Page 182 of Wrong Marriage. Right Groom
“You are stronger than you think,” he added. “And you will get through this. You can move past it.”
My breath shuddered against his chest.
The way he said it wasn’t soft comfort. It was certainty.
“A time will come,” he said quietly, his hand still tracing slow, steady lines across my back, “when this won’t be all you are. You’ll speak about it. You’ll help others through it. And you won’t even recognize the person you are right now.”
A hollow laugh almost escaped me, but it dissolved into another shaky breath instead.
My body remained pressed against him, my face turned into the solid warmth of his chest.
I could feel the steady rise and fall beneath me.
I shut my eyes tightly, even though it changed nothing.
Darkness was already my world.
But right now, it felt different.
Like I had been pulled into a space where the edges of my pain couldn’t spread as far.
Rafael’s arms tightened slightly, not restricting me, just keeping me close enough that I couldn’t drift away into my own collapse.
And something in me—something exhausted beyond reason—stopped fighting.
My breathing gradually slowed.
I didn’t know when it happened.
When exhaustion overtook fear.
When silence replaced sobbing.
But at some point, my body simply gave up resisting.
And I fell asleep.
Still in his arms.
When I woke, the world was unchanged.
Still dark.
But I was not where I remembered falling asleep.
For a moment, I didn’t move.
My cheek rested against something warm and firm, rising and falling in a slow rhythm. It took me a second to understand what I was feeling.
His chest.
I was lying on him.
My breath caught slightly.
Carefully, I lifted my head, tilting it as if that would somehow help me understand what I couldn’t see.
But there were no visual cues to read. No expression to interpret. No eyelids fluttering.
