Page 136 of Broken & Bound

“Go, please.”

The room blurred completely. I looked up through swollen eyes. “I don’t care that you’re sorry. I’ll never know…oh God, I’ll never know if they would’ve loved strawber—

My mouth trembled uncontrollably, and I lost all sense of reason. Because it wasn’t just the strawberries.

I would never know anything about them. They would never have the opportunity to teach me. Mum dropped to the floor beside me and gathered me into her arms.

A month and a half had passed since I’d lost everything that meant anything to me. How could I grieve when the one person I wanted to do that with didn’t want me any more? The house became a prison. I couldn’t eat. The walls seemed to close in on me more each day.

I couldn’t escape her, even here at this place. The memories of when we first met, our slow, gradual friendship growing and blossoming, consumed me. At night I couldn’t escape the memory of her touch, her soft skin and hair, the way she felt in my arms. My life had become a cruel joke.

The new routine of my life was to wake up, reach for my phone, hope, and be disappointed. Rinse and repeat. Each day that slipped by without any contact was like another nail in the coffin of our relationship.

I had found her parents’ address by using the app Tori insisted we use and tried to see her so many times, to no avail. Every day, I made my way over, hoping for a glimpse of her, a chance to talk.

To hold her in my arms and soothe the crying I could hear on the other side of the door. But Marcel was right. She wouldn’t budge.

The day her mother approached me with a sympathetic look and asked me not to return gutted me. The sinking feeling that consumed me as Martina closed the door, leaving me standing there, would stay with me forever.

The same day her mother asked me not to come back, I got a text from her. It only deepened the void.

PRINCESS:

I can’t see you. Please don’t make this any harder on me than it already is. Let me go.

Let me go.

Those three words broke me. I was a fucking mess. Anger, guilt, sorrow, heartache. I cycled through them all. Sometimes in the span of a single hour. They’d become my new best friends. Having pushed all the others away, it seemed fitting.

And to their credit, they’d tried in the first few days, but I only wanted Isabella. But she didn’t want me. The only way to avoid the pain was sleeping, and that I had to do in a chair thanks to the fucking Torturer.

I’d taken to spending my days at the tattoo studio. Spending large blocks of time beneath a needle was easier than five minutes alone with my own thoughts. The sting gave my mind somewhere else to go.

Every pass across my skin silenced the endless replay of that day for a little while. It wasn’t healing. It was simply the closest thing to relief I’d found.

Theo never asked questions. He understood enough to let the work speak for itself. When he finished the final session yesterday, I’d stood in front of the mirror for a long time.

My princess looked back at me.

Her face was now stretched across my entire back, impossibly lifelike. Theo had somehow captured everything that made her…her. The intelligence behind those expressive eyes. The softness of her full lips. Even the tiny nose ring she had.

Her hair flowed outward in sweeping lines that blended into the rest of the design, wrapping around my skin until it felt as though she’d always belonged there.

Beneath it all was her name. Ink and shadow gave the lettering the illusion of rising from my skin, as though it had always existed beneath the surface and someone had finally carved it free.

But the tattoos I loved the most rested behind each of my ears. Two tiny heartbeats. One for each of my daughters. I traced them with my fingertips.

My girls would never know how desperately I had wanted them. The tattoos gave me a small way to honor Isabella’s request. I would let her go, but the three of them were permanently etched into my skin.

They belonged to me. My princess and my baby girls. I would carry them with me for the rest of my life.

I had moved out of the old mansion the day after Martina asked me not to return to see Isabella again. It was easier to stay in a hotel while I decided what was next.

Which led me to where I was today. Sitting across from the Counselor in his office. We were finishing up our very last session.

“Did you decide?”

“Yeah. I’m going to take it.”