55. Theo Fairview #2
“And what does your therapist say about the voice in your head?” I asked incredulously.
Cass rocked her head from side to side, biting her lip.
“She says it’s likely a defense mechanism I developed as a child.
When I was a little girl, I spent a lot of time alone, locked in that basement.
I’m the oldest, so before Cal was born, it was just me and the darkness.
I think my monster started out as an imaginary friend.
It was something to keep me company. Something I could vent all my pain, rage, and frustrations to. It felt real… It still feels real.”
My heart clenched in my chest, and suddenly I felt like a whiney little bitch for being so fucked up over what had happened to me as a child.
What Samwell had done to me was nothing compared to what Cass had lived through.
“The day Cal and I broke out… my mother attacked him. I was just… standing there, watching her strangle him to death. It was like I was frozen…”
Cass got this glassy, faraway look in her eyes, like she was seeing the events of that horrible day play out before her in real time.
“My mother was this massive force in my life. She’d always felt invincible. If she’d decided she was going to kill my brother, I didn’t think there was anything I could do to stop her… So I…” She closed her eyes, and a fine tremor rolled through her, and I felt my breath catch.
I reached out and took her hand in mine.
She jumped slightly at the contact, looking at me like she was surprised I was still here, and my heart broke for her.
“So you asked your monster to kill her for you,” I murmured, and Cass nodded.
“Yeah.”
“Jesus.”
She gave me a sad smile. “Yeah. Well… it worked. My monster took over, and it helped me do what I couldn’t do on my own. With its help, I was able to grab that knife and slit my mother’s throat. If I hadn’t done that, Cal would be dead. Maybe Naomi, too. Gnomes was in a bad way that day.”
I’d never seen Cassandra look so vulnerable before, and it horrified me.
Cass… The bad ass defense attorney that had clawed her way out of literal hell with nothing but sheer will and fury… was sitting here exposed. It was suddenly clear to me that beneath all her iron-tight armor, that little girl who’d deserved to be loved was still in there.
That little girl whose mother had locked her in a basement to rot.
Pain and rage twisted in my gut at the unfairness of it all, and I reached out to tentatively brush my knuckles against her soft cheek.
She turned wide, haunted eyes on me, and suddenly, all I wanted to do was tuck her away somewhere safe and take care of her for once.
“You did the right thing, Cass. You did what you had to do to survive.”
She nodded, though there was a darkness in her eyes that I didn’t like.
“Well, my monster seemed to develop a taste for violence after that. There hasn’t been a day since that it hasn’t urged me to kill again.
I’ve spent years in therapy learning how to keep it in this sort of…
mental cage. As long as it’s in the cage, it’s just a voice in my head.
But if it ever gets out, I’m scared of what it might make me do. ”
This is why she told me she was afraid she might kill me.
This is why she sometimes said ‘we’ instead of ‘I’.
“So you see, Theo, there’s nothing you can tell me that’s going to make me think you’re more fucked up than I am.”
She gave me a tentative smile, and I squeezed her fingers in mine.
“I don’t think you’re fucked up, Cassandra,” I rasped, and her wide, chocolate eyes looked disturbingly glassy. I’d never seen Cass ever come close to crying, but for a split second, I thought she might.
The moment was gone in a flash. She blinked twice, and suddenly, the vulnerability was gone and replaced with that lethal smirk of hers that I’d seen her use in the courtroom on TV right before she was about to eat her competition alive.
“Theodora. I just told you I have a homicidal voice in my head that’s as real to me as you are. If you don’t think that makes me fucked up, then I don’t see how anything you can tell me about yourself will even rank on the universal scale of fuckedupery.”
“Fuckedupery is definitely not a word.”
“It’s a word if I say it is.”
I huffed a laugh and rolled my eyes. She smiled at me, and to my surprise, she curled her knees up onto the couch and crawled over me.
Tugging the blanket out of my hands, she slipped under it and snuggled next to me on the couch.
“Cass?”
She plucked the sleeve of my t-shirt and gave me a pouty look.
“Let me in my nook,” she ordered, and I nodded dumbly, lifting my arm so she could tuck herself carefully against my side.
She rested her head on my shoulder and slung her leg over mine under the blanket. Turning her gorgeous face up to look at me with those soft brown eyes of hers, she melted into me… And I couldn’t help but marvel at how perfectly our bodies fit together.
Like two pieces of an unlikely puzzle, having her wrapped around me like this felt like I was finally complete.
She let out a happy little sigh and literally wiggled to fit herself more snuggly against the line of my body, before brushing her lips against the underside of my jaw.
“I just want to help you, baby,” she hummed. Reflexively, I curled her warm body into mine and found myself dropping soft kisses on the top of her head.
Her brown sugar and vanilla scent flooded my nose, and the feel of her curled up in my arms like this was a soothing balm.
She melted away the tight ball of anxiety in my chest better than any prescription drug ever could.
Safe.
She felt safe.
“Let me help you. Tell me what’s hurting you. Tell me why you keep self-destructing on me.”
The thought of telling her was both tempting and terrifying.
If my abuser wasn’t her literal client, I would have had a much easier time with this. She might have actually been the first person I ever really told…
But…
What if she picks her career over you? What if she picks him?
“It’s… complicated.”
“I’m a lawyer, Theo. I thrive on complicated.”
She kissed my throat gently and squeezed me tighter, nuzzling her adorable little button nose into the sensitive spot under my ear, inhaling my scent.
I wanted to tell her.
Maybe I could tell her some version of the truth.
Maybe I could tell her something had happened to me without telling her who it was?
She didn’t need to know that Father Samwell was the reverend.
Then at least she would understand why I was the way I was.
Maybe it would make it easier for her the next time I flew off the rails…
Maybe… Maybe it would make it easier for me if I weren’t the only one holding onto the dark, heavy secret…
“Okay…” I croaked, snuggling her as close to me as possible.
I could feel her heart beating against my chest, and it was so steady and strong.
I could do this.
I could tell her.
I swallowed.
“I… I’ve never told anyone this before. It’s really hard for me to talk about. I might… I might react badly.”
I peeked down at her, and she was watching me with the most open, understanding look on her face.
“I’m right here. I’ll hold you the whole time. I’m not going to judge you, Theodora. I’m going to take care of you. Always.”
Shifting to my side slightly so our noses were almost touching, I tried to ignore the way my heart was slamming against my ribs as if it were trying to beat a hole through my chest.
I’m going to take care of you.
Always.
Always.
Always.
…Why did I believe her?
“Alright. But if I tell you this, you have to promise not to ask me to go after him or something. I don’t want to pursue any sort of legal action. You have to promise to respect that.”
Cass pursed her lips, and the darkness in her eyes told me she didn’t like my condition, but to my relief, she gave me a slow nod.
“I promise I won’t ask you to take legal action. Not unless you want me to.”
“Thank you,” I breathed.
And then, for the first time in my life, I trusted someone with the secret that had been trying to kill me since I was eleven years old.