Damon's Silent Tears: Bursting With So Much Love But Terrified Of Losing Me.
548 Words
Late night fell like a velvet cloak across the penthouse. I sat on the terrace, rain slapping the glass panes, desperately trying to drown out the sound of my thoughts. I dragged my fingers over the carved message on the railing: "Forgive me." Four little words drenched in confusion, hurt, hope or surrender. I couldn't breathe my chest felt too full.
I could feel Damon step silently behind me. I didn't need to turn around to know he was there his presence was warmth, balmy perhaps terrified.
"Have you thought about who wrote that?" he asked, voice low and laced with excessive fatigue.
I exhaled slowly. "Mother said she never carved it. I certainly didn't"
We stood shoulder to shoulder in the pouring rain without an umbrella.
He wrapped an arm around me, but I didn't want nor need those things anymore. Instead, I let him hold space for me.
In the silence he whispered, "I'm scared"
I turned finally, empapado lashes met fear soaked eyes. "Because you might lose me"
He nodded, allowing fat tears to track wet lines through the light rain. He gently caressed my cheek with fingertip. "I love you Sierra Monroe. I don't want to be.
"I want to be real, with you even when I'm terrified."
His statement broke through my shields. I reached up, whipped away his tears with rain mixing with the salt.
"There is no going back," I said gently. "Just knowing you feel it helps."
He closed his eyes. "I'm yours."
Morning light traced soft rain through the curtains. Damon was the first up. He poured coffee, almost silently. I watched him in the golden hush, realizing how much this falling in love had matured without a contract, without convenience, but from the truth and fear, and danger and courage.
He never mentioned the carved message again, though I caught him studying my face, and the carved lines in the wood, with some buried regret.
That night hundreds of guards were redeployed around the cottage in Santa Barbara. My mother demanded justice that legalese could not provide, preferring truth to truth from fears.
Damon was in coordination. I stood in the driveway as officers moved under trees. I grabbed his hand, feeling the duty to be anchored. He looked directly into my eyes.
"I'll stay," he whispered. "Always."
Weeks passed. The message never repeated. The carved railing was removed; the location sanitized. My mother said nothing more about forgiveness.
Nonetheless, I came back one night, putting in a lot of overtime at work, just to be there in silence, illuminated. I put down a finger on the place where so many words had scratched grief.
When Damon came to me later, he never touched me. He just said quietly, "We buried the only bones he thought he had. Now we rest."
I closed my eyes. I imagined rest is love that remembers scars and forgives.
That night, before I let sleep take everything, I whispered a little louder than I planned, "I love you."
Damon's hand drifted across my arm. He whispered back, "I love you, too."
At midnight, a note lit up the screen:
"Forgiveness accepted. But this is only the beginning."
And from the safety of my home, the music box started to turn by itself.
- Writer
