Page 58 of Say You'll Stay
“I know I fucked up,” I whisper, hoarse and cracking. “I know I’ve lost myself. But Cara, my love for you, it’s the one thing that’s real. The one thing that’s kept me breathing.”
She shakes her head, a fractured denial. Her eyes, once so warm and bright, now shutter, closing me out.
“I want to believe you,” she says, a dead, hollow note in her voice. “I want to believe that this isn’t who you are. That the June I fell in love with is still in there somewhere.”
She draws a shuddering breath, steeling herself. Then, devastating in its quiet resignation, “But I don’t know if I can ever trust you again. Not after this.”
Striding over to the bed, I sink to my knees before her, a penitent at the altar of her judgment. Grasping her hands in mine, I press fervent kisses to her knuckles, each one a wordless vow.
“I’m yours, Cara Mia,” I breathe against her skin. “Mind, body, and soul. To cherish, to worship, to serve…for as long as you’ll have me. And even if you cast me out, even if you never want to see my face again…I will love you until my dying breath.”
Pulling her hands from my grasp, Cara gasps, a choked, broken sound.
“I think you should go,” she whispers, each word a razored edge. “I can’t…I can’t do this.”
I stand, every muscle screaming in protest. The urge to fight, to fall to my knees and beg, surges through me. But I tamp it down, the last scrap of clarity telling me to respect her wishes. To grant her this, even as it rips me to shreds.
“I’ll go,” I manage, voice a mangled wreck. “But Cara, this isn’t over. I won’t give up on us. On you.”
A ghost of a smile flits across her lips, there and gone. “I know you won’t.” A whispered confession, an absolution I don’t deserve. “But right now, I have to give up on you. Even if it kills me.”
And with those words, she walks away. The soft click of the bedroom door is a gunshot, a shattering.
I stand amidst the ruins of our love, the cameras a damning jury at my feet. The weight of my sins presses down, threatening to drive me to my knees.
I will make this right. I will claw my way out of this abyss, drag myself through the flames of purification. I will become a man worthy of her love, her trust, even if it takes a lifetime.
This isn’t the end of our story. It’s the crucible, the trial by fire that will forge me anew.
And when I emerge, tempered and cleansed, I will find my way back to her. Back to the light.
No matter the cost.
Chapter twenty-one
The world tilts on its axis, a sickening lurch that sends reality skittering out of focus. I stare at the cameras, neat little soldiers of betrayal lined up on my dresser, and it’s like I’m watching a stranger’s life unravel.
This can’t be real. It can’t be.
But it is. The truth of it crashes over me in relentless, pummeling waves. June, my June, the man I trusted with every fractured piece of my soul…he did this. He violated my privacy, my sanctuary, in the most ruthless way imaginable.
Bile rises in my throat, hot and acrid. I swallow it down, but the taste lingers, a tangible manifestation of the revulsion churning in my gut. My skin crawls with phantom sensations, the prickling awareness of unseen eyes tracking my every move.
How long? How fucking long has he been watching me, a voyeur in my most intimate moments? The thought sends a shudder rippling through me, a full-body revulsion I feel in my marrow.
“Cara…”
June’s voice reaches me as if from a great distance, muffled and distorted by the roaring in my ears. I flinch away from his outstretched hand, a visceral recoil I can’t control. He lets it drop back to his side, a broken puppet with cut strings.
“Don’t.” The word cracks like a whip, harsher than I intend. “Don’t you fucking touch me.”
Hurt flashes across his face, quickly replaced by a resigned sort of anguish. “I’m sorry, Cara. God, I’m so sorry. I never meant for you to find out like this, I never meant to hurt you—”
A jagged laugh rips from my throat, a sound more akin to a sob. “Hurt me? June, you shattered me. You took the trust I placed in you and ground it to dust under your heel.”
My voice splinters, tears blurring my vision. I blink them away furiously, refusing to grant him the satisfaction of seeing me crumble. But inside, in the secret, shadowed corners of my heart, I’m bleeding out.
Because even now, even in the face of this unforgivable betrayal…a traitorous part of me yearns for him. For the comfort of his arms, the steadiness of his presence. It’s a sickness, this love, an addiction I can’t seem to shake no matter how hard I try.