“So let me drown in it,” I say, peeking between my fingers at him. “It’s a hell of a lot easier than the truth.”
“The truth came knocking at your front door,” he counters. “You don’t really have a choice but to believe it anymore.”
I drop my hands and pull a face at him, but he only raises a brow and waits as we fall into a heavy, contemplative silence.
“Did he say what he wants?” I ask after a long stretch.
Cato shakes his head. “Only that there’s more to the story he needs to share with you.”
The way I’m split in half is frustratingly peculiar. My body and mind are divided by a fracture running straight through the center of me, each side at war with the other.
One part wants to run and hide, to burrow deep into the shadows and pretend none of this happened.
But it’s the other part that terrifies me most.
It wants to charge into that room and demand every answer he owes me. Force the truth from his lips with my bare hands if I have to, and simply exist in that same space again. Listen to the familiar timbre of his voice, bury my face in his chest, inhale that scent that once meant safety and home, and let the weight of his arms ground me the way they did when the world felt conquerable.
Find the missing piece of myself that he never gave back.
My legs itch to run to him, to fall at his feet and shed every ounce of pride like dead skin. Beg him to lie, to just fuckinglie,and tell me he still loves me in that same breathless, all-consuming way I never stopped loving him, even when it carved me hollow.
I want to scream and fight andfuckuntil we’re both in pieces.
To rip his heart out and curse his name, to hurt him until he understands what it feels like to be irreparably broken.
Maybe then our jagged edges could fit together again. Maybe then, sliced open and gutted, we could form something whole.
It’s such a beautiful, impossible lie.
“Can you take care of it?” I ask, hating how small my voice sounds.
Cato tilts his head, reading me too easily. “You’re going to have to face this sooner or later, you know.”
“Says who?”
He fixes me with a heavy stare. “Unless you want me to dump him outside the gates and tell him never to come back… and trust me, nothing would make me happier.”
Pain lances through my chest at the thought, and an immediate protest rises on my tongue that I’m barely able to swallow.
Cato sighs. “He has information we might need. It’d be careless not to hear him out. I’ll see what I can get from him, but be prepared. Something tells me he might not talk to me.”
I picture the stubborn set of Xeni’s jaw whenever he was pushed into something he didn’t want, and despite everything, a bittersweet smile tugs at my lips.
“Yeah,” I agree, “probably not.”
He watches me closely. “You okay? Truly?”
I want to say yes, to ease the worry in his eyes, but I only manage to shrug. His hand lands on my shoulder with a reassuring squeeze.
We don’t make false promises or sugarcoat truths. There’s just the quiet understanding that he’s here if I need him.
“Thanks,” I whisper.
He gives my shoulder one last squeeze before heading for the door.
Xeni
Ahushedconversationhappensbeyond the door, and I draw my knees tighter to my chest as my head rests against the wall.
