215. AS THOUGH

215. AS THOUGH
SELINE
"You wanted to travel."
"We'll travel."
"You wanted to design houses."
"You'll design them."
"You wanted to wake me up at three in the morning because you suddenly wanted tea."
"I'll still complain."
I laughed through the tears gathering in my eyes.
"You wanted to discover who Seline is."
He kissed my forehead.
"You still will."
"Because you're not walking into motherhood alone."
Another kiss.
"You're walking into it with me."
His hand settled over mine on my stomach.
"I won't let you become just their mother."
He looked directly into my eyes.
"You'll always be my wife."
"My Wildling."
"And most importantly, you will always be Seline. You will be your own person."
He smiled.
Small and soft. The kind of smile that belonged only to me.
"And if one day you wake up and feel like you've lost yourself..."
His thumb wiped away a tear that had escaped.
"...then we'll go looking for you."
"Together."
I don't know why those words broke me.
Maybe because nobody had ever promised to look for me before.
Not when I was a child.
Not when I was trapped in Delmere.
Not even when I didn't know I was lost.
But this man...
This impossible, terrifying, scarred man...
Had just promised that even if I forgot who I was—
He never would.
I traced the scar that ran across his face with the pad of my thumb. The skin there was rougher than the rest, a permanent reminder of a life he rarely spoke about.
"Where did you get this?" I asked quietly.
His golden eyes drifted somewhere beyond our bedroom walls.
"Delmere." The answer came without hesitation.
"I fought someone there."
My hand stilled.
"Who?"
"I don't know." He replied.
There was something different in his voice. "The whole place was burning. I barely remember faces. Just... movement. Blood. Smoke."
He closed his eyes for a brief moment. "He wouldn't let me reach you."
"Celia?"
He nodded. His fingers absentmindedly played with mine as though he were trying to reconstruct the memory piece by piece.
“Now that I think about it, he was very you and he kept yelling that I couldn't take her from him. There is no way she burned an entire island down. She might have had an ally. How did she get the lenses?"
Something about those words settled heavily between us.
I frowned.
"Do you know anyone who could protect her like that?” He asked me.
“No.”
“Does she have a friend?”
“Celia never trusted anyone."
"That's what has bothered me all these years."
I looked at him.
"He was protecting Celia.
As though...
As though she mattered to him.
As though they knew each other.
As though saving her was the only thing he wanted to do at that moment.
That didn't make sense.”
"No..." I whispered more to myself than to him.
"I would've known."
Wouldn't I?
I searched every memory I had of Delmere.
The classrooms.
The laboratories.
The endless white corridors.
Children.
Doctors.
Needles.
Silence.
Nothing.
“I don’t know anyone like that. She wasn’t close with anyone. She never really talked to anyone. I am her only friend. She was away most of the time. They took her for the—,” I couldn’t say the word. My throat closed up. Silence surrounded us before we both looked at each other.
Then...
Something stirred. Faint. Almost forgotten.
"Wait." The memory felt frustratingly incomplete.
"It wasn't allowed for us to talk to each other. Most of the time, they separated us."
I closed my eyes.
Trying to force the pieces together.
"But..."
"There were days..."
"Celia would come back different."
"Different how?"
"She looked..."
I struggled for the right word.
"...less empty."
Kade didn't interrupt.
"Sometimes she'd come back with dried blood on her sleeves."
"I always thought it was hers."
The room fell silent.
Neither of us spoke.
Because we both understood how impossible that sounded. Celia never smiled. Not in Delmere.
Unless...
Someone had given her a reason to.
"Kade..."
Another memory surfaced. This one is much clearer.
"Mateo."
His eyes met mine instantly.
"What about him?"
“He came to me when I was in school. Told me that he knew who I was, that he saw me at Delmere. I gave up trying to lead a normal life by then. We started to plan. He told me that someone helped him escape. He never elaborates. He—”
“He could be Seline’s ally.” Kade finished my sentence. “He could be one of the kids who were experimented on.”
Kade sat up straighter. "What if he wasn't just another experiment?”
"What if he knew Celia? What if he knew what happened to her at Delmere? He escaped. He found you. And..."
Kade's voice grew quieter.
"...he spent years helping you destroy the people who built that place."
"But why?"
I whispered.
"If he cared about Celia, if he knew her, why did he betray me?"
Kade didn't answer immediately. His eyes had grown distant again.
He is thinking, connecting pieces.
Finally—
"I don't think he betrayed you."
I looked at him.
"I think..."
His fingers slowly tightened around mine.
"...he thought you betrayed her."
The words stole the air from my lungs.
Mateo had always hated it whenever I spoke about leaving.
Whenever I spoke about building a normal life.
He would become furious whenever I cancelled a plan because of work.
Then...
After I met Kade...
Everything changed.
"He thought I abandoned Celia. He thought I had abandoned my revenge. I didn’t really understand how he thinks like that, why he was so unhappy that I am trying to have a better life. If what we assumed is true, I think he hated me a little for living instead of her."
Kade nodded once.
"And then Alexander approached him. Alexander told me that he never tried to frame you for that murder. It was all Mateo. Alexander thought that you both would work together."
Another silence.
Long and heavy.
Because for the first time, Mateo looked like another broken child who had escaped Delmere. But had never truly escaped it.
“I want to meet him.” I declared.
Kade laughed. Actually laughed.
“No, babe. Not happening.”
“Did you kill him?” I asked him instantly.
Kade looked at everything but me.
“Kade?”
“I did not kill him.” He answered after a very long pause. “I might have sent him away.”
“What? Where?”
Kade is still not looking at me.
“Remember how we thought about going on a honeymoon?” I asked him.
A smile touched his face instantly. “Yes.”
“You are taking me now.”
His smile widened.
“Wherever you sent Mateo, we are going there.”
Just like that, the smile disappeared.
As quickly as it came. “I am taking my words back. He really did betray you. You can’t meet him. You should not travel in this condition. The doctor said no.”
I got up, “Figure it out.” I told him and believed with all my heart that he would.
And the next day, Mateo is in Bernan. Supposedly attended a client meeting. Not sure who the client is. I know it’s Kade’s doing. It doesn’t matter. I will get the answers I need from him.