Underwater: The Silent Luna novel Chapter 220

Chapter 220

“We will be allocated a pack tomorrow. Meanwhile, I am going to town to get some supplies. I might be late, so don’t wait up for mé,” he said, dressing up.

Cynthia nodded, indicating it was okay. She did not ask questions because asking too much when Sebastien was like this could reopen his anger. Still, her mind took note of everything. Allocated a pack tomorrow. Supplies. Late. Don’t wait up. There was always something beneath what men said.

“Do you want anything?” he asked her.

She shook her head.

He seemed to think she was still angry about the slap. Maybe she was. Maybe she was not. Anger and fear had mixed too much

inside her for her to name one feeling cleanly. He went close to her, sat beside her, then turned her to face him and kissed her

forehead.

The gesture hurt more than it comforted.

She wanted him to kiss her on the lips, but he did not. That was another thing he had never done since she tried to date his brother.

He never kissed her lips again. He could touch her body. He could take comfort from her. He could use her heat and her closeness

and still deny her that one softness. That one sign that he still saw her as someone worth loving.

She missed it.

There were days she would try to kiss him properly, hoping he would forget, hoping old feeling would return, hoping desire would

push past resentment. But he always stopped her. He had built a wall around himself because of her actions, and nothing she did

seemed to break through it. Cynthia hated him for it. She hated herself more.

Sebastien got up and left.

He was actually going to spy on some people, but he was not allowed to tell anyone, so he told her what he said. Cynthia did not

know that. She only knew the door closed behind him and the room became quiet again.

For a while, she sat there without moving. Then she got up and went to the bathroom. She entered the shower and turned the water

on hard. The moment it struck her skin, something inside her cracked. She began scrubbing her skin, hard and desperate, as if she

could remove the feeling of his hands, his anger, his words, the way he had looked at her like she was less than a woman he once

loved.

She was trying to wash off the whore treatment.

She always felt dirty when Sebastien treated her like that. However good the release might feel in the moment, however strong the

old chemistry between them remained, she hated being treated like a whore. She hated the powerlessness. She hated the way her

body could respond to a man her pride wanted to despise. She hated that afterwards she still felt hollow, like he had taken

something from her that pleasure could not return.

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Chapter 220

She scrubbed her skin under the shower until it was red and raw. The pain helped. It gave her something simple to focus on. When she finally exited the bathroom, she stood in front of the mirror and looked at herself. Her cheek still held the memory of his slap. Her eyes were a little swollen. Her throat looked tender. But she lifted her chin and forced herself to stare straight into the

reflection.

She would not remain like this.

She repeated some of her self-made mantras under her breath. Words she had built over the years to keep herself from breaking. Words about power. About beauty. About not being finished. About men only having as much control as she allowed them to believe they had. Some of the words felt false tonight, but she said them anyway. Sometimes confidence was not real at first. Sometimes it

was a mask worn long enough to become skin.

Then she returned to the room.

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12:31 Wed, Jun 17

Underwater: The Silent Luna