It’s 5:00 am Christmas morning. Miss C moved her things into Phoenix’s room once everybody who was catching flights had left, and all I got in protest from Boxer was a lot of grumbling under his breath while Doc Evelyn hushed him when he started to get louder.
I finally have my woman asleep next to me, sharing the same bed. It feels fucking perfect, having her tucked into my side; her head tilted up lying on my bare chest while my hand rests possessively on her flat belly while she softly snores.
She's only woken up once during the night and hurled into a bucket. Whisper's weak smile tried to assure me she was okay, but I knew the nausea was attacking her. She just wanted to brush her teeth and try to fall back to sleep.
Dehydration worries me. Everything about Whisper's pregnancy concerns me, but I keep all that ice-cold fear to myself.
Whisper’s exhausted mentally and physically, and she tries very hard not to let anybody know how this HG is kicking her ass. She’s strong because she’s had to be for twenty-plus years and she tries not to make shit like this mess with her. But now I’m here for her. I can’t do anything about the HG, but I can carry her everywhere until she’s healed, and I can wait on her hand and foot. Unless she politely dents my ego by pushing me away so she can have some space.
When I told her she was my 'obsession'… I meant much more than that, but I didn't want to scare her. My heart is telling me things that I’m not accustomed to feeling. It's the first time a female has left me with a conscience and tripping over my words.
I want Whisper.
She’s mine.
When people say ‘they wouldn't change a thing' when it comes to the path that led them to where they are at now, I can't get on board with that, because I would rewind and change everything about Whisper's life.
Every. Fucking. Thing.
I would risk never laying eyes on her in a lifetime if I could give her life back to her. But I’m sure as hell grateful, to have her in bed with me and be given a chance to make things better for her future.
I’ve put gifts for her and the babies underneath the tree in the corner while she slept. I noticed she’d placed some of her own gifts underneath there too, which would mean so much to her. In another year’s time, she’ll be doing the same for our babies. I almost want to fast forward to the time when she’s holding the babes in her arms and know they are healthy. I’ll spare no expense to give them the next Christmas they all deserve and another fifty to follow.
A relaxed smile escapes me because my life is starting to feel good, after all the years of feeling unsettled—I've finally found the person I could easily share my life with, but there's one glaring catch: I have to hope Whisper can feel the same towards me. I need to slow the future playing ahead in my mind and concentrate on the here and now, taking one step at a time.
Firstly: Get her to trust me and love me.
I know she's attracted to me, and we have a sexual connection that can't be denied by either of us, but I want the Holy Grail, the thing I most covet... her love.
For now, I can't wait for her belly to become full and round with my babies inside. I want to be there every step of the way for her. Anything she needs; I will provide for her and our children. I know I might be getting a little ahead of myself, but it's a beautiful future to think on.
I miss her when I’m not with her.
I fucking miss her.
In my eyes, she’s already mine, but my life is not the life she needs for her future, and I know that, but I can't give her up. Whisper needs her world filled with hearts and flowers and mine is violence and mayhem. I want to protect her from any further mind-fucks, any more stress.
I want to destroy those recordings in Boxer’s bar by wiping them clean. He explained what Miss C hadn’t about my father’s treatment of Whisper. Boxer figured out enough to know I too was subjected to similar experiences with William and that fucked me up a little knowing he now looked at me differently. He thought he knew some of my secrets.
Only a therapist will know those secrets and not all of them.
I don’t want Whisper ever to feel the itch to look at those recordings and see what William did to her. I need to protect her mind from further assault. I don’t think it will help her to one day watch them—that would be a whole different type of torture.
I suffered greatly under William’s hand; he did things to me I was meant to remember. My humiliation was to be never forgotten. I wish I had been fucking drugged so I could only see the bruises and feel the pain afterward, but I was coherent until I could no longer take the pain.
Boxer and I can fight it out if he ever discovers I sent Lethal and Blueblood to Connard on their way back to Albuquerque to break into Boxer's bar and destroy the footage. With Blueblood's safe-cracking skills, nobody will be the wiser until they go to watch them.
If Whisper figures it out, she can hate me for tampering with her privacy, but better that than knowing what truly happened to her. I was strung up and beaten, and I was always conscious. And those were the least of the things he did to me.
I was kept in a cupboard until a concerned member of the community became nosy and inadvertently saved me from a childhood of further horrors. William wasn't going to fight the system. He was smarter than that. He'd become lazy in his abuse and been found out. William wasn't going to go to jail for his crimes, so he released me, and I wasn't about to tell. I never even considered telling on the bastard. I now know I should have and he would have received jail time, but back then I was a scared little boy who wanted nothing but to forget. But if I had said something, he wouldn't have moved homes, hooked-up with a woman to assist him with stealing Whisper and covering for his evil ways.
I may have only been a little boy—a beaten down, frightened little boy, but I could have saved Whisper from all of that pain and for that alone, I feel an enormous amount of guilt.
I will not bring that down on her again.
That’s a promise.