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“When?” His whisper was coulped, forced an answer “T-two ” It was a state my mother’s loss for over a decade And the worst part was I never really got it—rong with her A friend once told ranted, that we never grasp how someone with a disorder feels It’s true I lived with her suffering but, no h in life, I’ll never understand the prison of torment and despair she lived in I can only hope she found peace I still can’t find any, can’t stop thinking if I’d just listened to everyone’s advice and put her in an institution, instead of insisting on taking care of her myself, they may have succeeded where I failed and pulled her back from that final act of desperation”
Her words petered out at the ferocity that appeared in his eyes Or was it a rogue beaold?
Then he spoke and there was no doubt what she’d seen
“Never think that,” he ground out “You did everything beyond right and into outright self-sacrifice”
She shook her head,in her cheeks “There’s no self-sacrifice in taking care of your family She would have done the same for me if she’d been the healthy one and I had been the one with the affliction”
“It was self-sacrifice,” he gritted, his eyes adaument “You didn’t abandon her, so with her doctors, labeled a lost cause to the care of strangers You knew she wouldn’t have been better off in an institution As canny as addicts are, you knew they wouldn’t have stopped her fro chemical substances And she would have had the added tor abandoned by you She would have suffered farher life just the sa the the best for their loved one while buying themselves a shot at an unburdened life While I can’t presume to condeh forwith it Your mother could have lived forty more years and you would have sacrificed your chance of a nor a family, for her”
She lowered eyes that felt about to burst Not with re helplessness but with Malek’s total understanding, with his assurance that she hadn’t harmed herto institutionalize her
When she spoke, her tear-soaked voice was aluish “Youa fa one Itmy views of romantic involvements and domestic bliss”
“I find it ie yourdown her body and back to her face
Heat rose to her face, held for a second before flooding her body She gave hihten the mood “Not sure about hordes, but so it drop that a man didn’t want a woman who cas didn’t care about your situation,” he bit off “While men interested in a future and a fa as you caain at his laser-accurate insight Then she shrugged “I think any ht not to sacrifice the norer, to want an emotionally available—an available, period—wife”
His lips thinned “I think any man ants a woman to share his life must take her with her own better and worse, not deets rid of her responsibilities to provide him with peace of mind”
To that ferocious declaration she had no answer
She stared at him helplessly for a moment then exhaled “Actually, none of that really ured out thea fa of that I realized I never have”
Silence thickened, along with the s, slithering down her nerves, burning, besieging
Then he finally drawled, “And to live, you ca the luxurious lifestyle Damhoor can offer someone of your assets and skills, you joined GAO You have a singular definition of living, Janaan Latihter tone “Oh, there is ht that to live I had to find out who I a the other half of e So I came here to find my father”
“Your father is Damhoorian?” She nodded and he shook his head in a to fathomless reaches, “Janaan of the ceaseless surprises” He looked at her for a long e her heart tilt to the sale inside her chest “When did you find out about hih he couldn’t give me his nah her psyche ile to start with, I think his loss and my birth were the catalysts that initiated her descent She fell in love with hie student, but it turned out he was married, had children already and his family forbade hieup, phoned frequently, always telling me how much he loved me, how sorry was he couldn’t be with us He helped financially by paying into a trust fund Towards the end he calledto finally have us with hi A fewup on hiive up on life”
She paused for breath, the breath the intensity of his gaze was knocking out of her lungs She needed it, to get it all out, to lay her innerations into my mother’s death had been concluded, I felt like the foundation ofin a vacuuo I made a decision to use the money he’d saved for me to come here, findI’d one day live in, with a s Problem was, I found out the reason for s understandably don’t want to know about me …”