just for a bloody contract | Roman Godfrey au

ch. 38 • new beginnings

After Roman left, I got out of bed and went to my desk to read a chapter from Evidence-Based Medicine about cancer screening. Not entertaining but definitely useful to know in a few months. I didn't do a good job at it, but it kept my mind off of solely think about the dumb thing I did. After half an hour, I heard a knock on the door.

"Come in," I said, getting up from my chair and heading back to bed, to bury myself in my blanket. It was the only thing keeping me stable right now.

"Hey. Have a minute?" Peter asked, poking his head into my room.

"A lot happened," I told him, covering my legs with the blanket and holding my pillow.

"Yeah, I know. I'm here to talk about exactly that," Peter said as he came and sat next to me. "Um, things have clearly not been okay with you and Roman."

"Yeah, we ended our contract. It's fine. Except I did something dumb," I replied.

"I know," Peter said. "Let me talk. Okay, so Roman is sorry. He's sorry about what he did. And you know him. He isn't sorry too often. But he's genuinely sorry. He told me not to tell you, but I will. He was losing sleep over you. And every time I went to his place, he asked me how you were. Liana, this sounds absurd, but he cares. He just has fucked up feelings, a fucked up life. And you know that."

"Okay, but none of this matters. None of it. I don't care what he feels," I said, trying to contain my surprise and sadness.

"You suck at lying, first of all. Second, he's still here," Peter said.

I turned to look at him, with a why-are-you-lying look. "No..." I said. "Peter, I can't."

He looked at me and said, "Give him a chance to talk."  He got up, opened the door, and nodded. Sure enough, Roman was there.

I closed my eyes. We're not doing this again. I felt Roman's tall frame come closer and couch down on the same spot again. I didn't say anything, but he did.

"Liana, I was confused, okay? I-I was so confused. And I don't know what I was thinking or doing. I don't know. But I am just so sorry. And I can spend the rest of my life apologizing to you for every single thing I did."

"But you can't. I'm out of your life," I said, opening my eyes and looking to see that Peter had left, and it was only Roman and me again.

"I ended the contract, but I don't want you out of my life. It was hard enough to stay without you for two weeks."

"So you want to be friends and go out for coffee?" I scoffed, a little annoyed. Then, I looked at his eyes. They seemed sincere. Completely honest.

"Liana, I'm sorry I left after you said you loved me. I just always thought I have an ugliness that's impossible to love. Impossible for anyone to accept, and then you countered that."

That softened me. I melted pretty easily. "Roman, who said that? Your past does not define you. This part of you that you hate is not something you chose. I'm so sorry for initially hating your blood thirst, but I had learned that it really isn't something you can control. It was just so different and strange, but I don't hold that against you anymore. That's why I wanted to help."

Roman took my hand and held it. "I want you. Here with me, as long as we can make this last."

"I don't understand," I said, looking at our entwined hands. 

"I love you."

That paused my heartbeat for a second. My eyes widened, and I just stared at Roman. "You're kidding," I breathed out.

"No, no. I actually fucking love you. I didn't understand why you doing all this for me bothered me. I didn't understand why I wanted to protect you and just push you away, so you don't have to stay with me anymore. But Peter helped me realize it was love. But now I'm going to be selfish and tell you I can't stay away from you. I can't. Just you being home makes it better."

My breath hitched as I stared at him. There were tears in his eyes again. The liquid made his beautiful green eyes sparkle. "What are you saying?" I asked.

"I am saying fuck the contract. We're done with that already. But will you be my wife? For real this time?"

I felt like I wanted to faint. I wanted to scream. I wanted to pause time right there. I didn't even know what to say. But my head started nodding before I came to a conclusion. "Yes," I heard myself speak. "Yes."

I noticed at that point that both my mother and Peter stood at the doorway to my bedroom. My mother had teary-eyes too, and Peter's hand was on my mother's shoulder. Roman pulled out a new ring, much more beautiful than the wedding ring, if that was even possible. It was a pear-cut diamond ring, with smaller crystals flaring out from it. He put it on me, got up, and held me to his chest. His heartbeat was fast. His coat smelled like home.