Chapter 25 #3
I pressed her hand harder against my face, holding it there like a lifeline, then lifted my head just enough to meet her eyes, my own swimming in a shame so profound it felt like drowning.
“I am so sorry, Alessia. I am so, so sorry. You… you did so much for me. You fought for me. And I was too blind, too stupid to even see it. I ruined it. I ruined us. I am so sorry.”
My strength gave out. My head fell back into the sanctuary of her lap, my body wracked with silent, shuddering tremors.
But I didn’t let go of her hand. I held it like it was the only thing keeping me from dissolving into the floor, the last tether to the world I had set on fire and was now begging, from my knees, for permission to rebuild.
Her other hand came up, her fingers gently combing through my hair. She held me while I shattered, her touch a silent permission to fall apart. Time lost meaning. There was only the quiet rhythm of her breathing, the soothing stroke of her hand, and the tempest of regret shaking my frame.
After a long while, her voice came, soft but firm. “Cassian. Get up.”
I shook my head, my forehead pressing against her thigh. I couldn’t face the world yet. Not when this small, sheltered space felt like the only honest place left.
“Cassian.”
Reluctantly, I raised my head. My face was wet, my vision blurred. She studied me, her gaze tracing the tear tracks, the raw redness in my eyes. The raw anguish I couldn’t hide.
“You don’t need to apologize to me,” she said gently. “It’s not me you need to say it to. It doesn’t matter—”
“It does matter.” I stopped her before she could finish, my reply rough and unwavering.
I brought her hand to my lips and pressed a desperate kiss to her palm.
“It matters because you’re the same person, Alessia.
You are the woman who loved me more than I deserved, who planned adventures to make me smile, who fought for my company in a room full of strangers.
And you’re also the woman sitting here now, who doesn’t remember any of it, and has every right not to give a damn about me.
” My thumb stroked over the spot my lips had touched.
“You are both. And I failed both of you.”
I locked my eyes with hers, needing her to see the absolute certainty in mine.
“Alessia, I’m also so, so sorry. For everything I did after you woke up.
I was… lost. Scared. I just kept making everything harder for you.
I should have been your partner, your safe place.
Instead, I was another obstacle. Another problem to solve.
Accusing you of faking amnesia… refusing to sign the papers…
it was all so selfish. I was only thinking about my own guilt, my own loss.
I wasn’t thinking about you. What you needed. The peace you deserved.”
A fresh tear traced a path through the old ones. “I’m not saying this to earn points. You don’t have to forgive me, Alessia. I don’t expect you to. I just… I need you to know, because it’s true. And I am so deeply, wretchedly sorry. You deserved so much better than what you got from me.”
But I don’t know how to let you go.
My hand tightened around hers, trying to convey through touch what words couldn’t—that this wasn’t a strategy. It was just a man, hollowed out by his own failures, kneeling before his wife.
She held my gaze for a long moment, then looked away, drawing a slow, steadying breath. When her eyes met mine again, they were clear and resolved. “Get up.”
I don’t want to let you go.
She read the reluctance in my posture and shook her head, a faint, exasperated gesture. Then, to my horror, she began to lower herself, as if to sit on the floor with me.
“No,” I said, the word sharp with concern. I released her hand and caught her by the arms instead, hauling myself upright as I pulled her with me. “You’re staying off the floor, Alessia. You were sick just last night.”
We stood facing each other. She didn’t speak for a long moment. She just looked at me, her eyes scanning my face with an intensity that felt like… anger?
Why is she mad at me?
A cold dread seeped in. Shit. Did I make the apology about me again? Was my breakdown just another form of selfishness?
Her jaw tightened as her eyes scanned my face. “You look miserable.”
My body deflated further, the last of my energy leaving in a rush. “I feel miserable.”
She gave a slight, almost imperceptible shake of her head. “I don’t… know what words to use to comfort you.”
“You never needed them,” I said softly, the truth slipping out.
“What did I do then?”
“You smiled at me.”
Her eyebrows arched, a flicker of her old, dry humor breaking through. “Are you asking a woman to smile for you, Cassian?”
An involuntary, real smile broke through my devastation, surprising us both.
“Is this how you flirt?” she continued, a faint, playful challenge in her voice. “You give people orders? Be honest, you haven’t been in many relationships, have you?”
I shook my head, the smile still clinging to my lips. “No.”
She nodded slowly, a corner of her mouth twitching. “I can tell.” A small, real smile fought its way to the surface before she consciously banked it, wresting her expression back to neutrality. She took a half-step back. “Sit down.”
I opened my mouth to ask why.
She leveled a glare at me that was so familiarly, terrifyingly Alessia that my question died unspoken.
I sat.
She rounded the counter, ladled another bowl of soup from the pot, and set it firmly in front of me. Then she picked up the water bottle, filled a second glass and placed it pointedly beside my bowl.
“You’re drinking this too,” she said, gesturing at the glass with a grimace, “I’m not suffering through it alone.”
She took the stool beside me, scowled at the glass as if it were a personal nemesis, then bravely took a sip. And we ate.
Together.
After, I cleaned the dishes. I’d already stocked her fridge with easy, digestible food and left extra medicine in her bedside drawer, just in case.
We stood by her front door, my bag in my hand, the familiar weight of leaving pressing down.
Her hand rested on the door handle. She looked at the floor, then up at me. “Thank you. For taking care of me last night. You didn’t have to.”
The gratitude, so formal and distant, made my heart ache. “You don’t ever need to thank me for that, Alessia. You were sick. Where else would I have been?”
She fell silent, letting my reassurance sink in.
I took a steadying breath, needing her to understand the core of it. “Your well-being… it’s the most important thing to me. I know you might not believe it. But please… believe that.”
Her eyes searched mine, looking for the lie, the angle, the hidden play. She found none. Then, almost reluctantly, she whispered, each syllable dragged up from some deep, guarded place so softly I nearly missed it.
“Maybe… you weren’t as bad of a husband as I thought you were.”
The words hit me like a sunbeam breaking through a long winter. A grin broke across my face, wide and unguarded, the pure, radiant joy of a reprieve I hadn’t dared to hope for.
Slowly, telegraphing my every move, I leaned in. I cupped her face in my hand, my thumb stroking her cool cheek. She stiffened for a heartbeat, then, almost imperceptibly, relaxed into the touch. I pressed my lips to her forehead in a long, lingering kiss.
I pulled back just enough to stare into her eyes, my own probably shining with a foolish, undeniable hope. “You look beautiful.”
I love you.
With every fiber of my being screaming to stay, I forced myself to step back. I gave her a final, small smile, picked up my bag, and walked out into the hallway.
The door clicked shut behind me.
Maybe you weren’t as bad as I thought.
It wasn’t forgiveness. It wasn’t a second chance. It was a crack of light in a door I thought was sealed forever. And for now, that was more than I had dared to hope for.