CLAIRE
We watched the rest of the opera with our hands clasped together in the darkness, and somehow it felt more intimate than anything we'd shared before.
This wasn't strategy, this wasn't partnership, this was something else entirely. When the final notes faded and the audience erupted in applause, I felt tears on my cheeks.
I hadn't even realized I was crying. Julian noticed and gently wiped a tear away with his thumb. "Beautiful things make you cry?" he asked softly.
"Apparently," I said, laughing slightly through the tears.
"Good," Julian said. "It means you're feeling again. Really feeling, not just surviving."
He was right, for so long I'd been in survival mode, just getting through each day, focusing on revenge and rebuilding, but tonight, I'd felt something pure and uncomp
