Chapter Fifteen
The Dragon
I have cursed my sparrow to a life of sadness.
If she had never known me, then she would never know this pain.
I can see clearly where I’ve gone wrong.
I know she thinks she loves me. But Stockholm syndrome is a very real thing, and I fear that I may have inflicted it on her.
Never have I been more conscious of how much younger she is than when I went to dinner with her friends.
I had nothing to say to any of them. She wanted so badly to bring me into that part of her life, and I will never be able to inhabit it.
Even if I weren’t older, I’m scarred. It’s been too many years of isolation.
It’s been too much time of me curating that isolation.
I’ve let everyone believe that I’m hard-hearted, to the extent that I began to believe it too.
Only Lilith has ever made me feel differently. She is the only one that has ever made me want to find something softer inside myself.
And I know that I have no choice now. I started this. I have to end it.
I know she doesn’t want me making choices for her, but this all began with a choice I made for her. This all began with me forcing her into my life.
With me clipping her wings. I tried to remove the cage. But I can see now that unless I remove myself I can never truly undo the damage that I’ve done.
So I will do what I have to, to let her truly fly.