Chapter 38 Chapter 38

Chapter 38 Chapter 38


I twisted the leaf between my fingers until it crumbled. "Sometimes I wonder if that girl even exists anymore. The one who wrote letters to her parents and played violin and dreamed of maybe someday fitting in somewhere."
"She exists," Caspian said quietly. "I've seen glimpses of her. When you thought no one was watching."
Something in his tone made me look at him more closely. In the moonlight, his features were softer somehow, less guarded than usual. "What do you mean?"
He was quiet for so long, I thought he wouldn't answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. "You used to hum sometimes. When you were doing homework in the library or walking between classes. Always the same melody."
My breath caught. "You noticed that?"
"Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto," he said, confirming what I already knew. "The piece you were playing that night. You'd hum it without realising it, and every time, you'd get this look on your face... like you were somewhere else. Somewhere better."
Tears pricked at my eyes. I'd had no idea anyone had noticed, had paid attention to such a small detail. "I didn't know I did that."
"You stopped after Kyle read your letter aloud," Caspian continued, his voice heavy with something that might have been regret. "I never heard you hum again after that night."
The admission hung between us, weighted with years of unspoken observation. I'd always thought the Williams brothers saw me as nothing more than a convenient target, but apparently at least one of them had been watching more closely than I'd realised.
"Why didn't you ever say anything?" I asked.
Caspian's laugh was bitter. "What would I have said? 'Hey, I've been creepily cataloguing your unconscious habits while treating you like dirt'?" He shook his head. "I was a coward, Imogen. Just like my brothers."
I studied his profile in the moonlight, noting the tension in his jaw. "Is that your truth? The one you didn't want to burden me with tonight?"
He turned to meet my eyes, and I saw something vulnerable there that I'd never glimpsed before. "Part of it."
"And the rest?"
Caspian was quiet for a long moment, his internal struggle playing out across his features. Finally, he sighed. "The rest is that I've spent six years memorising everything about you while telling myself I didn't care. The way you bite your lip when you're concentrating. How you always sit in the back left corner of every classroom. The fact that you eat your lunch in exactly fifteen minutes, no more, no less, like you're afraid someone will take it away if you linger too long."
My chest tightened at the accuracy of his observations, at the realisation that someone had been watching me all along, cataloguing my habits while I thought I was invisible.
"You watched me," I whispered, not sure if I was accusing him or simply stating a fact.
"I couldn't help it," he admitted, his voice rough with an emotion I couldn't quite identify. "You were...you were this bright spot of authenticity in a world full of political games and careful facades. Even in your grief, even when we were making your life hell, you never pretended to be anything other than exactly who you were."
I wrapped my arms tighter around my knees, trying to process his words. "And that bothered you?"
"It terrified me," he corrected. "Because it made me realise how empty everything else was. How hollow all the pack politics and Alpha training felt compared to watching you write in that battered notebook during lunch, or seeing you smile when you found a book you'd been looking for in the library."
The tears I'd been holding back finally spilled over. "Then why were you so cruel? Why did you act like I didn't exist?"
Caspian's hands clenched into fists on his knees. "Because existing meant feeling things I wasn't supposed to feel. Wanting things I couldn't have. You were grieving, vulnerable, and I was supposed to be focused on becoming Alpha material. Caring about you felt like a betrayal of everything I was supposed to be."
"So you betrayed me instead," I said, the words coming out softer than I'd intended.
"Yes," he said simply, not trying to justify or excuse it. "And I've regretted it every single day since."
The garden was quiet except for the soft rustling of leaves in the breeze and the distant sound of night insects. I felt emotionally wrung out, drained by another confession I wasn't ready to hear.
"I can't do this," I said, standing abruptly. "I can't sit here and listen to you tell me how you've loved me while you spent years pretending I didn't exist. It's too much, Caspian. All of it."
He stood as well, but made no move to follow me as I backed toward the house. "I know," he said quietly. "I just wanted you to know that someone saw you. Really saw you. Even when we were too cowardly to let it show."
I fled then, rushing back through the sunroom and up the stairs to my borrowed bedroom. My heart was pounding, my wolf pacing restlessly beneath my skin as I processed yet another revelation that turned everything I thought I knew about my time in this pack upside down.
Three brothers. Three confessions. Three different versions of the same story, fear masquerading as cruelty, love twisted into torment. And somewhere in the middle of it all was me, the girl who'd spent six years believing she was invisible, only to discover that she'd been seen all along.
I pressed my back against the closed door of my room, sliding down to sit on the floor.

A knock at my door made me jump away from it, “Imogen? Are you ok? I felt your distress through our bond.” Kyle’s voice came from the other side of the door. “And I got you something I hope might help you to process everything.”

I wiped my eyes quickly, not wanting Kyle to see me crying again. "I'm fine," I called back, though my voice cracked slightly on the words.
"No, you're not," he said gently. "And that's okay. Can I come in? Please?"