He shook his head. “This is my fault.”
“I doubt that.”
“It is.” He took another step closer. “If I had not… I should not have let you leave.”
“Let me?” she raised an eyebrow at him.
He swallowed. “I should not have given you a reason to leave. I… I…” The words were right there; all he had to do was say them. “Thalia, there is something you should –”
“Before you say anything else…” She held up a hand to silence him. “Please, Caspian, let me speak.”
He bit into his lip, forcing himself not to speak. Still, he hurried to the side of her bed and dropped to his knees. There, he wanted to take her hand, but he stopped because he did not feel as if he had earned that right.
“You hurt me,” she said. Her voice was strained and tired, but it was the look in her eyes that hurt Caspian the most. The disappointment in them… the pain that he was the cause of. “You hurt me more than I thought possible.”
“I know I did,” he said quickly. “And you can’t know how –”
“Please…” She held up a hand to silence him again. “Caspian, this marriage… I know why it started the way that it did. I know what I promised you, what was expected. But you must know that things change. You must see that things have changed.”
“I do,” he said. “I see that now.”
“Do you?” she asked, her voice cracking. “I want to believe that, but it should not take me being sick for you to realize it. I want you to know it because you care for me, not because you feel guilty.”
“I’m not here because I feel guilty.” He took her hand then. It was cold and clammy but he held it tight. “I am here because…” He bit into his lip. “Because I was wrong, Thalia. About so many things.”
“Such as?”
“You are right,” he said. “About this marriage and how it started. We married for a purpose, and for so long I was convinced that was all which mattered. I clung to that belief because… because I was scared. For my entire life, I have believed that feelings… that emotions are a weakness. I was raised to think that way.”
“That sounds like an excuse.”
“It is fact,” he said, “not an excuse. And it is only recently that I have realized how wrong I have been to hold onto such beliefs. Feelings are not a weakness. They are not something to be spurned. They are…” His heart started to beat, and he pulled her hand to his chest. “They are proof that I am not the man I believed, which is a good thing…” He chuckled weakly. “You changed me, Thalia, and for that I am grateful.”
“Changed you how?”
“You made me realize what it means to care for another. You made me see that marriage is about more than perception or expectation. You made me see that life is not meant to be lived alone.”
“And…”
He swallowed. “I have known for some time how I felt. I fought it. I denied it. I… I hated myself for it. Now, I understand how I feel, and for the first time, I am not going to run from those feelings.”
“And what feelings are those?”
He hesitated, which caught him by surprise. All the ride here, and for the past few days, Caspian had known how he felt. And even now, he knew the same. Only, fear once again took hold of him, that lingering feeling that to say what was in his heart would expose him to a world he did not understand.
What if she still says no? What if I put myself out there and she turns me away…
“I… I… I…” He stammered. “I care for you. I miss being with you. I…”
She closed her eyes, her face seeming to grow paler still. “Still, you cannot say it.”
“I can say it.”
“Then say it!” she cried. “Caspian, say it now, or I fear that everything Lord Donmere says is true. Say it now or lose me forever. Prove to me that losing me is something that you cannot abide.” She widened her eyes at him.
Caspian licked his lips as he looked at her. He searched her eyes, needing to see behind them her feelings before he expressed his own. He started to sweat. He started to shake. He started to panic…
That was when he pulled his gaze back to see a smile forming on her pasty lips. His wife, she looked so frail and sickly. She looked a shadow of who he knew. But also, and this was when he knew what he had to say, she looked beautiful. The light shone across her, she glowed bright, and Caspian realized in that moment how she had felt about him always… and how he felt too.
