VULNERABLE

CHAPTER 43

"Tell me something you've never told anyone," I said.

Roman was quiet for so long that I thought he wouldn't answer.

Then he looked down at his hands.

"I talk to her sometimes. Lyra. Not out loud. Just in my head." He swallowed. "I think I've been afraid that loving you would mean I have to stop."

I didn't move.

Neither did he.

The candle on my table flickered once before settling into a steady flame.

"What do you tell her?" I asked.

"Small things." His fingers tightened together. "What the council said. What I decided. Whether she'd have agreed with me."

"And?"

"I ask questions she can't answer."

"How long have you been doing that?"

"Since the funeral."

"Does anyone know?"

"No."

"Why not?"

His mouth twisted.

"Because it sounds like I haven't accepted what happened. Like I'm someone who can't let go."

"Is that what you think?"

"I think it's what they'd think."

"I asked what you think."

He stared at his hands.

"I think I've been afraid that if I loved you properly, I'd have to stop."

"Stop talking to her?"

"Stop having her."

The words settled between us.

I didn't rush to reassure him. He'd spent two years surrounded by people who probably wanted him to recover, move forward, and become the Alpha he had been before Lyra died.

But I wasn't going to tell him what his grief should look like.

"What happens if you stop?" I asked.

"I don't know."

"What do you imagine?"

"A day when I don't think about her." His voice thinned. "Then another. And one morning, I realize I haven't thought about her at all. And it means she mattered less than I swore she did."

"Does it?"

"It feels like it."

"If you laugh tomorrow, does that mean you loved her less yesterday?"

"No."

"Then why does loving me feel like a betrayal when being happy doesn't?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it.

"Because grief is familiar," he said slowly. "I know where it sits. I know how to carry it. Happiness is..."

He shook his head.

"Happiness is something I could lose."

"So you'd rather stay unhappy."

"I'd rather not be surprised."

A small, helpless laugh escaped me.

"That's the most honest thing you've ever said."

"It's also pathetic."

"It's human."

He glanced up, visibly surprised by the simplicity of the answer.

Then his gaze dropped again.

"There's something else," he said. "I only noticed it today."

"What?"

"When something good happens, I think of you first."

My breath caught.

"The pack settled a boundary dispute last week. Quietly. Nobody got hurt. I wanted to tell you." He rubbed his jaw. "I walked halfway down the corridor before I realized I was looking for you."

I smiled faintly.

"And yesterday, a cook dropped a tray on a guard. The guard apologized to the tray."

I laughed.

"I would have laughed too."

"I know." His expression softened, then grew serious again. "I used to save those moments for her. Now something happens, and I think, Mira needs to hear this. Then I feel guilty because, for one second, I forgot to feel guilty."

My throat tightened.

"Does it feel like you're leaving her behind?"

"Sometimes."

"Does it feel like you're replacing her?"

"No."

He looked at me steadily.

"Mira, I don't love you because you're like her."

"I know that."

"Do you?"

I hesitated.

"Sometimes I wonder," I admitted.

The words came out smaller than I'd intended.

"I wonder if there's a place in your heart where I'll always be standing beside someone I can never compete with."

Roman went very still.

"I'm not asking you to pretend you didn't love her," I continued. "I'd never ask that. But I need to know that when you're with me, you're choosing me. Not choosing me while wishing you could have her back."

"Mira"

"Is that fair?"

"It's fair." His voice cracked. "More than fair."

"Then tell me the truth."

He drew a slow breath.

"There are things I'd give anything to change. I'd trade a lot to have been in that room when she needed me." He held my gaze. "I won't lie about that."

"I'm not asking you to."

"But wishing I could change the past isn't the same as wanting to leave the present."

His hand found mine.

"You aren't a substitute. You aren't a second try. I didn't find you because I was looking for her. I found you, and I stopped looking."

My eyes burned.

"Sometimes I'll still struggle," he added. "I won't promise otherwise."

"I don't want that promise."

"What do you want?"

"I want you to keep telling me. Instead of hiding it."

"That I can do."

"Good."

I squeezed his hand.

"Then take me to the garden."

He stiffened.

"Which garden?"

"The one you never walk to."

"Mira."

"You don't have to. I'm not asking you to prove anything."

"You are, a little."

"A little," I admitted. "But I'll stand beside you the whole time. And if you say no, I'll say nothing."

He looked toward the door, then back at me.

For a moment, I thought he would refuse.

Instead, he stood.

"Come on."

