Even if it meant protecting her from myself.
“Go to bed, Lia,” I snapped.
She turned and fled. Rage moved through my chest and I stood, gathering the folder of drawings of my wife. I strode to the fire and tossed the first charcoal sketch in, watching the fire burn it to ash. Then I threw them in one by one, watching as the flames consumed them. Until the dozens of drawings I’d done of her were gone and the cold, dark wall was firmly erected to keep her out.
You’ve always been fucked up, you little monster.
I jerked my head, trying to snap the words from my brain. I’d asked myself again and again why I’d been born this way. As a child I’d laid awake and wished I was less jealous, less passionate, less obsessive. I’d never understood why I deserved abuse. But I’d never gotten an answer from the universe or God…unless that heavy swing of my grandfather’s fist had come directly from a supreme being.
Unless the answer was that I wasn’t worth protecting.
My grandfather had told me my scar was God’s way of taking me down a notch. He’d screamed that at me as I huddled in the bathtub with a wet washcloth pressed to my burning face. I’d believed that for years until one day it clicked and I realized how fucking ridiculous all of the things he’d told me sounded.
The problem was, I knew it, but I didn’t believe it.
Years of being told I was a monster, some kind of mistake that God needed to cut open so I could learn some humility had taken its toll. My grandfather’s words had become a self-fulfilled prophecy.
It hadn’t helped that my parents openly talked about what a headstrong, difficult child I’d been. How they’d almost given up on me and sent me to my mother’s relatives in upstate New York.
They had made me into a monster, incapable of love. A broken, selfish, toxic man with an obsession and an inability to set boundaries around my passions. It was a miracle I’d managed to turn to my art and my work instead of burning myself to the ground with drugs and reckless sex.
And yet, as I stared into the fire, I wondered if that was all I was. If I was so cruel, why had Rosalia blossomed under my touch? Why had she purred under my hand and almost begged for my closeness? And why had my dismissal brought tears to her eyes?
Why didn’t she want to hurt me or run from me?
I put out the fire and went up to our bedroom. She was a small bump beneath the covers and she didn’t move when I slid into bed. For a long moment, I lay on my back and listened to the storm howl around the old house. She hiccuped once and I rolled over, pulling her back against my body. She shivered and I buried my face into her soft hair. Breathing in the scent of my wife.
“Are you crying?” I whispered.
“No,” she said quickly.
Fuck, I hadn’t meant to make her cry. I considered making up a lie to make her feel better. But we had promised each other honesty so in the dark, I was going to be brutally honest.
“I’m not good like you, Lia,” I said. “I’m never going to love you like a real husband, but I will protect you and give you the things you want. If you want to feel what it’s like to have an ordinary man touch you, perhaps that’s where Merrick comes in. Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone.”
Or three. I was beginning to see this was the only way out of my jealousy.
“Why are you doing this?” she said softly.
“Because we have nothing to lose if I let another man play with you for a few hours,” I said.
Something painful twinged in my chest, but I ignored it.
She rolled over to face me. “No. Why are you holding me back from you?”
I was quiet for a long time before I had the words to describe what I felt.
“Because, even though I don’t love you, I don’t want you to be hurt any more than you already have been. I will protect you,” I said. “At the very least, I’m capable of that.”
“Just let me go if you really feel that way.”
Anger surged and the monster roared in my chest. I gripped her hip hard enough she gasped.
“No, I meant it when I said you were mine,” I said, my voice hoarse. “If I have to lock you in this house to keep you here, I will.”
She fell quiet and I was glad for it because I had no explanation for my words. Was it pride that made me want to own her so badly? I winced in the dark. I should be used to feelings like this—I’d grappled with them my whole life.
Maybe if I could put aside my jealousy and let Merrick touch her it would give me back some control over myself. Maybe that was where my redemption truly lay. Not in the hundreds of marble angels that lived in my house and in my head. Not in the haunting desire for beauty that burned in my chest. Not in my need to possess her.