And that she had just heaped chaos on top of it.

And he was good. He took care of people. It was what he did.

And he thought he was in love with her. Because that was who he was.

He had married her, so now he thought he was in love with her. But he wasn’t. And he would go on thinking that for as long as she was his wife, because of course he was a man who would endeavor to love his wife. Of course he was. Because he was good down to his soul. And she was a creature whose own father had been enraged by the sight of her. Whose mother had never once defended her.

She had stitched herself into the quilt of this family, and they had opened their arms and accepted her, but she wasn’t one of them. They were united by a common tragedy and she had simply come and covered herself in the protective layer they had created for their own selves.

She was selfish.

Selfish and needy, and she didn’t think there would ever be an end to it.

Someday she would look at him. She would look at him and she would ask if he loved her. It brought her to the edge of terror. Because he thought he meant it, he truly did, but someday he would realize that he was in a prison. A prison he hadn’t chosen, but one he had been locked in by his own good intentions. And she wouldn’t be able to bear that. When he looked at her with disgust, too. She would never be able to weather that.

And she knew then that he could see all of that, that mess of terror, that mess of need, that endless well that would never be filled. That he saw the sad, wounded creature that she was underneath it all.

That girl who couldn’t control anything, not at all. Who was helpless and frightened and sad. She hid that girl from everyone.

And she was so confident and sure with her smiles, with her attitude, with the way that she acted around him, and she pretended it was honest. The most honest. That she just said whatever came into her mind; she pretended for him, for everyone, and most especially for herself.

Now that she was the least able to hide, she saw just how much she did. Only when she had become aware of needing to conceal things from him did she realize that she’d been doing it all along.

Because that girl...

How could that girl take what he was offering?

“Sammy,” he said gruffly.

She opened her eyes again, and he thrust deep, a spear of pleasure coursing through her. And she gave herself up to him, because she had no other choice. Because when this was over, it would all be over. She had come out here to reclaim something and had found the end.

Because she had found the center of herself.