Page 49 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8
“Yes. I’m sorry. I… Of course I didn’t know that happened to you. How old were you?”
“Sixteen.” He stands up and pushes his chair in. “It was not the first death I ever witnessed, though, so I was not terribly upset by it. When I was eight I found my mother’s body in the kitchen, though I think my father was responsible for that.”
“Dragos…”
“Do you feel better for knowing that, Cassandra? Does it make you feel as if we have the intimacy you so crave?”
“I…”
“If you expect that it will make me emotional to relive this, I am sorry to disappoint you. People live, and they die. It is a brutal thing but there is no reason to remain tortured by what is.”
“Your mother…”
“My father wasn’t a good man.” A smile curves his lips. “I cannot lie to you. When I saw him there, his eyes lifeless, I said a prayer to St. Isaac for justice to be done. For my father that will mean burning in hell, and I take joy in that.” He pauses for a moment. “This does not disturb me, though I can see it does you. I will leave you to finish your night in peace.”
Then he turns and leaves me alone.
Again.
The sadness mingles with fury inside me and I know one thing for sure.
I can’t try anymore.
CHAPTER THREE
ISPEND THREEhours crying in my room, and I hate myself for it. Sitting on the bed in the dress he bought me weeping like an infant because…
Because he saw his father die.
Because his father killed his mother, and Dragos had once been a boy who had found her.
Because he used it to hurt me, rather than using it to tell me something real about himself.
Because I don’t know him.
I don’t.
All this pain, all these scars, and he acts like they don’t touch him. Like they mean nothing. I can’t figure out if he’s being honest, or if this is all how he protects himself, but I don’t know if I can possibly bear the weight of that unknown anymore.
I wanted to unlock him. I wanted to find my way to him but he doesn’t want to let me and I find that so unbearable to face.
Maybe I should fight harder but everything feels hopeless tonight. Like I’m wandering through a maze and whenever I think I just might have found the way out, I hit another wall.
I’m beginning to think he isn’t a maze after all. Just a trap.
I stand up, and I walk to the mirror. I wipe the mascara trails off my cheeks, becauseGood God, Cassandra, get it together. I lift my dark hair up off my neck. I’m sweaty and upset and the air feels cool on my skin. I look at myself. I really, really look at myself. At the stranger I’ve become.
I think I wouldn’t mind her so much if she wasn’t so lonely.
But I feel like there’s a surging channel between myself and Dragos and I can’t swim across it.
I’m angry then, so angry, all mixed together with my hurt because we were really something.
We were.
That first moment we met was magical. Like a miracle I hadn’t even known to pray for, and instead of taking that magic and making more with it, he’d wrapped his fist around it and trapped us both, stagnant and locked in this tower where we can never, ever get closer to each other.
I can’t leave this alone tonight.
