Page 96 of Vows of Silence

For the first time in my life—or at least the first time I could remember—I wanted to talk. I wanted to verbally communicate with another human being. I wanted to let someone in.

But she wasn’t ready for that. She wasn’t ready for what that would mean.

And so I communicated the only other way I knew how.

I showed her.

Keeping my eyes locked on her own terrified face, I pocketed the phone and brought my hand to my face, removing the mask and letting her see the man beneath.

I thought I had been prepared for her reaction. I thought I had been ready for it. But seeing her flinch, seeing her physically recoil, hearing the gasp of half horror, half terror… I hadn’t been ready at all.

A wave of hurt rolled through me, reminding me why I never did this. Why I never dropped the masked persona.

Since I had already come this far, I reached towards my eyes and removed the black contacts, baring myself completely.

Not that she noticed. She couldn’t bring herself to look at me. Her gaze flickered everywhere but the man in front of her. On the odd occasion she did accidentally look at some part of me, she cringed, her body curling in on itself, as though protecting her from what she was seeing.

The silence stretched on, and all I could focus on was her.

I knew how I looked.

I knew how uneven the burns were. How it had stretched and puckered the skin near my ear. How it had damaged the corner of my left eye, pulling it tighter. The burn stretched over the left side of my face, up into my hairline and down my neck. I’d only been a child when this was done to me, and the entire shape ofmy face had changed since then. Add to that the numerous skin grafts I’d received, and I was left with uneven, patchy patterns.

How could I expect her to look at me when I could barely stand to look at myself?

I closed my eyes and went to put the mask back on, wanting to be done with this entire situation—a situation I never should have put myself in—when I felt a small, soft hand on my arm.

Isabelle had turned the tables on me, crossing the room silently, just as I had done to her so many times.

Without a word, her hand slipped down to my glove, her eyes locking onto mine as she silently asked for permission.

I nodded once, and with a gentle, soothing smile, she carefully removed the glove from my hand.

A pained sigh left her when she took in the scars and burns there as well—some from the acid attack, others I had caused myself. But the sigh wasn’t one of disgust. It wasn’t even one of sympathy. It was just a sigh.

It could have been relief. It could have been shock. It could have been any number of emotions.

But it wasn’t disgust. She wasn’t pulling away from me.

She lifted my hand slightly, holding it in both of her tiny ones, her fingers tracing over the burns. They ran over my knuckles, and over the back of my hand, running down to my wrist and along the joint. She felt every divot, every groove, every last, painful wound I owned.

And when her fingers slipped beneath the cuff of my shirt, feeling how the burn continued up my arm, her eyes looked back up to my face, meeting my gaze with her own steady look.

Tears pooled on her lower lashes, but her eyes weren’t filled with anything other than… dare I say kindness? Softness?

“Silas,” she whispered, closing her eyes briefly, a single tear slipping past her lashes and down her cheek. Then her handdropped mine, and her fingers were reaching for me, cupping my cheeks.

“Thank you for sharing this with me,” she said softly, rising up on her tiptoes, her breath fanning against my cheek.

I closed my eyes, barely able to feel her breath since the nerves beneath the burns had been ruined, and yet I felt more than I ever had since I was a child.

I sensed her breath on me, her words whispering over my skin, lingering just as much as her fingers did.

Just as she did with my hand, her fingers traced everything her eyes could see, and not once did she recoil or flinch, or even cringe.

With a gentleness I’d started to believe was impossible, she stroked every wound with one hand, her other buried in my hair, scraping my scalp with her fingernails.

She paused, and I was just about to open my eyes when I felt her gently pull on my head, just enough for her to bring my face close enough to hers that she could rest her forehead against mine. She still had one hand deep in my hair, the other cupping my cheek, and before I could stop myself, I reached up to grab her wrist, holding her firmer in place against me. Then I turned and placed a kiss to the palm of her hand.