"no, you wouldn't. you didn't. you went to the lighthouse. you took your problems there, and you were careless. you let yourself fall, and i don't think it was an accident. i think you-"

"what? jumped?" i laughed like that was ludicrous.

"i wouldn't have saved you, you know," he said quietly, looking out the window again. "if i'd known then, i would have drowned you myself."

"so, i can't comment on you sleeping with emily, but it's okay for you to say you'd kill me-it's okay for you to hurt me, torture me because i had another man inside me?"

"not just another man, ara! my own brother-someone i've hated all my life. how could you? how could you stand the feel of him between your legs? how could you-"

"he's not as repulsive to me as he is to you."

"clearly."

"you know what?" i threw my hands up. "what's done is done. i can't undo it, and i don't have to put up with you being an asshole to me. i did wrong. yes. i deserve to lose my marriage. yes. but i do not deserve to have you in my face reminding me of that mistake every day."

"so you admit it?" he asked. "it was a mistake."

"god, what is your problem? do you really think i lay awake at night reliving it like some fantasy i wish i could repeat?"

"i'm not sure what you do."

"then you clearly don't know me very well."

"as recent events would indicate."

i let the silence hang for a second. but i always let him have the last word. and it just wasn't good enough anymore. "i won't be the victim, you know?"

"what's that supposed to mean?"

"it means i won't put up with you taking your anger out on me anymore."

"no one said you had to." he graced me with some eye contact then. "but you can't expect me to be civil to you."

"actually, i can," i said, for once feeling strong enough to stand up to him. "you don't have to love me. hell, you don't even have to like me, but you will respect me."

"well, then let me rephrase that." he stepped into my territorial bubble, his height suddenly intimidating. "if you think, for one second, that i'm going to be anything but cruel to you, do anything but torture you for the rest of my days, you've got a lot of learning to do. and since the only way you ever learn, ara-rose, is the hard way-" he smiled malevolently. "i'm going to enjoy this."

"wow," i said, taking another step back. "i had no idea just how deep your darkness went. you're like a spiteful little girl. and i know it's because you're hurt." i shrugged. "i get that. but what you're showing me right now, david, is that you still love m-"

"love?" he slowly cupped both my arms and walked me back toward the wall. "is it love when a man lies awake in his bed at night, comforted by the horrid acts he could perform on a girl's body? is it love when he finds himself standing over her with a dagger in his hand while she's sleeping? is it love when he contemplates throwing her to a pack of rabid prisoners and watching them defile her-"

"like you did to pepper?" i spat.

his eyes widened, the contents of his stomach seeming to come up in his throat until he swallowed them down, gripping my arms so tight my fingers went numb.

i tried to count backward in my head, to go back in time and just stop myself from saying that. i'd wanted to hurt him, but the pain i saw eat his soul then just wasn't worth it. it was childish and stupid. "i'm sorry, david. i shouldn't have said that."

he was frozen, though, his fingers locked onto my arms like a cursed statue.

"david, please. you're hurting me."

my back pressed more firmly into the wall with each second passing, the plaster dipping under my weight, but he didn't back down. the anger in him was growing-flashes of pepper's suffering flickering in his thoughts for me to see. i closed my eyes, turning my head to block them out, but they were there, and they were too real: her golden hair, turned almost orange with blood, her face mashed into the dirt floor under her naked body, her eyes catching david's as the fat, dirty man pinning her down entered her, tearing her so deeply she screamed for her beloved. but he just stood there, pinned back by the guards, frozen by a veil of knowledge mixed with shock that he couldn't lift-couldn't escape long enough to find some common sense and free her.

the man entered her again, but she looked away this time, ashamed, hiding her face. she knew david wouldn't help her. she didn't care that he clearly couldn't, all she knew was that he wouldn't. and she hated him then.

she dug her fingernails into the earth and just held her breath-lying there and letting them punish her, crying only his name and the sobbing remnant of the word 'why.'

as the replay stopped and the rushing of wind in my ears and the echo of her haunted screams died down, the day around me returned. i looked up at david, seeing tears in his eyes for the first time since he learned what i did to betray him.

"you know nothing of what pepper suffered," he said in an eerily calm voice, and let go of my arms, pulling me up off the wall just a little first.

