Part I: To love and to cherish
"Perhaps, what she hated most about that mirror was its unpredictability. After she had shattered it for the first time, she thought she must surely have got rid of it forever. Yet, to her horror, a few days later it loomed into her sight again. She could never be sure where and when it would catch her. She would round a corner, unsuspectingly, and suddenly there it was, slamming its horrid images into her face. Once, in a courage born of despair, she had overcome her aversion to touch it: she had wrapped it into a blanket and carried it down the stairs into a stone-walled cellar room which she had locked with two different locks. They could not keep it in. The next evening, half-hoping, half-fearing, she had espied it again in the corner of her own room. It was of no use to cover it, either. She had tried that again and again. Whatever you used – blankets, shawls, clothes, even leather cloaks – the images burned through it, turning the cover itself into merciless, transparent glass.
It appeared of its own volition, and it showed things of its own volition. Sometimes it showed her the present in a way she did not want to see. Sometimes the future in a way she feared it would be. But most of all she hated it when it showed her the past, the things that had happened. If she let it, it would always sooner or later end up showing her herself. She did not know who she was in reality, and people would tell her things different from the mirror, but she knew that she could not bear the way the mirror showed her herself. It was perfectly disgusting, and she simply could not endure it.
The only way she knew how to deal with this was to smash the mirror. To smash it with her hands, its shattering, shattered fragments cutting deep into her fists and arms, her own blood covering the merciless glass, blotting out its horrible reflection. She had found out that this worked, at least for a time. It gave her power over the mirror, control. She could cloud it, block it into red oblivion. Even a mirror as horrible, as unpredictable, as invincible as this needed time to rebuild itself, as much time as it took her body to close the wounds into scars…"
Boromir dropped the sheet of paper, looked up and sighed. Had she intended him to find this story, or whatever it was? Had she wanted him to read it? She had left the house to go shopping, and when he entered her room, to breathe her scent still lingering there and place some flowers from the garden on her desk, these sheets of paper had been lying there, crumpled, like fallen leaves blown to him by the wind. Now he was trying to rake them together, to get to know the tree from which they had been shed.
"The things that had happened." Though they had never talked about it, he knew what she meant. He had known it ever since he had tried to touch her in places where she didn't want to be touched, foolishly even tried to suggest to her to reciprocate that touch. He had realized it then, from the way she stiffened and the blank look of horror that had entered her eyes: an expression that clanked down a shutter between them, yet at the same time, for a split second before that shutter fell, let him glimpse into an abyss of pain. That pain had entered his heart, was burning there in helpless lava tears, seething in red-hot rage against the unknown abuser. That pain welled up now, as he reflected on her text.
"Hello, I'm back." She stood in the door, eyes downcast, nervously twisting her fingers, embarrassed, insecure. He went to her, silent, took her hands and kissed her fingers, every single one. His eyes and hands softly caressed her arms, and he bent his head to kiss the faded scars, traces of bygone pain, witnesses of her fragile, vulnerable soul, faint silver markings that, if anything, made her only more beautiful to him. He silently prayed that he never had been the cause of any of these, nor ever would be.
Tears welled in her eyes, and she leaned against him. At that moment, she was a small, wounded child, huddling into a corner in fright and rolling up into a little ball. Her eyes were raindrops on small, broken petals, two round, unshed tears of broken trust.
There and then, as he held them with his gaze, Boromir vowed to himself what had been in his heart all along: Never would he knowingly violate her in any way, physically or mentally, never force anything upon her that she did not accept willingly, never press her to give what she did not choose to give on her own. Silently and ruefully, he did penance for any instance where he had done that unwittingly, where it must have seemed like that to her. Whenever he would be tempted to feel bitter at the thought of missing out on something, he would only have to recall her look, just now, and his heart would melt in tenderness. He would wait as long as it took, and if it took forever – well, then it took forever.
Their love was so rich, so pure, so beautiful. Never would he want to endanger it, to drag it down. Just to feel the softness of her skin against his, or smell the fragrance of her hair when they bent together over a book and a few stray strands lightly touched his cheek like feathers – to him these things were wonders that brought tears to his eyes. He had never felt that way about anyone before. Was it the singularity of their relationship, or the way Galathorn had transformed and was still transforming his ability to love?
'Both, I guess,' he pondered. 'When you really love, you see that person through different eyes. You see them through the eyes of Ilúvatar. You see their infinite beauty, and you feel like the greatest treasure has been entrusted to you if they look at you with trust in their eyes, if they nestle against your shoulder. If they smile at you, you are the most blessed person on this earth, and you know you are so just for having been granted the privilege of knowing them. You see their infinite worth, and you know they are worth dying for. And you would do it. You would give your life for them if necessary. Not because you do not value your life, but because you have seen them through Galathorn's eyes. Through the eyes of Love.'
'To love and to cherish.' Never before had he really understood those words. Even now he had just started to glimpse the vast infinity behind them. Nothing on earth was more blessed than to love. Boromir closed his eyes. "Thank you," he whispered. Then, "I love you," he said.