Chapter 182 ...see me broken

Chapter 182 ...see me broken
Kaden’s eyes drop down to my untouched plate, his forehead creasing slightly. "Are you not hungry?"
Because I cannot tell him that opening up certain doors violently strips away my appetite, I pick up my fork and force myself to take a small, measured bite. "I'm fine," I murmur.
He watches me chew, his expression softening into something agonizingly tender. "Can I stay with you tonight?" he asks softly.
There's a quiet, desperate need laced into the question, a plea for proximity. He wants to be near me. He isn't asking for sex, he's asking purely for closeness.
I want to give him that. I want it so desperately it aches.
But what Kaden wants me to give... what I ’want’ to give him... and what I can realistically offer in this exact psychological state are worlds apart. Right now, my skin feels raw, my mind is a minefield of suppressed adrenaline, and my arm is throbbing with an agony that threatens to pull me under. If he stays, he'll feel the tremor in my hands. He'll see me reach for another pill. He'll see the cracks in the armor I've spent thirteen years forging.
I cannot let him see me broken.
"I'm sorry," I say, keeping my voice as steady as steel, though it feels like pulling glass through my throat. "I have several urgent international calls scheduled for late tonight, and an early morning acquisition review with the European board. I’m going to be tied up with work until dawn."
His face falls. The disappointment is instant, visible in the quiet drop of his shoulders. He nods slowly, swallowing hard. "It's okay."
He says the words, but the way his lingering gaze stays fixed on my face tells me everything. He knows it’s an excuse. He knows I am retreating back behind my walls.
And as I reach for my water with a stiff, cold hand, a terrifying thought takes root in my chest, if I keep building these walls to protect myself, am I eventually going to push him away for good?
"I'll stay with you until you fall asleep," I add softly, adjusting my posture. "If you want."
A small smile finally touches his lips. "I do."
When we step out of the restaurant into the cool night air, Kaden reaches out and takes my hand again. He doesn't say anything, just slides his fingers between mine and holds on tightly. I can see the quiet effort he's making from his side. It makes me want to give him even more. It makes me want to hand him the entire world on a silver platter.
Yet, there are pieces of me so thoroughly corrupted, so fundamentally shattered, that I can never offer them to him. That's why I needed him to promise me in the car that nothing would break us. I needed to know he could be content with the vast majority of what I ‘can’ offer, even if those fractured, missing pieces remain permanently out of reach. I don't know how much those broken parts weigh in the grand calculus of a normal relationship, but I will ensure that everything I do give him is so absolute, so devastatingly earnest, that it renders the absences invisible.
"Can I drive?" He asks, looking up at me with an eager tilt of his head as we reach the car.
"Sure," I say instantly, tossing him the keys.
During the ride back, I sit in the passenger seat with the custom fountain pen he gave me held between my fingers. I find myself mindlessly twirling it, feeling the cold weight of the matte titanium, pressing the smooth mechanism against my thumb in a quiet, rhythmic pattern. The sensation grounds me, a silent reminder that he looked at something beautiful and for some reason, thought of me.
The house is dark and quiet when we return, the living room completely empty. I'm grateful to avoid a run-in with his roommate tonight.
While Kaden steps away to get ready for bed, I stand by the bedroom window, staring out at. But the view outside does nothing to keep my attention, my eyes naturally follow Kaden’s movement in the glass reflection. He washes his face, brushes his teeth, strips off his clothes, tossing them toward the laundry hamper, and slips into bed wearing nothing but a pair of black boxers.
He sits up against the pillows, his eyes pinned directly onto me.
"Are you just gonna stand over there and watch me?" he asks, his voice laced with a soft, quiet challenge.
Only when I finally turn and walk closer to the frame of the bed does he slide beneath the covers, lying down properly. He taps the empty space on the mattress right beside him. I can tell what he's doing, he's subtly banking on me accidentally falling asleep and staying the night. It isn't going to happen, but I don't break the illusion.
I take off my shoes, strip off my suit jacket, and lie down on top of the duvet beside him.
The second I'm settled, Kaden closes the distance between us. It's entirely tactical. He inches flush against my side, resting his head directly over my chest and draping his arm and leg over me, wrapping himself around my frame.
A faint, involuntary smile tugs at the corner of my mouth at the effort. I wrap my arms around him, letting the top edge of the blanket slip down slightly so I can stroke my hand in long, soothing sweeps up and down his bare back. The repetitive movement soothes my own frayed nerves as much as I hope it relaxes him.
He shifts, bringing his hand up to gently angle my head down toward his.
He presses his lips to mine, drawing me into a slow, breathless kiss. The kind that feels as though my mouth was crafted for his alone. It strikes me in that quiet, suspended moment how profoundly glad I am that this particular intimacy was never something I shared with anyone else. Not with any of the meaningless, faceless bodies from my past who meant nothing to me.
This, here, belongs entirely to him.
When the kiss breaks, he keeps his hand cupped against my cheek, his thumb slowly brushing over my cheekbone. His eyes fix onto mine, searching my face. He hesitates, contemplating something heavy behind his gaze, before his expression softens into caution.
"How old were you?" he asks, his voice barely a whisper. "The first time?"
My entire body locks up in a single, violent second.
Every muscle in my frame goes rigid. My chest stops moving, my breath seizing in my throat, and everything inside me halts except for my heart...which suddenly detonates into an erratic pounding against my ribs.
He feels the drastic shift instantly. He feels the rock-hard tension that has seized my chest, and he inches closer, his grip on my cheek softening. "Hey..."
I tighten further, a cold surge of adrenaline flooding my veins before I force my lungs to take a deep, ragged breath. I systematically drag my composure back from the edge, clawing for control until I have enough grip on my voice to speak.
"I told you," I say, my voice dropping into an icy baseline. "I don't want to focus on that. Ever."
"I know," he says softly, his tone incredibly gentle. "And I won't make you. I'm just asking. Just this."
He sounds like he’s walking on eggshells, trying desperately not to spook me, and I hate the realization that I am visibly spooked. I divert my gaze, staring fixedly at the ceiling above us. I hate this. I hate the physical reaction it violently rips out of me. I hate that my mind is being dragged back into a dark room I spent thirteen years sealing shut, and I desperately wonder why he won't just let the past lie buried where it belongs.
I cut through the heavy silence with a single, blunt word.
"Thirteen."
I pause, my jaw flexing hard before I add, "Go to sleep, Kaden."
It's a blatant door slammed shut on the conversation, a boundary drawn in solid steel. I know I'm silencing him, forcing an end to something he wants to process, but I have to. I cannot survive another sentence.
Kaden watches my profile for a long, quiet moment. He doesn't push. He doesn't demand another word. Slowly, he lowers his head back down onto my chest, letting out a soft, defeated exhale.
"Goodnight, Bastian," he mutters quietly.
"Goodnight," I reply, my voice hollow as my hand resumes its stiff, mechanical pattern against his back.