15. Yara
Chapter 15
Yara
I closed my eyes allowing the memories to flood me. Thankfully, they were beginning to fade, but sometimes in the dead of night, I would wake up in Kazi’s arms sweating and trembling.
“What happened?” The concern coating my dinner companion’s voice was what kept me grounded in the here and now.
“What do you think it takes to be beautiful?” I muttered the words out hoarsely, my gaze flashing up to meet his.
His brow crinkled in unease. “I can’t say I have ever thought about it.” His expression turned wistful, he rolled his lower lip into his mouth, biting it. “Sometimes I don’t think beauty is outward at all. It’s how you choose to be despite everything else.”
I cackled, an unhinged noise that left me on its own accord. “I think you and I both know how shallow this world is. You’re an agent. You know that beauty sells.” My fingers traced a particularly nasty scar up my forearm. “He used to say, ‘Scars can be covered, but your ugliness can’t,’ as he punished me for not being his idea of beauty. As he shackled me to the floor for days. As he withheld food and screamed profanities my way. It never took much to set him off. If I ever even had a single strand of hair out of place.” I reached up patting it down.
“He?” The word left his lips in a harsh grating tone. His face coated in shadows.
“The monster.” I leveled him with my gaze. “Father dearest. ”
The air left him in a whoosh. “Your father? What kind of man? Fuck!”
“He’s dead now, but his impact? It hasn’t faded too much unfortunately.”
He brought a hand up to rub his temple. “Yara, I know this may not mean much coming from a practical stranger, but we make our own beauty. Sure, you are undeniably gorgeous, but it’s more than that. You are vibrant, you have brought life into every moment since we met. But even more importantly? No one else’s opinion matters except your own.”
“But that’s the thing, isn’t it?” I went to reach for my wine, but he caught my hand, holding it in a tight grip, addicting static fire spread through my nerves while I tried to ignore it. “How does one build confidence after years of that? And then when I thought I finally might be okay. That I might finally accept who I was as a person, flaws and all, a particularly nasty man fell into my life.”
Daniel.
I laughed caustically. “In some ways he was even worse. The scars he left behind were just as painful.”
I leaned back against my chair, watching his face the entire time. There wasn’t any pity present, just fury.
“So that’s my story, a twice broken girl trying to figure out her shit one faltering step at a time. And that’s why I’m here.” I squeezed his hand back, ignoring the fluttering of emotions he was causing.
How I somehow felt more seen in his presence than I had in years.
“You’re not broken,” he argued.
I waved a hand in dismissal, but internally, my heart pounded against my ribcage.
“So, James, do you want to tell me your story now? Or do you want to do it after?”
“After,” he practically growled out the word .
“Okay, well first things first. I need to lose my guard .” I didn’t look behind me, I could still feel the holes Kazi was burrowing into the back of my head. “Here’s the plan.”