“I don’t like threats,” he tells me, even as he finally does what I asked and pulls the car over to the side of the road. “You want to fight, we’ll fight. You want to yell at me for trying to protect you, you go right ahead. But you don’t get to just issue an ultimatum in the middle of an argument. You don’t get to threaten to walk away from me simply because you don’t like something that I do.”
“Why not? Because you say so?”
“Because that’s not how relationships work!” He’s in my face now, his eyes so dark and furious that my stomach jumps uneasily. Oh, I know Declan would never hurt me, but I’ve never seen him this pissed off. Then again, I’ve never been this pissed off, either.
“So, now you’re an expert on relationships?” I ask sarcastically. “That’s a laugh.”
“Don’t push me, Xandra.”
“No, Declan, don’t you push me.”
I’m gearing up for a huge argument, but he stops me with a hand on my knee. If he’d tried to force my hand, to make me do what he wanted, I probably would have gone for his eyes. I’m that angry. But the gentle pressure of his palm on my leg has the anger draining out of me and tears springing to my eyes. Suddenly, I feel foolish. And petty. Two things I really hate feeling, but I know I deserve to right now.
I know Declan’s not very good at relationships, know he’s not very good at sharing information because he’s never had anyone to share with before. Just yesterday, I’d decided that I was going to hang in, that I wasn’t going to give him up no matter what we had to work through. And here I am, threatening to run away the first time he really pisses me off. I need to apologize.
I start to do just that, but Declan only smiles as he pulls back onto the highway, crisis averted. Then he asks, “So is that our first real fight as a couple?”
“If you don’t shape up, it’s going to be our last, as well.”
Declan sighs heavily. “I know. I’m sorry. I just wanted to give you a little time to come to grips with the news about your dad before I sprang anything else on you.”
“I’m sorry, too.” I fidget for a minute before deciding to hell with it. I apologized, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have more to say about this whole thing. “I’m not a child, Declan. I don’t need you to dole out information to me like candy.”
“Believe me, Xandra. I don’t think of you as a child.” He reaches for my hand, pulls it to his lips and kisses it. “You are the strongest, bravest woman I know. I believe, really believe, that you can handle anything. But that doesn’t mean I want you to.”
He studies the road for long minutes, his jaw clenched and fingers so tight on the wheel that I’m afraid he might actually rip it off the steering column. I think about poking at him, getting him to talk to me, but I’ve learned that sometimes it’s better to give him space. Or at least as much space as I can in the front seat of a car.
More time passes; my stomach getting tighter with each mile we leave behind us. Just when I feel like I’m going to jump out of my skin, he says, “It kills me, these powers that you have. I don’t know how you do it. I don’t know how you sleep at night or how you get up and go looking, knowing what it is you’re going to find. Even worse, knowing what you’re going to go through when you do find it.
“It kills me that I can’t shelter you from that. That I can only stand by and watch as you live through being raped, beaten, stabbed, strangled, burned. I can’t stop it, can’t protect you from any of it. Hell, the fact that you’re with me actually makes it worse.”
His words slice right through the last of my anger, have me resting my head on his shoulder and rubbing my hand up his own leg in a gesture meant to comfort. Because I don’t know what it’s like for him, not really, but I can imagine how hellish it would be if I had to watch him suffer the way he’s been forced to watch me.
“And yet I can’t let you go, either. I’ve tried. I’ve tried so many times to walk away from you for your own safety. But I just can’t do it. I love you too fucking much. I know it’s selfish and—”
“Stop the car,” I tell him for the second time in ten minutes.
“What?”
“I said, stop the car.”
“Are you freaking kidding me? I’m pouring my heart out to you and you want to walk away from me?”
“Just pull the car over, Declan.”
“Fine. Whatever.” His jaw hard as granite, he once again pulls onto the shoulder. “Go do whatever you want to do.”