Page 139 of Cruel Deception
“Did I ever miss therapy?”
“No,” he whispers. “Not once.”
“You promised me I’d heal,” I snarl, voice rising with the wind. “Said I’d learn to forgive myself. Learn to forgive her. You swore therapy would help me separate Charlotte from her mother—help me stop seeing Seraphina in her face every time I looked at her.”
I stagger closer, breathing hard. “So tell me—why did I still chain her like Jade? Why did I mock her mastectomy scars like Seraphina mocked Jade’s pain? Why did I shove her down, call her names, tell her to leave—and then act shocked when she did?”
Ellis’s lips tremble. “Cassian... the trauma you carry—it’s not just pain. It’s rewiring. Your nervous system learned to survive through domination. Through control. Through punishment. You were a child forced to protect a mother with your fists while your innocence was ripped away.”
His voice shakes as he keeps going. “You projected. You couldn’t separate Charlotte’s face from the woman who ruined you. You loved her, but your trauma saw a ghost in her body. That’s what undid you.”
I grip the rope tighter.
“She’s gone,” I whisper. “And I feel her absence like a noose. Every second. Every hour. Do you know what it’s like to scream her name in your sleep, only to wake up to silence?”
He nods cautiously, trying to reason with me. “This isn’t the end, Cassian. She needed space. She’s not rejecting you. She’s surviving you.”
“She should,” I whisper. “I hurt her so badly, Ellis.”
My knees hit the wet gravel. My hands fist in my hair.
“I made her marry me. Forced her down that aisle like she owed me her life. I ignored her pain, acted like her cancer scarsmade her less. I fucking dragged her with a leash like a beast. Chained her. Shamed her. Told her she was nothing but the daughter of a whore.”
Tears hit the dirt like acid.
“I broke her. And I knew I was doing it. But I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop seeing my mother on the floor. I couldn’t stop hearing her screams.”
The bottle falls from my hand. Rolls toward the cliff edge.
Dr. Ellis trembles. “You’re not a monster, Cassian. You’re a man at war with memory. With grief. With yourself. But you can choose to stop. You can choose to live.”
“No,” I say, voice hoarse. “I lived twenty days without her. It’s worse than death.”
I stare down at the cliff, the waves clawing the rocks below like they’re waiting.
“If even one hair on her head is hurt... I swear to God, I jump. I’ll meet her in the fucking afterlife. I’ll find her—even there.”
“Cassian—”
“I jump.”
Silence.
“Give me one reason not to cut you loose,” I said, my voice colder than the wind tearing through the cliffside— razor-sharp, hollow with grief.
One shift of my foot.
One flick of the lever.
And his chair goes over.
Dr. Ellis stammers, eyes wide. “She might come back. If you become the man she hoped for, she might still return. That woman didn’t just love you—she stayed through everything. But even the strongest people break, Cassian. Let this be the bottom. Don’t sink further.”
I press a hand to the lever.
“I don’t need a lecture, Ellis. I need her.”
He nods quickly. “Then don’t fall. Fight.”