"dav-" i started, but he walked away, ignoring me. fear kept me where i stood, fighting the voice in my head that told me to run after him. everything i said-everything-was the hurt in me talking. and i regretted it deeply, all of it. especially saying i would never have loved him if i'd known what he did to emily. i didn't mean that. i felt it at the time, but i didn't really mean it.

i swore then, that no matter what he did next to make me suffer, i would never stoop to that level again, never say anything i knew would kill him inside. he wasn't the monster anymore. i was.

and that was all i needed to move my feet. i darted after him, blocking his path on the narrow stairwell, both my arms reaching across to either side of the railing. "stop."

"ara, get out of my way."

"no. you need to listen."

"nothing you have to say is of any consequence to me. you wanted me to leave you alone, never talk to you again, well . . . you got your wish."

"that's not what i want, david. i was angry. and i'm so sorry for what i said about pepper."

his glassy green eyes softened a little then as he saw the truth deep inside me. "that will never suffice, ara. you knew, before you said that, the extent of the damage it would do. so don't try to take it back now."

i crossed my hands over my heart, guilt eating it up until i couldn't feel it beat anymore.

"now, get out of my way before i do something to hurt you," he added.

"i'm not afraid of you, david. i know you won't hurt me."

"then you know nothing about me."

"really?" i faced him as he pushed past. "i know you're ashamed of what you did to emily."

the vampire in him surfaced, stopping him in his tracks, changing the way he held himself. "i'm not ashamed, ara."

"i think you are."

he turned slowly and walked back up the stairs, stopping on the one just above me.

"just tell me why you never talked about it with me, david-why, even after i asked you, you lied."

"our marriage is over. you deserve no explanation from me."

"yes, i do."

"no." he went to walk past again. "you don't."

i grabbed his arm. "i do, david, because, despite what i've done wrong, i married you. we shared a life together and i am the mother of your child. you do owe me an explanation."

"get away from me," he yelled. "there's nothing to explain."

i blocked his path again. "i'm not going anywhere until you answer me."

he frowned at me, a little surprised. "you're really not going to let this go, are you?"

i shook my head.

"fine." he leaned on the wall and folded his arms. "i didn't tell you because, when we first met, you and emily were already friends, and i never planned to be with you past the summer. when that changed, it was too late to tell you."

"why?"

"because you'd have gone crazy, ara. you'd never have trusted me after that."

"of course i would have, david. i would've trusted you more knowing you would always tell me the truth-even if i didn't like it."

"that's bull crap, ara. you would've hated me-left me."

"are you kidding?" i jerked forward. "david, you know me! look at me. look at who i am inside," i said, tapping my chest. "even if you'd slept with her while we were together, you know i'd have found it in my heart to forgive you."

"huh!" he scoffed, looking away.

"david." i touched his wrist and he looked back at me. "you know that."

his folded arms dropped slowly to his sides. he couldn't deny the truth in that statement. "you're right. i should've told you. i'm sorry."

those words moved in through my ears and made everything in me feel warm and kind of renewed, taking the anger and diluting it until it was nothing. "i forgive you, you know."

"you what?"

"i know you don't need my forgiveness, but . . . you and em, it's in the past, david, and-"

"ara." he stopped me. "don't say that until you know the full story."

i shook my head. "when i decided to be with you, i accepted you then for everything you were and had been in your past. good or bad. i can't take that back now just because i find out that you've done something you're not proud of. you didn't rape her. you might not have been what she wanted her first to be, but i know you're good inside, david, and-"

"that's just it, ara. i'm not."

my mouth stayed open, still shaped to my last word.

"she cried," he started, shifting awkwardly to a new position. "she said it hurt, and i just rolled her over and told her to shut up-hid her face because i didn't wanna see her tears."

and with his words came images, ones i made up in my own mind. "did she ask you to stop?"

he shook his head. "i told her the pain was normal for the first time. but it wasn't. if i'd been gentle . . . if i'd. . ." he folded the back of his hand to his mouth.

"if you'd been like you were with me."

a quick memory lit his thoughts up-of he and i in my room-our first time, and he smiled, shaking his head until a frown came over like a grey cloud. "i hurt her, and i made her feel ashamed of herself, made her feel like she was worth nothing to anyone. and, the worst part was, ara, i just didn't care."