“I don’t understand how you’re so calm.”
“I’ve had years to deal with it. To put it all in perspective. I don’t have many regrets. I’m still doing what I was meant to do regardless of the reasons it started and—” he lets out a long breath.
“And?”
“And the night I met with your father, my war with him ended.”
“But you still bought his company.”
“Because the board is full of corrupt pricks who constantly robbed their employees, he was one of them, and it was a good deal.”
“So, you were never going to tell me?”
“I knew it could destroy your relationship with your mother.”
“I’m so fucking lost,” I say hoarsely before I let out a disbelieving laugh. “And with you, I always will be.”
“That’s why you need to leave, Cecelia. This place has never been good for you.”
“Stop blaming the place. It’s just a fucking place. It’s the people in my life who’ve deceived me and robbed my sanity. I can’t believe you knew.”
He leans against his desk, clasping his hands. “Even though your dad was crooked as fuck for covering it up, he didn’t kill them in cold blood. Instead of losing my shit over it, I was glad. I was glad I didn’t have to hate him anymore because it meant I could keep my promise without resenting you for it. Until…”
“Dominic died.” I can barely hear my own voice. I don’t know how I’ll ever look at my mother the same way. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll disappear on her the way she did me. I’ve suffered horribly because of her secrets. Maybe I’ll punish her for the years I’ve spent in purgatory to make sure she is taken care of. For years after that, I’ve been trying to piece myself back together while she’s lived in luxury with her fucking silence. Maybe I will hold it against her, for the life my father lost covering her mistake, and for the explanation I deserved about his absence.
Tobias speaks up. “The truth is my parents died in a horrible accidental fire started by a very scared and pregnant teenage girl.”
“And you forgave her?”
“I had to. One day maybe you will too.”
“I don’t know how much forgiveness I have left in me.”
He silently nods. Even though he looks defeated, there’s a calmness inside him, one I haven’t seen in years.
“You seem…different.”
“Seeing you…you coming back here has stirred up shit…shit I’ve been avoiding for too long.”
“Well I hope you make peace with it, life is short, Dominic taught us that. But my opponent was never invisible.” He keeps his gaze steady on mine. “You were always going to be the one who got the best of me. You knew it, I knew it, and I still fought it. But I’m giving myself a head start by giving you my queen, so, there’s your check.”
Silence. And I don’t know why I expected anything more.
“One thing’s for sure,” I say, “no matter how hard I fought it over the years, I am my mother’s daughter.” Confusion flits over his features, and I nod toward the letter. “Read it. It’s the same pathetic shit. I ended up living here all those years ago because my mother had the audacity to try and come back and win the heart of a man who didn’t love her enough to let her in on his secrets. Who couldn’t forgive her enough for being young and reckless. Who punished her for horrible mistakes he himself helped liberate her from, all the while loving her from afar because he refused to trust her enough to make her own decisions. My father slammed the door in her face. And it ruined her. It’s poetic justice, really.”
“Cecelia, I’ve never hated you.”
“Yes, you have, and I can’t afford to care. Loving you is way too expensive, and I’m not paying for it another minute. You’ve stolen enough from me, the rest I let you take, and you can fucking keep it.”
For once in my life, I’m okay with letting love lose.
I’ll forever be a foolish romantic, chasing the high, though no high will ever compete with the one I felt with him. It ends here.
I don’t know how to be both powerful and in love, and that’s my downfall.
We had our song, and it’s time to take us off pause and let the rest of our story play out. The way it was always going to.
Meggie fell for a priest. I fell for a prophet. We declared war on their calling and cause, and neither of us won.
But I’m keeping my love story, not because it included both martyr and sacrifice, or because it’s the story I wanted, it’s because I would never rewrite it. And I would live it all over again just for the chance to sing with him.