“Daphne, if you can hear me, will you please say something?”
He waited.
He was greeted with the sort of silence that must have preceded creation. A howling nothingness. He could not feel her presence. He realized he’d been able to feel her in the room even when his eyes weren’t upon her.
He swallowed.
“Daphne. I do not know what to say... or how to say it. So I am just going to talk. By now you know I value my worthless hide more than I ought and I know a thousand ways to save it. But right now I would willingly lay down and die for putting that expression on your face.” He stopped. He took a steadying breath and said, more quietly, “For causing you hurt ofanykind.”
There was no reply.
“Daphne?”
Nothing.
“I do not know what is wrong with me. I am...” He gave a short, dark, laugh. “...suffering,lass.”
His voice was little more than a hoarse whispernow. “I cannot say that I understand it. But your pain, lass... it seems I’ve finally found a thing I cannot endure.”
He listened; ear pressed against the door. Willed her with all of his considerable spirit to speak.
Nothing stirred or creaked. She could be a statue or a corpse in there.
He sensed her not at all on the other side.
He leaned his forehead against the door.
“I am sorry. I pray your forgiveness.”
He said it with the stiff formality of a man delivering his last words before they lowered the noose over his head.
Little by little, with every word he spoke, the darkness inside her lifted, until the whole of her felt golden and radiant.
She thought she could actually feel her heart breaking, cracking in her chest.
Or was it instead merely opening? Perhaps a scarred heart could never quite open again fully without pain. Perhaps like a flower, it couldn’t help but unfurl, however wretchedly, toward love.
And if it was futile, did it matter?
Was love ever futile?
If they could not keep it, did it matter?
Was it ever a waste?
She didn’t know the answers to these questions.
She only knew she could not bear his suffering, either.
So she slid from the bed.
She turned the knob slowly, surreptitiously.
And the well-oiled door glided open silently when she gave it a push.
He was sitting before the fire, head propped on his hands.
His stillness was a revelation. It was at once clear to her how much of his moods and personality animated his body with force and confidence.