Chapter 99 Wounds
Cassie
I didn't hear the soft footfall behind me, didn't notice that Greyson had moved closer. I was too lost in the memory, too caught up in the familiar spiral of pain and loss that always accompanied thoughts of the baby we'd never gotten to hold, never gotten to name, whose absence had carved a hole in both our hearts that had never quite healed.
"I felt so alone, Dad," I continued, the words spilling out unchecked now, seven years of suppressed pain finally finding its voice. "Grey was grieving too, but he just... shut down. He couldn't talk about it, couldn't even look at me sometimes. He'd leave for work before I woke up and come home after I'd gone to bed. He left me alone in that big, empty pent house to drown in it, and I needed him so badly. I needed my husband, and he just... disappeared. He left."
The last word came out as a broken whisper, carrying with it all the abandonment and bewilderment I'd felt during those dark months after the miscarriage. The way Greyson had retreated so completely into himself that it felt like being married to a ghost. The way he'd avoided our bedroom, avoided meals together, avoided any conversation that might stray into emotional territory. How I'd felt like I was grieving alone, like I was carrying the weight of our loss entirely by myself.
A sob broke free then, the raw sound surprising me with its intensity. I’d thought I’d moved past this, thought I’d healed from the abandonment that had hurt almost as much as the loss itself. But grief, I was learning, didn’t follow a timeline. It lived in the body, in the muscle memory of pain, waiting for moments like this to resurface and demand acknowledgment.
I cried quietly into the phone, my father's soothing voice a distant comfort as he murmured reassurances and endearments. He didn't try to fix it or minimize it, didn't tell me it was time to move on or let go. He just held space for my pain, the way he always had.
When I finally managed to compose myself, wiping my eyes with the back of my free hand, I realized how much better I felt—lighter, somehow, as if voicing the pain had robbed it of some of its power.
"I love you, Dad," I said finally. "Thank you for always being there."
"Always, sweetheart," he replied. "That's what fathers are for."
When I hung up, emotionally spent but oddly peaceful, I turned to share the feeling with Greyson and froze.
He stood in the doorway, his face completely drained of color, his eyes wide with a kind of horrified understanding that made my stomach drop to my feet. He'd heard. He'd heard every word, every private confession, every accusation wrapped in grief. The casual turn he’d taken toward the ocean, meant to grant me privacy, had instead positioned him to listen to everything I had just poured out about his failure to be there for me. The truth, blunt and raw, was hanging between us.
The coffee mug slipped from my suddenly nerveless fingers, hitting the deck with a sharp crack that seemed to echo in the sudden silence. I barely noticed it. All I could see was the look on his face;not anger, which I might have been able to handle, but something far worse. Devastation. Guilt so profound it bent him forward slightly, as if he'd been physically struck.
"Grey, I..." I started, scrambling to my feet, reaching toward him instinctively—he didn't let me finish. He held up a hand, shaking his head as if to clear it, and for a moment I thought he might say something, might try to explain or defend or apologize. The silence stretched, unbearable, heavy with the weight of our shared history and the newly unearthed truth. The beautiful morning had curdled into something bitter and cold.
Instead of speaking, he turned on his heel and walked away, his movements mechanical and stiff. He didn’t run, didn’t slam anything, but simply removed himself from the vicinity of my pain and his own shame.
The front door closed behind him with a soft click that might as well have been a gunshot. The sound reverberated through the house, through me, carrying with it the weight of history repeating itself.
He’d left. Again.
I stood frozen on the stoep, the morning breeze suddenly cold against my skin, staring at the door that had just closed between us. The beautiful, perfect morning lay in ruins around me, destroyed by words that should never have been overheard, pain that should have stayed buried. He hadn’t slammed the door; he had merely detached, a quiet, final rejection that cut deeper than any shout could have.
Even as my heart broke all over again, even as the familiar ache of abandonment spread through my chest like poison, a small, defiant voice in the back of my mind whispered that maybe—just maybe,some truths needed to be spoken, no matter how much they hurt. Maybe some wounds needed to be reopened before they could heal properly.
Maybe this was the beginning of something, not the end, as I sank back into my chair, wrapping my arms around myself against the sudden chill. He knew the truth now, the precise nature of my deepest wound. He couldn't hide from it, or pretend that the past was a clean slate.
I looked at the closed door, then down at the shattered remains of my coffee mug on the deck. I couldn’t believe in ‘maybes’ when all I could see was another closed door and another empty space where Greyson should have been. The healing would have to start with me, whether he returned to face the truth or not.