The far corner of the garden lay beyond a hedge wall I'd never gone through. It was quieter than the rest of the grounds, separated from the trimmed paths and flower beds by a narrow stone walkway.

There was a stone bench beneath a bare rosebush.

Nothing else.

Roman stopped at the entrance.

He didn't move.

I stood beside him without speaking.

"I haven't been here with anyone," he said eventually.

"I know."

"It always felt like mine. Like it belonged to the part of me that failed."

"You don't have to say anything."

"I want to." He drew a breath. "I just don't know how."

"Who would you say it to?"

His gaze shifted toward the bench.

"Her."

"Then say it to her."

He looked at me.

"Out loud?"

"Only if you want."

Silence stretched between us.

The wind lifted a dry leaf and carried it across the path.

"Lyra," Roman said, his voice hoarse.

I held my breath.

"I'm sorry I wasn't faster."

His hands trembled at his sides.

"I've told you that a thousand times in my head. I wanted to say it here."

The bare rosebush rattled softly in the wind.

"I've spent two years replaying it," he continued. "Trying every version. Thinking that if I stayed unhappy long enough, it would prove I still loved you."

He swallowed.

"That isn't love. It's just a very long punishment."

My eyes filled, but I stayed quiet.

"I can't change what happened. I can't go back and make a different choice. And I can't keep living as if every good day dishonors you."

His hand found mine and gripped it tightly.

"I've fallen in love again," he said.

His voice broke on the final word.

"I wanted you to know. I'm not asking permission. I don't think you would ever have needed to be asked."

He stopped.

His shoulders began to shake.

"I'm not forgetting you. I won't. But I'm done pretending I have to choose."

Then something inside him gave way.

He bent forward, one hand covering his face, and the sound that escaped him was unlike anything I'd heard from him before.

Low.

Ragged.

Two years of grief that had never been given room to breathe.

I didn't tell him to stop.

I didn't tell him everything would be all right.

I put my arm around his back and stayed beside him while he cried.

"I miss her," he whispered.

"I know."

"I'll always miss her."

"You don't have to stop missing someone to make room for someone else."

"It still hurts."

"It will."

He drew a shaky breath.

"Does that ever go away?"

"I don't think it goes away completely," I said. "I think it changes shape."

He pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes and let out a breath that was almost a laugh.

"That's not comforting."

"It isn't meant to be. It's meant to be true."

He lowered his hand.

His eyes were red, his face drawn, and for once he wasn't trying to hide either.

"Thank you for staying."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"You can't fix it."

"I know. I'm not trying to."

I turned so I could see his face.

"I'm not asking you to erase your past, Roman. I'm asking you to let me share your present. The healing is yours. I'll just be beside you while you do it."

He nodded slowly.

For a while, we remained on the path, his hand wrapped around mine. He didn't try to turn the moment into a promise or explain what it meant. He simply stood there, breathing through the pain he'd spent so long trying to contain.

Eventually, he wiped his face with his sleeve.

When he looked at me again, the grief was still there.

But he wasn't fighting to hide it from me.

"Do you feel different?" I asked.

He considered the question.

"The pain's still there."

"I know."

"But I don't think I have to earn it anymore."

I squeezed his hand.

He looked toward the bench once more.

"I don't know what tomorrow will feel like," he admitted. "I might come back here and feel exactly the same."

"Then we'll deal with tomorrow when it comes."

"And if I struggle again?"

"Then you tell me."

He nodded, as though he were trying to memorize the answer.

After a while, he turned toward me.

"I think I just said goodbye," he said quietly. "And hello, at the same time."

I touched his cheek.

"Maybe you don't have to make either one final."

His eyes searched mine.

Then he kissed me.

It was slow and certain, but there was something different about it. He wasn't reaching for me to escape his grief, and he wasn't trying to prove that he had moved on.

He was simply there with me.

When we parted, he rested his forehead against mine.

"I love you," he whispered.

The words caught me unprepared, even after everything he'd just confessed.

I searched his face, looking for hesitation or regret.

I found neither.

"I love you too," I said.

He closed his eyes, and I held him while the garden settled into evening around us.

I knew one conversation couldn't undo two years of pain. I knew there would be days when Lyra's memory hurt him in ways I couldn't understand, and days when his fear would make him reach for control again.

But for the first time, Roman had let me see his grief without trying to turn it into something he could manage alone.

And I understood that loving him would not mean competing with the woman he'd lost.

It would mean building something with the man who was still here.