Corrupted Union

30

I ducked on instinct and grimaced when I heard the thing crash against the wall behind me. “I did it for exactly this reason,” I roared back at her. “I knew … you … this wouldn’t … Jesus Christ!” I roared, turning around to try to regain my composure. It pissed me off even more that I was upset because the words seemed to get lost on their way from my head to my mouth. It had always been that way. I’d learned to manage it by keeping calm, but f**k if Rowan didn’t make me feel like a stuttering kid again. “If you knew I wouldn’t agree, that should have been a sign not to do it.” I turned back around and forced my words to come slow and steady. “So I’m allowed to f**k you, but I’m not good enough to stand beside you? Is that how this works?” She flinched. “No, I…I had plans.” “Yeah, I know your plans. Marry some panty-waste socialite who probably has a secret fetish for little boys and work for Daddy’s campaign while doing charity work on the side. Maybe have two-point-five kids and drink away your misery every night. That’s one hell of a plan.” “You presumptive, condescending asshole. You don’t know anything.” “Well, I know that your father agreed with me that a marriage was the best way to protect you.” That’s right, princess. Your daddy knew. Her face went so white, I was surprised she didn’t pass out. “He knows?” All the oxygen seemed to leak from the room. “I told him that day I took you home when he and I talked privately. I didn’t exactly spell out how it would all go down, but he knew the goal.” Her eyes cut to the side a split second before she bolted for the bathroom, slamming the door behind her and locking it. Had it been anyone else, I would have written off the outburst as normal. People got upset and lashed out. I would have given her some time to cool off and hoped we could discuss things rationally later. But this was Rowan. She didn’t do emotions like other people. My instincts were screaming at me that something was horribly wrong, but I had no idea what. I lifted my gaze to the vaulted ceiling, breathing deeply before sitting down on the edge of the bed. I didn’t feel right leaving her, so I resigned myself to wait. I didn’t have to wait long. Minutes later, her scream and the crash of shattering glass had me shooting to my feet. OceanofPDF.com I leaned my back against the bathroom door, my breaths coming in such rapid bursts I was growing lightheaded. But the universe had no plans to let me escape from reality. Escape from myself. Directly across from me was a large circular mirror in a gold frame, and within it was a set of eyes staring back at me with such innocence and heartbreak, I felt my own heart incinerate into a pile of ash at my feet. Tears ran like rivers down my cheeks. “I didn’t mean for it to happen,” I whispered to the girl in the mirror, inching closer. “I’m so …” A sob hitched in my throat. “I’m so sorry.” Her arms reached out for me, and for the cruelest second, I almost believed she was with me. That I could reach through the glass and finally hold the other half of my heart. She wept for me just as helplessly as I cried for her. Same heartbreak, different reasons. She hated to see me in pain, and my heart shattered to know I’d never get her back. The desire was so intense that I kept moving forward, desperate to reach her. Except, when my fingertips finally made contact, I was met with cold, hard reality. She was gone, and the only person left was a sad, pathetic replica who couldn’t do anything right. “No,” I cried. “Please, come back. Please.” I pressed my palm flat against the mirror as wave after wave of crushing sorrow battered me from the inside. “I don’t want to be here without you. Please.” The unfairness was so cruel. So pointless and arbitrary. I couldn’t take it any longer. I didn’t want to. My face crumpled with the weight of the crushing expectations and my monumental failures. My chest heaved with a quaking breath as I pulled back my fist and let it slam into the sadistic mirage of a life I’d never get back, letting loose a scream filled with every suffocating, heart-wrenching emotion festering deep inside me. OceanofPDF.com I barreled into the door with enough force to take it clean off the hinges. I wasn’t wasting time convincing Rowan to let me in. Not after hearing such soul-crushing agony in her cry. I wasn’t affected by much—I’d seen some pretty f****d up s**t in my thirty-two years—but the sight of Rowan rocking herself in a sea of broken glass and blood flayed me wide open. The girl I’d come to know was a pillar of strength. I’d started to wonder if she was fueled by an endless supply of courage and resolve, but seeing her now curled in on herself and sobbing uncontrollably, I knew I’d finally been shown a glimpse of the real Rowan. I hated that being married to me had been the trigger but not enough to begrudge her my help. At that moment, I would have carved out my own heart and handed it over if it would give her comfort. “Ro, baby. I’m coming. I’ve got you.” I hurried to her side, ignoring the shards of mirror under my bare feet. I slid one arm under her knees and the other wrapped around her back to lift her, cradled like a child. She reached her arms around my neck and clung to me as though I were God himself come to take her home. That sort of open vulnerability was a balm that healed all wounds. Any lingering hurt I’d felt at her outburst flickered and died beneath her suffocating hold. Whatever had upset her wasn’t truly about me or what I’d done. This was something deeper—a jagged emotional wound that had reshaped her from the inside out. All I’d done was bring it out into the light. I set her on the vanity but kept my arms banded securely around her. “Let it out, Rowan. You need to get it out,” I said softly. My encouragement was admittedly hypocritical, considering I rarely displayed emotion outside of my home gym, but she wasn’t me. I found ways to open the pressure valve and relieve the pressure. Something told me Rowan had no outlets. She’d been a ticking time bomb, and something about our marriage had lit that fuse. I absorbed each of her shuddered sobs, her tears marking me far beyond the salt left on my skin. Eventually, she regained control of her breathing and relaxed into my hold. Long minutes passed in silence before she finally spoke. “Her name was Ivy.” Rowan’s whispered voice was as fragile as a single snowflake fallen from the sky. “We were identical in every way. She was my other half. Not just my sister, she was me, and I was her. We were two halves of a whole.”