Repentance

003 . . . . the gard

───────────────────

CHAPTER THREE:

❝ The Gard ❞

Esme, still in a daze, did not realize when they reached back to her room. When she came to, she found Nico staring at her with concern, lines on his forehead. She blinked and took a cautionary step back. He frowned. Esme's hands reached to cover her scars. Nico turned his back on her, busying himself with the wardrobe at the corner of the room. 

A few moments of quietness lingered over them before Nico asked, "How did you get those scars?" His voice was quiet, timid. Not at all the same as when he was telling Aline off. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

He glanced over his shoulder and caught Esme's eyes. Esme stared back as he approached slowly, a stack of clothes in his hands. She let her hands drop from the scars and gazed towards the floor. Her shoes scratched against it. "My dad did it." It felt shockingly real, to admit it out loud. No one except for her mother, Simon and Clary knew about it, and her two friends had guessed.

She had never admitted it aloud to anyone before. There was a sound, a muffled thump and Nico tossed the towels in his hands on the bed. He took a step closer. Then another. And another. Until he was standing face-to-face with her. Then he reached to take her hand and held her bare hand in his, his fingers curved around hers. His hand was warm and calloused, and his touch made her shiver. The pad of his thumb was rough as he brushed under the corner of her eye, catching a stray tear. Esme didn't realize she was crying. But she felt like it. Something immensely heavy was stuck in her throat, making it hard to breathe. "Every time people said I was pretty," she admitted quietly, choking on her sobs, "I thought of everything ugly beneath my clothes."

Nico folded Esme into a hug, his hands traveling up to cradle the back of her head; the other one, the length of her back, resting beside her spine. He felt her hands fisting his shirt desperately as sobs raked through her body.

She wasn't crying only because of her father. Of course, he was a big part of it. But everything that happened in the last two months. Everything that happened since she started to understand people. Simon dying, then dying again. Her mother. Clary. Nico. Jace. Izzy. Alec. Nico. Nico. Nico. Her mind filled with him. Everyone has their own version of a memory, and all her memories of him were tinged with fear. She would never feel safe, not when her father was still out there. She could not do this to him. She was unlovable, she wasn't molded right. She could not touch him the way she wanted to. Could not think of him that way. Could not damn him to the fate of being loved by her. He was so beautiful. 

This is going to hurt, this is going to hurt —

She separated from him suddenly, the chill leaving a hollow feeling. He looked at her with thinly masked confusion. "I can't -- " she was shaking her head, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I can't do this to you."

Nico looked surprised, but when he spoke it didn't show in his voice. "Do what?" He was looking at her very carefully. "What are we doing, Esme?"

"Nothing," her answer came too fast, words mushing into a mumble from the speed. "We aren't doing anything."

Their eyes met. Esme felt a prickle at the back of her neck. The space between them felt very charged, like the moment between lightning and thunder, and Esme had no idea what was going on or what would happen next, only that it all felt very strange and terrifying, like teetering on the edge of a windy, roaring cliff.