“I thought you were happy with me, once,” Gage said, thinking back on a thousand moments where he made Fiona laugh or smile, her bright, gleaming teeth cutting through the darkness of his mind like tiny knives. Those moments hurt him now, slicing him apart inside. But it wasn’t always that way.
At some point, Fiona had started fidgeting with her fingers, picking at her cuticles until blood bloomed up on her thumbs, a bright orange-red color staining her skin. “I think I was, sort of,” Fiona said. “As close to happy as I could possibly be, here in the city.” She sighed deeply and wiped her bloody thumbs on the front of her dress, apparently not caring if it stained. “I don’t know, though. I guess I’m just whining, like everybody else does. I don’t know who I am, and I’m taking it out on other people. So original,” she said with a humorless chuckle.
“You are original,” Gage argued, feeling himself start growing annoyed at how much Fiona was beating herself up. “You’re not like other people.”
Her brow furrowed, but she didn’t look in Gage’s eyes. Instead, she stared down at her own bloodstained fingers, holding them out in front of her like she was just realizing what she’d done to herself. “I don’t know. I guess I can’t win either way. I want to be like everybody else, you know? I want to be normal. I want to just be okay. I don’t want to be fucked-up. But I am. That’s what makes me special, isn’t it? How messed up I am? If I hadn’t been kidnapped and raped and beaten and cut up, you probably would never have loved me. You never would have seen anything special in me,” she rambled, but this time, the words came out slow, like they were fighting through fog just to get out into the open air.
“That’s not true,” Gage whispered. “That’s not true at all.”
“Isn’t it? You only ever knew me after I’d been fucked up. You’ve only ever known me like this. If you met me out in the country, you wouldn’t even like me. You wouldn’t want to be around me. I’d just bore you. I’m only here because I’m sick, because I’m broken. If I were healthy, if I were normal…” She trailed off again, exhaling heavily.
“I don’t love you because you were hurt. I love you because you fought back. You survived. I love you because you’re tough. Because you want to save people,” Gage said, shifting forward on the couch to close the distance between them.
It was only after the words left his mouth that Gage realized he used the present tense. His entire body flushed at once, his blood rushing to the surface of his body as if it wanted to escape.
Once again, Fiona cut through the silence, not elegantly but roughly, her voice coming out in a low, hoarse whisper. “You…you do?”
Gage debated within himself for a long moment, arguing both sides. I do love her. But I don’t. I shouldn’t. I can’t do that anymore. That’s pathetic, weak, ridiculous, loving somebody who left you, he thought. But then the other voice in his head popped up, arguing against his self-protective instincts. She needs love. She needs to feel loved. She needs to remember why she deserves it. She needs you.
He cleared his throat, reaching forward to put his hand on Fiona’s knee. He wasn’t trying to be creepy or invasive. He just needed some contact, however small, to ground himself. He needed to feel her strength. “I do,” he murmured, rubbing his thumb along the sharp outline of her kneecap.
Fiona burst into tears, all at once, as if Gage popped a balloon to release all of her emotions at the same time. “Fuck,” she groaned, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes, but the sobs kept rising out her throat, over and over and over again, one after another after another until she was practically wailing.
“Shh, shh. Come here. Come here. I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry, Fi,” Gage said in a rush, reaching over to pull her into his arms again, crushing her against his body.
Fiona cried into his shirt, probably getting the front of it ridiculously damp, but he couldn’t bring himself to care, not when she needed him so badly. She clutched at his sleeves, tugging them hard within her clenched fists. Gage would let her do whatever she wanted, whatever she needed, as long as she stayed here with him. He’d let her break down, fall apart, or do whatever, as long as he could touch her, feel her strength through her skin. She pulled back a little to look up into his eyes, and even though her face was wet with tears, reddened and splotchy, Gage almost gasped at how beautiful she looked, raw and vulnerable under his gaze for what felt like the first time in their lives.