Chapter 184: The Weight of Yes

Chapter 184: The Weight of Yes
Chapter 184: The Weight of Yes

ABEL DONOVAN

"Afterward," I continued, "she said—" I hesitated on the words, hating the shape of them. "She said I forced myself on her."

Anna's brow shifted. Something moved behind her eyes.

"I believed her. I was horrified. I apologized and she — she said she understood. Said she wouldn't tell anyone. Said she forgave me because of what you were putting me through." I exhaled slowly. "And then she pulled out the photos. Of you. She told me you had been unfaithful for years. That you didn't love me, that you'd always told her so. That the man in those pictures was the one you truly wanted and that you were only with me for what I could provide financially. She said when you had enough, you would leave." I paused. "She said so many things. And I—"

I stopped.

“I believed her," I said. "All of it. Every word. I took what she gave me and I built a verdict out of it without once going to you. Without once asking you to your face." I shook my head slowly. "And now, looking back at all of it — the blurred memory, her presence somewhere she had no reason to be, the way the photos appeared at exactly the right moment — I think I was set up too. I think she orchestrated every part of that night, mine included. I don't think what she claimed I did is what actually happened."

I looked at Anna.

"But I want to be clear about something. Whether I was manipulated or not — I am not standing here trying to make myself the second victim in this story. Because what came after is on me. Every accusation I leveled at you, every time I shut you out, every moment I chose my own rage over your truth — that was my choice. I had agency in all of it, and I used it wrong. Every single time."

Anna was quiet for a long moment.

Then she looked at me with something that was not quite pity and not quite contempt but lived somewhere in the complicated territory between understanding and exhaustion.

"You look pathetic, Abel Donovan," she said. Not cruelly. Almost gently, which was worse. "But I understand." She exhaled. "So. You slept with my step-sister — or were manipulated into it, or some version of both that you still can't fully account for — and then spent years pointing fingers at me. Accusing me. Treating me like the guilty party while carrying all of that." She let out a short, mirthless sound. "How did you live with yourself?"

"Badly," I said. It was the only honest answer.

"I'm sorry, Anna." And I meant it in a way that language wasn't really equipped to carry. "I know that word has been used so many times tonight that it's starting to lose its shape. But I don't have anything else. I was a fool and I was wrong and there is not a single part of what I put you through that was deserved."

"I will do anything," I said. "Anything to fix what I broke. Anything to earn the right to be in Hermione's life. You can have the company — take it, dissolve it, I don't care anymore. I know what matters to me now. I should have known a long time ago."

Anna held my gaze for a beat. Then two.

"You are never getting me back," she said. Clear and final as a door closing. No cruelty in it — just the absolute certainty of a woman who had rebuilt herself from the ground up and knew exactly what she was and was not willing to give. "I need you to hear that and stop carrying hope about it. Whatever we were is gone, and I have moved too far forward to go back to a place that only ever half-held me."

That landed where it was meant to.

"Hermione," I said. Just her name. Because that was what mattered now. That was the thing I could ask for without it being selfish — or at least, less selfish. "Please, Anna. Let me see her."

Anna looked at the table for a moment. When she looked back up there was something different in her expression — softer, but not for me. For the little girl she was thinking about.

"She likes you," she said slowly, like she was weighing each word before releasing it. "And I won't deprive her of something just because I have feelings about it. She didn't choose any of this." She paused. "I'll think about it. I'll reach out when I've decided."

It was not yes. But it was not the wall I'd been running into for weeks, and I recognized the difference.

I nodded. "Thank you."

She picked up her bag and rose from her seat, and I was on my feet before I'd consciously decided to stand — some old, instinctive thing that had survived everything else.

"You haven't touched your food," I said. Scrambling, and not particularly proud of it.

"I'm fine." She adjusted the strap of her clutch.

"Then—" I cast around for something that wasn't desperation wearing the clothes of a reasonable suggestion. "Walk with me. Just around the block. Let's not leave carrying all of this tension — it's not good for either of us. Small talk. Fresh air." I paused. "Five minutes."

Anna looked at me with the expression of a woman who saw exactly what I was doing and had not yet decided whether to be annoyed by it.

I saw exactly what I was doing too.

My apology had barely scratched the surface of what I owed her. The road ahead of me was long — longer than I deserved to ask her to stand at the end of, and I knew that. But long roads begin with small steps, and tonight I had at least gotten through the door.

I intended to make use of every minute she gave me.

She rolled her eyes — that particular eye roll that I had once found infuriating and now found, god help me, almost dear — and turned without a word, walking toward the exit.

I took that as a yes.

I followed her out into the evening, and for the first time in a very long time, I let myself be grateful for the small mercies.
(Are you satisfied with this chapter, Abel groveling in front of Anna. I am satisfied though. It healed something in me.)