Chapter 36
Déjà vu
That was the first thought that surfaced as I blinked awake. White ceiling. Fluorescent light. The thin, sterile smell of sheets that weren’t mine. A hospital bed. Again.
I turned my head slowly toward the window. Dark outside. A sliver of moon. Let’s hope it was the same day, just night. Not years gone. Not again.
My hand was warm. I looked down.
Cassian was sitting on a stool beside the bed, his head resting on the mattress, his fingers wrapped around mine. His shoulders rose and fell with the slow rhythm of sleep.
I stared at him. At the curve of his shoulder, the line of his jaw, the way his hand held mine even in sleep.
I forgot him. I forgot him.
I had been so angry that night. So hurt. I had wished he was a stranger. I had wished I had never met him, never married him, never loved him. I had wished it so hard I had made it true.
I never actually wanted it.
I didn’t want to forget him. I wanted to stop hurting. I wanted to be free of the ache he’d left in my chest.
I never wanted to erase him from my bones.
My throat was dry. I tried to move, to reach for the water on the table, my limbs heavy. I barely shifted before Cassian’s head snapped up. His eyes were wide, disoriented, still caught somewhere between sleep and waking. Then they found my face, and he was on his feet.
“I’ll get the doctor.”
“No.” My voice came out rough. “Just pass me the water.”
He stopped. Turned back. His hands were careful as he helped me sit up, as he held the bottle to my lips, as his fingers combed through my hair in slow, unconscious strokes. I drank. He waited. When I was done, he set the bottle down and looked at me.
And froze.
I didn’t say anything. I let my eyes do the work. I watched him read them. Watched the confusion clear, watched the dawning understanding, watched the disbelief that followed.
His face crumpled. A furrow formed between his brows, then smoothed, then formed again, like his face couldn’t decide what to feel first. His eyes filled.
“You—” His voice broke. He leaned forward, perched on the edge of the bed, his hands coming up to frame my face. His palms were warm, trembling slightly, pressing against my cheeks like he needed to feel the shape of me to be sure.
“You remember.” His voice was barely a whisper, cracking in the middle.
I nodded.
A breath left him—long, shuddering, like he’d been holding it for months.
His forehead dropped to mine. His hands slid down my arms, gripping my elbows, my wrists, my hands, like he needed to touch all of me to believe it was real.
Then his arms were around me, pulling me into him, and he was kissing my forehead, my eyes, my cheeks, my jaw. Every inch of my face.
“You walked away from me.”
He froze.
His hands stopped. His lips stopped. His whole body went still against mine. He leaned back just enough to see my face.
My eyes found his. The words came out before I could stop them, raw and honest and still bleeding. “That night. After you said your piece, you just left. In the middle of the conversation. You walked away.”
A pained look crossed his face, the memory of it surfacing behind his eyes. His hands came up, framing my face, his thumbs brushing the tears I hadn’t realized were falling. “I know. I’m so sorry.”
“Stop saying sorry.”
He nodded, swallowing. “Okay.”
“You said—” My voice caught. I forced it out. “You said the words ‘your little party.’ Like it was nothing. Like I was nothing. Like everything I did was just—”
His forehead landed on mine, his breath uneven. “I know.”
My hands gripped the front of his shirt.
“You can’t do that, Cassian.” My voice shook.
“You can’t dismiss me like that. You can’t ignore me.
You can’t—” A tear slipped down my face.
“It hurt me. It hurt me so much. I spent months planning that party. And you looked at me like I was nothing. Like I was in your way.”
His jaw was tight. I could feel him trembling against me.
“If you’re tired, tell me. If you’re stressed, tell me. But don’t talk to me in that tone. Don’t make me feel like I’m invisible. Don’t make me feel like everything I do for you doesn’t matter.”
He kissed my forehead, my temple, the corner of my eye where tears kept spilling.
“I won’t. I won’t ever do that again. I’m sorry I hurt you.
I’m sorry for everything that happened that night.
I’m sorry for the months before it. I’m sorry for every time I made you feel small, invisible, like you weren’t the only thing that mattered.
” His voice wavered. “I won’t do it ever again. I swear.”
My hands slid to the back of his neck, holding him close. “I shouldn’t have asked you that question that night.” My voice was barely a whisper. “I knew it was hard for you. I knew there was some reason. And I still—”
He pulled back, his eyes sharp. “Alessia, no.” His hands tightened on my face.
“Don’t. You should have asked. You had every right to ask me that.
