My Devoted Demons

Chapter 19 - The Vulnerability Paradox

Gwendolyn

Roman had been more vulnerable in the last twenty-four hours than in the entire stretch of time that I'd known him. Which, granted, hadn't been that long, but it was still so strange to see someone who always looked so guarded be so bare.

After Roman had told me the news of his mom being in the hospital, I had tried to bend down and cup his face in my hands to ask him what had happened, but he wouldn't let me. He seemed firm in the fact that he wanted his head to be buried in my chest for the rest of eternity. Almost like he wanted to hide from everything.

I didn't know much about how Roman grew up, but I could've guessed that it was pretty lonely. 

It was hard to hear the soft cries coming from him, and it was also hard to feel the increasingly damp spot on my shirt where his cheek was pressed. As I looked down at his dark brown hair, which my fingers were tangled in, I pondered what way might be best to approach this.

"I couldn't keep her safe," I just barely heard him whisper. It was so quiet that it seemed as though he was saying it to himself.

"Roman," I spoke, trying to get his attention. He didn't make anything close to a reaction.

"I couldn't keep her safe," he repeated. I tried tapping him a few times, but it didn't work.

He was lost in his own thoughts.

"Roman," I tried again. "Roman, please." Panicking because I didn't know what to do, I decided to call for the one other person who might have an idea of how to break Roman out of the spell he was under. "Caspian!"

Immediately, pounding thuds began to sound through the house, and before long, the door to the room slammed open, and in its vacancy stood my gray-eyed lover, breathing heavily after sprinting the length of the house.

Looking at him with wide eyes, I stuttered, "I-I don't -- I can't."

He dashed over to us, Leo hot on his heels, who I hadn't seen until they'd entered.

When Caspian came to his knees before us, Roman simply turned his head away from him and towards the window.

His grip on my waist was as tight as I thought it could get. It was so tight, in fact, that I was almost sure that it was going to leave bruises.

But I didn't care about that right now. I just wanted to know what had happened that would've made Roman shut down like this. 

Caspian gently placed a hand on Roman's shoulder. "Rome?" he called. "Can you tell us what's going on?"

Roman just let out a small whisper. "I couldn't keep her safe."

Caspian looked up at me in a way that told me this had never happened before. He shook his head, at a loss of ideas, but tried one more thing. "Roman. We need you to talk to us. We can't help you if you don't tell us what's wrong."

But again, Roman simply uttered, "I couldn't keep her safe."

Leo was watching intently, but his eyes were sort of glazed over, like he was remembering something.

"He only said that his mother was in the hospital," I told Caspian. "That's all I know."

His brows furrowed as he looked back at Roman, and a mournful, nearly pitiful look fell across his features. "Something probably went down with his father," he guessed. "Roman isn't the only family member he hurts."

I thought back to when Roman and I had showered together, and I'd seen all of his scars. Leaning my head as far down as I could, I brought my mouth to the shell of his ear. "Roman, my love, my sweet boy." As I shut my eyes, a tear slid out and splattered onto his shoulder. "Please come back to me."