Page 192 of Healed

“They’re for you,” he said, his hand still trembling.

I ran my finger over them, not understanding what I was looking at.

“This one,” he said, holding them flat in his palm and pointing at the skull. “Is made from Nico’s ashes. You carry what’s left of him.”

“Vienna,” I whispered.

To anyone else, this would have seemed absurd. It would have seemed borderline psychotic.

But to us?

This was fitting.

“He can’t harm you anymore, Gabriella. And every time you look down at this, I want you to remember that you defeated him. I might have been the one to end his life, but you defeated him.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Because he was broken. You made him unravel. But it’s not just that. You defeated him each and every day you survived him. You defeated him by returning to me. You did that, princess,” he whispered, stealing another kiss from me.

“And the other?” I asked, looking back down at his palm.

“This one,” he said, brushing his thumb over the small tree and swallowing heavily. “Is our baby.”

“Our…”

Tears came to my eyes.

Our baby.

My heart swelled with love, and yet broke all over again at the reminder.

“I know it’s probably not what you were expecting,” he admitted. “I could have had it made into a baby, but… that didn’t feel right.”

He swallowed hard again and cleared his throat before continuing.

“Our little one never got the chance to grow. They never got to become who they were supposed to be. So I wanted something that represented what they should have had.” He traced one of the branches with his fingertip. “A tree grows. It puts down roots. It survives storms. It keeps living long after the seed has gone. That’s what I wanted for them.”

I looked between the charm and him, my vision blurring with tears.

“They’re part of us, Gabriella,” he whispered. “Always. They helped grow us into who we are now. They rooted us together, even when we were apart.”

“How did you…?”

I couldn’t even finish my words. They broke with a small sob, my voice cracking.

“I kept them,” he said. “When your dad threw that bag at me, I kept it. I had it cremated, and the ashes made into this charm. I couldn’t let our baby just die like that and not be honoured. And I’ve kept it all these years, waiting for you to be ready to meet them again.”

I threw my arms around him once more and sobbed.

Not out of relief. Not out of love.

But just grief.

Grief for the baby that had been ripped from me. Grief for the life and the love that had a beginning and no future. Grief for everything. I let it all out, sobbing into Vienna’s neck until his shirt was soaked.

And he just held me.

He didn’t try to talk to me. He simply stroked my hair, my back, planted small kisses on my temples and let me work through it. He let me open the box I had buried in the back of my mind, and now held me as I processed everything.