Chapter 14
862 Words
Damiano pov:
He hadn’t meant to come back.
Not so soon. Not after everything he’d said the night before.
But his feet carried him down the hall anyway, slow and unsure, like his body had decided before his mind could catch up.
And maybe that was the part that scared him most.
Not the fact that she might slam the door in his face…
But the fact that he would’ve deserved it if she did.
He didn’t know what he was doing. Not really.
He just knew he couldn’t stop thinking about the look in her eyes when he told her he didn’t want to break her.
That he wouldn’t know how to put her back together if he did.
He hadn’t meant to say that out loud either.
But it slipped out. Honest. Quiet. Raw.
And somehow, she hadn’t pushed him away.
---
When he knocked, he didn’t expect her to answer.
She didn’t.
But he went in anyway. Slowly. Cautiously. Like he was walking into someone else’s world and not the one he’d built around her.
She was curled up on the bed, still as stone.
Not asleep. Not angry.
Just… tired.
Tired in the way that made his chest ache because he knew what that kind of tired felt like.
It wasn’t her silence that hit him.
It was the fact that she didn’t flinch.
Didn’t look scared.
She just looked at him. And waited.
He held up the sketchbook.
“You left it.”
His voice felt out of place in the room. Too loud. Too human.
She didn’t say anything. Didn’t move.
He crossed the room anyway, slow steps, and placed the book gently on the nightstand like it might fall apart if he touched it wrong.
She looked at it. Then at him.
And God—he didn’t even know what to do with that look.
Not angry. Not grateful.
Just… confused. Guarded.
But still looking.
---
“I’m not hungry,” she said.
He shook his head once. “I didn’t bring food.”
She frowned. “Then why are you here?”
He sat in the chair. The same one she always curled up in when she thought no one was watching.
“I wanted to see you.”
She stared at him like she didn’t know whether to believe him or not.
And maybe she didn’t.
He wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t.
---
He watched her fingers move to the sketchbook, brushing the worn edges like it was something fragile. Like it still mattered.
“I thought about throwing it away,” she said.
“You didn’t.”
She looked up. “Why did you show it to me?”
He exhaled, slow and quiet. “Because I didn’t know how else to say it.”
“Say what?”
“That I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”
There. It was out.
And it sounded even worse than it had in his head, because it made it real. And he didn’t know what she’d do with it.
“I don’t know what to do with that,” she whispered.
“I don’t expect you to.”
---
She flipped through the pages, and he watched her eyes pause on the sketch of his mother. The one he hadn’t looked at in years. The one he’d drawn when his hands still knew softness.
“Your mother?” she asked.
He nodded.
“You drew her?”
“When I was fifteen.”
He didn’t mean to say that last part. It just slipped.
Like so much else around her.
She stared at the sketch, and something flickered in her face. Something gentle. Something… sad.
“I didn’t think you could love anyone,” she said.
He didn’t even think. He just answered.
“I didn’t think I could either.”
---
They sat in the silence after that.
Not heavy. Not empty either.
Just full of things they didn’t know how to say.
“I’m still angry,” she said.
“I know.”
“And I don’t trust you.”
“I wouldn’t either.”
She blinked fast, like her eyes were burning, but she didn’t cry.
And somehow, that hurt more than if she had.
Because she was holding it in. Still fighting to stay solid.
And all he wanted was to sit beside her and not break whatever that fragile thing between them had become.
---
“I don’t know what this is,” she whispered. “What you’re doing.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“I don’t either,” he said. “But I don’t want to stop.”
And that was the truth.
He didn’t want to stop looking at her.
Didn’t want to stop showing her the pieces of himself that still felt human.
Didn’t want to stop feeling this… whatever it was every time she looked at him and didn’t see a monster.
So he didn’t move.
Didn’t try to touch her. Didn’t try to pull her closer.
He just sat there.
Because maybe for the first time… that was enough.
And when she didn’t tell him to leave,
He stayed....
- Writer
