Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 64910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
His shoulders slumped. “Yeah.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and said, “Fourteen percent of the world population can’t eat cilantro because there’s an olfactory gene called OR6A2.”
I could tell he was confused, but I kept going. “OR6A2 is responsible for detecting aldehydes. There are aldehydes in cilantro. Long story short, cilantro is sometimes used to make soap. When I eat cilantro, my brain automatically tells me that it tastes like soap.”
Bram opened his mouth and closed it.
“Meaning, every time I get cilantro in my stupid Chipotle rice, it tastes like I grated up a bar of soap in it. Would you like to eat something that tastes like soap?” I asked.
Bram’s shoulders slumped impossibly further.
“That night, we got into a fight about it because they added it to my order when I explicitly mentioned to have plain white rice. I wasn’t being difficult. I wasn’t trying to be a bitch. I wasn’t being a ‘Karen’ like you accused me of being. I was trying to enjoy what I was eating. And when you threw a fit because I wouldn’t eat my meal that you refused to have them send back, you reminded me of my brother.”
His mouth fell open in shock then.
“What?” His voice had raised in pitch.
That’d been one very hard truth I’d had to share with Bram when we got married: Amon.
Amon was by far my worst torturer.
But some of my scars went so deep that I could never show them to Bram and him not see me as weak.
But there were some things that I had to tell him. There were also some things that Bram knew on his own. Like the night that he’d offered me an alibi.
The way that Amon had snuck out the previous night the verdict had been handed down and let me know in no uncertain terms that no matter what, he would find a way to make my life a living hell.
“My brother used to add it to my food for fun,” I said softly. “So when I say that I can’t eat it, I can’t. I eat it, I’ll throw up. Ask me how I know.”
His eyes looked even more tortured when he said, “How do you know?”
“Because he did it often, just to watch me get sick. Every time. Have you ever been so hungry that you eat something, knowing it’ll make you sick, yet eating it anyway?” I asked quietly. “I was diagnosed with ARFID—avoidance/restrictive food intake disorder. Pretty much, sometimes I just can’t eat. Can’t make myself eat. Because of things that he did to me in the past. One of those being tampering with my food and making me suspicious of almost everything.” I hesitated. “The fact that I can even go somewhere where I allow someone else to prepare my food is an amazing feat, according to my therapist.”
“You’re in therapy?” he asked quietly.
I shrugged. “It was either that or…”
I didn’t finish.
I didn’t have to.
“Dory…” he whispered, choking on the word. “No.”
I shrugged. “I haven’t done it yet.”
Yet.
Yet being the very operative word.
That’s when I saw the change come over him.
I didn’t know what I was expecting, but him moving in and wrapping me in a hug so tight that I couldn’t breathe? That was downright surprising.
“One more time,” he said softly into my hair. “That’s all I’m asking for, is one more time.”
I looked over at him sharply, feeling the weight of those words in my chest.
“What if this time you hurt me like you’ve hurt me all the other times?” I asked.
What if this time, you actually break me?
He shook his head fiercely. “I’m all in. I won’t do that to you again.”
Would he?
Would he not?
I guess only time would tell.
But my answer didn’t come to me in some sudden epiphany of ‘you should give him a shot.’
No, it came with the fluttering of the life in my belly.
The very first time that I for sure, felt the baby move.
The very first time that his father was around at the same exact time.
I gasped and pressed my hand to my belly, my eyes going wide.
And there it was again, a sudden fluttering sensation.
A sign that I needed and wasn’t about to deny.
“What is it?” Bram gasped, moving forward and catching me by the elbows.
His eyes were intense, and the way his hands felt on my skin…
“The baby,” I whispered, feeling tears start to form in my eyes.
“What about her?” he rushed, his eyes now super intense, as if he could fix whatever it was making my world wrong by the feel of his body alone.
He couldn’t.
But I knew for a fact that Bram had a will of steel. If he wanted something fixed, he’d fix it.
Even if it was inhumanly possible.
“No.” I shook my head, trying to soothe the fear I could see creeping into his eyes. Fear for a baby I’d at first been afraid that he didn’t want. “It… there’s nothing wrong with her. There’s just… I felt her move.”