrying her inside, all the way to the master bathroom.
Slowly setting her down on the floor, he pushed her wet hair out of her face, looking down at her with a softness she’d never seen from him.
“Get out of the clothes.”