Every right. It was my failure that I made you doubt it.
That I made you feel like you had to ask at all.
That I couldn’t just—” His voice cracked.
“That I couldn’t just tell you. When you needed to hear it most.”
His voice dropped, rough. “I will be better, Alessia. I will be better. I swear to you. I will spend every day making sure you never have to ask that again. Trust me.”
My hand slid into his hair. “I trust you. I do trust you.”
A breath left him, something that sounded like relief and fear and hope all tangled together. “You don’t doubt it anymore, though, right?” His eyes were nervous, flickering between mine, looking for something he was afraid he wouldn’t find. “You don’t doubt that I—I—”
His throat worked. The word wouldn’t come. It was there, I could see it, pressing against his lips, catching in his chest. He wanted to say it. He wanted to give me that.
“I know.” I nodded, my thumb stroking his cheekbone. “I know, Cassian. It’s fine. You don’t have to say it.”
He looked at me, frustrated at himself. “But I want to say it. I want you to hear it.” He pressed his forehead to mine, his voice breaking. “Please. Just give me some time. I’m trying. I’m trying so hard.”
I stroked his face, feeling the warmth of his skin, the slight tremor in his jaw. “Okay. Take your time. Take all the time you need.”
He took a shaky breath. Opened his mouth. Closed it. His jaw tightened, then relaxed, then tightened again.
“I—” He swallowed. The word scraped out of him. “I l—”
His face crumpled, and I saw it—the frustration, the disappointment, the years of this word being trapped behind a wall he didn’t know how to break down.
“Why is this so hard?” His voice cracked. “It shouldn’t be this hard.”
My hand went to his chest, pressing flat against his heart. I could feel it hammering beneath my palm. Racing. Desperate. I rubbed slow circles there, over his shirt, over his ribs, over the place where all his words got stuck.
He let out a breath, long and slow, his eyes closing.
“Two more words, Cassian.” My voice was soft, barely a whisper. “Say it.”
He leaned closer. His lips brushed my cheek, hovered near my ear. “I lo—you.”
My chest tightened. The words were broken, the middle missing, but I heard them. I heard everything he was trying to give me.
“Almost there.” I was barely breathing now.
He kissed my cheek. My jaw. The corner of my mouth.
The spot just below my ear. His head dropped to my neck, his forehead pressing against my pulse.
He was breathing so heavily, his whole body trembling against mine.
I wrapped my arms around him, one hand rubbing slow circles on his back, the other tangled in his hair.
“I don’t know why I struggle,” His voice was muffled against my neck, frustrated, exhausted. “Saying that word. In between the other two. I don’t know why it’s so hard.”
I closed my eyes. I hated it. I hated that those words brought him pain, that something so simple for everyone else was a war for him. I didn’t want him to say it if it hurt this much. I didn’t need him to fight himself like this.
But he wanted to say it. I could feel it in the way his hands gripped my back, the way his breath hitched against my skin. He wanted to give me these words more than he had ever wanted anything.
And I couldn’t take that from him.
He straightened. His eyes were wet, but determination had replaced the frustration in them. Like a man who had been running from something his whole life and had finally decided to stop.
He started slow. Almost whispering. The words were fragments, air shaped into sounds, sounds shaped into meaning. He said them over and over, each time a little louder, each time a little clearer, like he was learning a language he’d been taught to forget.
“I… I…” A breath. “I… you.”
Again. “I… you.”
Again. “I—” A pause. “—you.”
Over and over, the space between the words shrinking, the shape of them becoming clearer. His voice was raw, scraped clean of anything but determination.
“I love you.”
He said it so low I almost missed it. A breath. A whisper. A door opening.
He didn’t seem to notice. He kept saying it again and again, the shape of it becoming clearer, the sound becoming real, until he finally heard himself.
His eyes widened. He looked at me, shocked, like he couldn’t believe what had just come out of his mouth. Like he was waiting for me to tell him it wasn’t real, that he hadn’t really said it, that he was still trapped in the silence he’d been carrying his whole life.
I nodded. Tears streamed down my face. I couldn’t stop them.
A sound left him. A release. A sob. A breath he’d been holding for years. “I love you.” Louder now, like he was testing it, like he was letting it land. His face crumpled again, but this time it wasn’t frustration. It was relief. It was wonder.
“I love you.” He was full-on crying now, his voice breaking, his hands shaking as they held me. “I love you so much, Alessia. I love you.”