Shalom slammed into his rooms, the walls shaking with the sheer anger and bitterness coming off of him. He flung himself onto the bed that he shared with Karsyn, cursing when he smelled her scent on the sheets. It was like she was everywhere. All he needed right now was to curl up into a ball and sleep. He didn't want to fight battles that weren't his, he didn't want to save people who didn't want to be saved and he definitely did not want to go to the infirmary where Twyll would work her magic and restore Karsyn to full health only for her efforts to go to dust when Karsyn does something stupid and probably suicidal. Everything in his body rebelled against being away from Karsyn, his Tavaryš; But life was unfair like that. Life decided to pair you with a person who was sick and violated and needed the stability and care that he could neither provide nor want to provide. People may think he was selfish and think that he couldn't truly love Karsyn if he was thinking these thoughts, but he knew enough about depression and violation to know that he was not equipped with the knowledge to navigate it. Karsyn was drowning and he could not be the one to pull her out of the deep end.
He remembered a time where he would have done everything in his power to save her, but those times were gone now. Jenny was what had kept them together. Now that he thought about it, most of their relationship had been about forgetting the past and going on as if Karsyn still didn't have nightmares and Shalom still didn't sneak away at night to sleep on the couch when her nightmares slunk into his dreams.
Shalom groaned in frustration as memory after memory of his time with Karsyn and Jenny bombarded his brain.
Karsyn smiled as she carefully iced the cake in front of her. The frosting was light pink with streaks of blue. It was a pretty colour and he could not stop watching as she skilfully moved her hands until a neat circle of creamy peaks formed. His Tavaryš , his heart, his mate. She was his and nothing could come between them. He couldn't stop staring and he was sure that she was probably going to be creeped out. He knew that she had gone through a lot, more than ne could have ever imagined. The streak of blinding rage that went through him wasn't something knew. When Karsyn was done she looked up at him with shyness that he was also used to and her lips moved, forming words that sounded familiar but he couldn't understand them because he was transfixed by her eyes, her face, hell her entire body.
A crash sounded breaking him out of the trance, "I'm sorry, but what?"
Karsyn chuckled as she bent down and picked up the fallen spoon, "I asked, 'when will Kyan be home?' It's his birthday today and I thought I would bake him a cake." She said, gesturing at the said cake.
Shalom winced. Kyan hated birthdays. He thought that they were just a reminder of him growing older and it wasn't something that he wanted to be reminded of. No matter that he was barely eighteen.
"What? Why are you making that face? Does he not like cake?" Karsyn asked, her hands fluttering nervously.
"He loves cake, but he hates celebrating his birthday." Shalom explained.
"Oh. That's weird."
Shalom laughed in surprise, "Yes, it is weird."
"Oh well, he can just enjoy the cake." Her hands grabbed a knife and she cut the cake in even pieces. As she pulled the knife back, the blade nicked her wrist and blood dripped down and splashed onto the table. Shalom hissed and quickly wetted a towel at the sink before lifting her arm and cleaning the blood that was still sluggishly dripping with blood.
"It doesn't look too deep. Just a graze," Shalom said with relief.
Karsyn just nodded as she stared at the white towel, slowly turning red with the blood. It was in that moment that Shalom knew that something wasn't right. Something would always be wrong.
The anger Shalom always felt when he thought of Karsyn's blank expression as she bled would always stay with him. The realisation that he might not be enough to drive her demons away came much later.