Page 137 of Cruel Deception
My apartment has become something between a grave and a confession booth. The walls scream in thick strokes of black paint:
SHE LEFT ME.
It’s smeared across the bathroom mirror.
Scratched into the wood of my desk.
Burned into the leather of my car seat.
Every surface echoes the same truth:
SHE LEFT ME.
Like if I write it enough, maybe I’ll believe it. Maybe I’ll feel it less. Maybe it’ll stop echoing in my chest every fucking second.
I haven’t shaved in weeks.
My shirt’s the same one I wore four nights ago. The collar is stained with sweat, the buttons misaligned, the fabric smelling like whiskey and regret. I haven’t been sober since the thirteenth day. I used to hate the taste—now I chase it like it’s oxygen.
And in the corner, lit by nothing but flickering candlelight, is the statue.
Marble. Life-sized.
Her.
Charlotte.
I forced the sculptors to finish it in less than three days. Threatened to destroy their hands if they didn’t get every detail right—the curve of her lips, the slight tension in her brow, the vulnerability she tried to hide. I needed her frozen like this. I needed something permanent to stare at, to whisper to, to beg.
I stumble toward her now. The chipped glass in my hand sloshes amber against my fingers as I fall to my knees before her feet.
“I can’t breathe without you,” I say, voice raw, like sandpaper on an open wound. “I—I loved you so much I don’t even know who I was before you.”
The words fall out in broken syllables. My hand slaps against the marble base. Again. And again.
“Come back. Come back. Come back.”
Each echo is softer than the last.
Time warps. Maybe it’s minutes. Maybe hours. The bottle drains beside me. My eyes blur. I press my forehead to her cold, perfect knees and sob in silence.
The marble doesn’t move.
Of course it doesn’t.
But I kneel before her anyway—before her—because it’s all I have left.
The floor is cold. My knees ache from how long I’ve been here. But I don’t care. I deserve it. I deserve worse.
I clutch the base of the statue like it might breathe, like it might soften, like Charlotte might step down and place her hands on my cheeks like she used to—when I wasn’t yet a monster to her.
My voice shakes as I speak, breath clouding the stone. “I hurt you,” I whisper. “God, I hurt you. Again and again.”
My head drops. My forehead presses against the base. “And I regret every single second of it. Every word I used to cut you. Every chain I wrapped around you. Every scar I mocked when I should have knelt and kissed them. I was fucking cruel. You looked at me with love, and I gave you pain.”
I reach up and touch her frozen fingertips. “But I never stopped loving you. Not for a moment. Even when I was angry. Even when I was punishing you for sins you didn’t commit. It was always you, Charlotte. Always you. From the bar. From that kiss. From the second you walked into my goddamned life and ruined every plan I had for revenge.”
My chest burns. My throat tightens. “Please...” I beg. “Please forgive me. For all of it. For everything.”
