Novelas y relatos de My Smile Was Taken Long Ago

The scar on his cheek is jagged and red in the candlelight. He smiles. It’s the smile from the wedding photos. The smile that charmed my grandmother. The smile that hid a monster. "You're late," Nikos says. His voice echoes in the cavernous room. He spreads his arms wide. "I almost started without you."

he asks, his voice rough with a gravelly edge that scratches a familiar itch inside me. “Take them back, then. You won’t get gratitude from me.” Instead of anger, his eyes soften. His lips tug into a lazy, lopsided smile, revealing those deep dimples that used to be my undoing. My body seizes, and my heart skips a beat. It’s been so long since I saw his smile, and I… strangely miss it. Before, it used to make me smile too. Hell, it used to feel me with a strange sense of happiness. Now, it only reminds me of what used to be mine.

"You should be grateful. You would've been dead long ago if my face hadn't been ruined so suddenly." I looked at the madness in her eyes and listened to her speak of Adrian as if he were some flawless prize. I nearly started giggling. 'Perfect? Is she seriously calling him perfect? A violent drunk of a man who breaks me down day by day before waking up with his lips dripping with insincere apologies? Fine. If that is the perfection she wants, then she can have him.' Sienna glanced aside. Chester Middleton, who had been waiting nearby, stepped forward and placed the anesthesia mask over my mouth and nose.

A small, proud smile touched his lips. For the first time in three long, miserable years, I smiled back. And I actually felt it.

“That’s stupid and dangerous.” “I know. I mean, I took poison for half my life. This should be nothing,” I whispered to him, and he froze, color leaving his face. “Eat something. These people out there are out for blood,” I whispered to him, and his lips turned up into a smile. A smile. For me. I whispered, staring at him. “You smiled.” He cleared his throat, and his smile quickly faded as he pulled the plate closer to him. Then he started eating with a frown on his face.

“This is my chance to be happy, Venom. I’m taking it. I don’t have much time left.” He looked at me and smiled—the same genuine, boyish smile I hadn’t seen in years. It hit me like a blade to the chest. It had been so long since he smiled like that, and the sight made everything worse. It felt like I was watching him slip away from me. What kind of craziness is this thing called love?

“Not ever. You have my word.” This time, I did smile. Just a little.

“Not just talking. You were smiling.” I paused for half a second. Damn Marcus and his semi functioning memory. Tariq dropped his fork like it was breaking news. “Smiling? Like actually smiling? Not the polite one or the fake public one, but the real kind?” “I smile all the time,” I muttered. “False,” Rafeal said. “You smirk, you glower, you look vaguely constipated sometimes, but smiling? That’s rare, my guy.” Tariq barked a laugh. “So who was she?”

For the first time in a very long time. I smiled without forcing it.

In the photo, he was still smiling, the same way he had smiled eighteen years ago. (The End)