Chapter 83 The man she needs
Greyson
You're right," I said, stepping further into her office and closing the door behind me. "You're absolutely right about all of it. I fucked up, Cassie. I fucked up so badly I'm not sure I can ever make it right, but I need to try."
"You don't get to need anything from me anymore," she said, standing up behind her desk. "You made your choice when you bought that plane ticket. You don't get to unmake it just because you've changed your mind about the consequences."
The words were brutal in their accuracy, but underneath the anger, I could hear something else—a hurt so deep it had calcified into armor. This wasn't just about my abandonment. This was about every time someone had chosen to leave her, every disappointment that had taught her to expect the worst from the people who claimed to love her.
"I know I don't deserve your forgiveness," I said. "I know I don't deserve a second chance. But I'm in therapy, Cassie. I'm trying to understand why I run when things get difficult, trying to figure out how to be the man you need me to be."
"I don't need you to be any kind of man," she said, and there was steel in her voice I'd never heard before. "I needed you to be my husband when our baby died. I needed you to grieve with me instead of abandoning me to deal with it alone. That moment is gone, Greyson. You can't therapy your way back to it."
The use of my full name instead of Grey felt like another door slamming shut. She'd always called me Grey, even during our worst fights. Greyson was what she called me when she was trying to create distance, when she needed to remind herself that I was someone else's husband, someone else's responsibility, someone else's problem to solve.
"I know that," I said. "I know I can't change what I did. But I can change what I do now. I can choose to fight for you instead of running. I can choose to be present for whatever comes next."
She laughed, but there was no humor in it. "What comes next is you leaving my office and not coming back. What comes next is me moving on with my life without you. What comes next is you living with the consequences of your choices."
"I won't give up," I said, desperation making my voice rough. "I won't stop fighting for you, for us. Even if it takes the rest of my life to prove I'm worthy of a second chance."
"Then you'll be fighting alone," she said, moving around her desk toward the door. "Because I'm done. I'm done waiting for you to decide I'm worth the risk. I'm done making excuses for your cowardice. I'm done breaking my own heart trying to love someone who doesn't know how to love me back."
She opened the door, and I could see her assistant looking up in alarm at the tension radiating from the office.
"Please," I said, and I didn't care that I sounded desperate, that I was begging in front of her colleagues, that I'd reduced myself to this pathetic figure pleading for scraps of her attention. "Please don't give up on us. Not yet."
"I didn't give up on us," she said, and her voice was quiet now, tired. "You did. When you got on that plane, when you chose running over staying, when you decided your fear was more important than my grief. You gave up on us, and now you're asking me to fix what you broke."
The truth of it hit me like a sledgehammer. She was right. I had given up. I'd looked at our tragedy and seen confirmation of every fear I'd ever had about love and loss, and I'd used it as justification for doing what I'd always done—protecting myself at the cost of everything else.
"Security will escort you out if necessary," she continued. "But I'd prefer if you just left. I have work to do."
I stood there for a moment longer, memorizing her face, trying to reconcile this strong, distant woman with the vulnerable, grieving wife I'd abandoned a month ago. She'd grown in my absence, had found strength I'd never given her credit for having. The realization that she might genuinely be better off without me was devastating and strangely liberating.
"I love you," I said, because it was the only true thing I had left to offer.
"I know you do," she replied. "But sometimes love isn't enough. Sometimes the damage is too extensive to repair."
I walked out of her office with those words echoing in my head, past assistants who pretended not to stare, into the elevator that carried me down thirty-two floors to the garage where my car was waiting. I sat behind the wheel for twenty minutes, processing the finality of what had just happened, the irrevocable nature of choices that couldn't be undone with good intentions or therapeutic breakthroughs.
She was right, of course. Sometimes love wasn't enough. Sometimes you could love someone completely and still destroy them through your own brokenness. Sometimes the most loving thing you could do was accept that you'd forfeited your right to their forgiveness and find a way to live with the consequences.
But as I drove home through the streets of Johannesburg, past the places where we'd built memories and shared dreams, I knew I couldn't accept that finality. Not yet. Not when she was the best thing that had ever happened to me, not when losing her felt like losing the possibility of becoming a better man.
I might not deserve her forgiveness, but I could earn it. I might not be able to undo the damage I'd caused, but I could prove that I was capable of change. I might not be able to force her to take me back, but I could make sure that when she was ready—if she was ever ready—I would be the man she deserved to come home to.