Storms of the Heart novel Chapter 15

The soup Sienna had spent hours making, along with all her careful gentleness and hope, looked pathetic beside a memory of Trina that wasn't even particularly good.

Julian snapped out of it at the sharp noise of the bowl falling. His eyes dropped to the soup splattered across the floor before lifting to Sienna's tearful face.

Guilt flickered in his eyes, but more than that, there was a heavy, suffocating helplessness he couldn't shake.

He realized Trina's shadow had already seeped into every corner of his life. It had seeped into his thoughts and his habits.

No matter how hard he tried to push her out or force himself back onto the "right" path, she could pull him straight into that swamp of memories almost effortlessly.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but every word felt pointless and wrong.

In the end, he just shut his eyes, exhausted.

A few days later, a pull Julian couldn't explain drove him to the military hospital's records room. He needed to confirm something. Or maybe he needed a way to punish himself.

He dug through the stacked files until he finally found the medical report from the night Trina took the strikes.

When the nurse on duty handed him the thin folder, his hand began shaking before he even opened it.

He drew in a deep breath and pulled out the pages inside.

The clinical typeface described her injuries with cold precision.

"Patient Trina Shepherd. Severe soft-tissue contusions on the back and hips. Extensive subcutaneous bruising. Localized hematoma. Minor sacrococcygeal fracture...

"During debridement, patient remained conscious. Refused anesthesia. Endured the procedure with self-control...

"Seven stitches. The patient must stay in bed after surgery to keep the wound from tearing..."

It was just a few lines, but every sentence felt like a red-hot blade stabbing into Julian's chest and twisting hard.

His breathing turned rough. His hands trembled so violently that the paper almost slipped from his fingers.

He tightened his hold on the edges of the pages until they crumpled in his hand.

He could see it as clearly as if he had been there.

Trina had always been the spoiled woman who cried over so much as a scraped knee and needed coaxing for the slightest cut.

But that day, she had lain on a metal table with her back split open, her teeth locked on a towel and cold sweat beading across her forehead. The needle pierced her skin again and again, but she never made a single sound.

She chose to endure it without anesthesia. Had she wanted to carve the humiliation and pain he had dealt her straight into her bones?

A hot drop of liquid hit the paper with a soft pat, blurring the neat black letters.

Julian swiped a hand across his face and froze when he realized his cheeks were wet. At some point, he had started crying.

...

That night, when the base was quiet and still, Julian went alone to the yard outside the detention block where Trina had taken the punishment.

Moonlight washed over the concrete, cold and colorless.

The long wooden bench stood in the middle of the open ground, stark and lonely, like a piece of evidence no one could erase.

He walked toward it step by step, his fingers shaking as he reached out to touch the cold surface.

He didn't know how long he stayed there before he finally dragged himself back to the townhouse.

For the first time, he opened the liquor cabinet, pulled out the strongest bottle, and drank straight from it.

The burn scorched his throat and his stomach, but it did nothing to melt the coldness and agony lodged deep inside.

He wanted the alcohol to numb him. Even a few moments of dullness would be better than this.

He got very drunk. The room warped around him, the edges of everything turning blurry as his world spun.

Stumbling up the steps, he shoved the door open.

In the dark, a figure rushed forward to steady him.

A faint, familiar scent drifted into his nose.

It wasn't Sienna's soft perfume. It was sharper and bolder—the rose fragrance that belonged only to one woman.

Julian's entire body jolted. Joy hit him so violently that it blew straight through his last thread of reason.

He spun around and pulled the person into his arms, holding on so tightly that it was almost as if he wanted to fuse them into his bones.

He buried his face in her hair and breathed in that scent like a man starved of air, his voice rough and broken, heavy with alcohol and longing.

"Trin, is that you? You came back. I knew you'd come back... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry... I missed you so much... I really missed you..."

He mumbled the words into that familiar warmth, then lowered his head, driven by pure instinct, desperate and starving for the lips he knew by heart.