“Why did you look at her like you look at me?”
He loses her gaze to the salty sea that playfully lapped their legs. His own eyes stare at her, willing her to look at him, to see the remorse that is written so plainly on his face, in his body. Her voice, the broken whisper, wrenches him. He had done this, he had inflicted this pain on his love. Hadn’t he just said how he hated to see her in pain? Yet, here he was, causing deep wounds.
He opens his thick lips— though is at a loss for what to say. What can he say? She saves him (as she has been, all along) by continuing to speak. But these words wrest his chest further, guilt and self-loathing growing and raising their ugly heads with each sad syllable she utters. She is still staring off into the water, “In the end, I still chose you,” dammit why won’t she look at him?!
“Rexanna, I could never look at her— at anyone— the way I look at you,” sincerity hummed in his deep voice, words aching with truth. “I love you, and I choose you. I will always choose you,” his voice begins to break, so he takes a sweeping step towards her, salt spraying their legs. If he cannot gain her eyes, he will gain her touch. He presses his blood smeared chest against her, wrapping his thick neck around her slender form, holding her tightly to him.
He know she will not like what he is about to tell her, that he is about to confirm her suspicions and cause of heartbreak. So he grasps onto her tightly,a way to hold on or a last embrace. “I am not sure if I am the sire to her child, Rexanna,” he pauses, taking a deep breath. His broken rib grates his protest, but he cannot feel it, "I had to protect her— if it is mine," there was a pleading in his voice, surely she would understand the need to protect a child.
His blood stains her gilded coat, the water, their love. The axe had dropped. Would heads roll?
@Rexanna