Storms of the Heart novel Chapter 15

The soup Sienna had spent hours making, along with all her careful gentleness and hope, looked pathetic beside a memory of Trina that wasn't even particularly good.

Julian snapped out of it at the sharp noise of the bowl falling. His eyes dropped to the soup splattered across the floor before lifting to Sienna's tearful face.

Guilt flickered in his eyes, but more than that, there was a heavy, suffocating helplessness he couldn't shake.

He realized Trina's shadow had already seeped into every corner of his life. It had seeped into his thoughts and his habits.

No matter how hard he tried to push her out or force himself back onto the "right" path, she could pull him straight into that swamp of memories almost effortlessly.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but every word felt pointless and wrong.

In the end, he just shut his eyes, exhausted.

A few days later, a pull Julian couldn't explain drove him to the military hospital's records room. He needed to confirm something. Or maybe he needed a way to punish himself.

He dug through the stacked files until he finally found the medical report from the night Trina took the strikes.

When the nurse on duty handed him the thin folder, his hand began shaking before he even opened it.

He drew in a deep breath and pulled out the pages inside.

The clinical typeface described her injuries with cold precision.

"Patient Trina Shepherd. Severe soft-tissue contusions on the back and hips. Extensive subcutaneous bruising. Localized hematoma. Minor sacrococcygeal fracture...

"During debridement, patient remained conscious. Refused anesthesia. Endured the procedure with self-control...

"Seven stitches. The patient must stay in bed after surgery to keep the wound from tearing..."

It was just a few lines, but every sentence felt like a red-hot blade stabbing into Julian's chest and twisting hard.

His breathing turned rough. His hands trembled so violently that the paper almost slipped from his fingers.

He tightened his hold on the edges of the pages until they crumpled in his hand.

He could see it as clearly as if he had been there.

Trina had always been the spoiled woman who cried over so much as a scraped knee and needed coaxing for the slightest cut.

But that day, she had lain on a metal table with her back split open, her teeth locked on a towel and cold sweat beading across her forehead. The needle pierced her skin again and again, but she never made a single sound.

She chose to endure it without anesthesia. Had she wanted to carve the humiliation and pain he had dealt her straight into her bones?

A hot drop of liquid hit the paper with a soft pat, blurring the neat black letters.

Julian swiped a hand across his face and froze when he realized his cheeks were wet. At some point, he had started crying.

...

That night, when the base was quiet and still, Julian went alone to the yard outside the detention block where Trina had taken the punishment.

Moonlight washed over the concrete, cold and colorless.

The long wooden bench stood in the middle of the open ground, stark and lonely, like a piece of evidence no one could erase.

He walked toward it step by step, his fingers shaking as he reached out to touch the cold surface.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify