Chapter 98 Therapy 2
"Myself," Tristan finally forced the word out. It sounded like ground glass. "I feel anger at myself."
"Why?" Dr. Evans pressed gently.
"Because I let it happen," Tristan growled, his hands balling into fists on his thighs. "I was supposed to be her husband. I was supposed to be the one standing between her and the world. And instead, I believed a lie. I threw her out. I handed her over to the wolves."
The raw, agonizing guilt in his voice was devastating. It was the guilt that had driven him to tear the house apart, the guilt that had driven him to step in front of the bullet. It was the poison that Ida had left behind, rotting his soul from the inside out.
"You believed the evidence presented to you," Dr. Evans offered neutrally. "Evidence that was meticulously forged by a very disturbed individual."
"It doesn't matter," Tristan argued fiercely, his eyes blazing. "I should have known. I should have looked at her—my wife—and known she was incapable of it. But I didn't. I doubted her. And that doubt destroyed her life."
"Tristan," I whispered, reaching out to cover his clenched fist with my hand.
He didn't pull away, but he didn't relax either.
"Let's stay with that feeling of doubt," Dr. Evans said, his voice calm, guiding the conversation deeper into the wound. "Tristan, why was it so easy for you to believe the lie? Why did you doubt her?"
Tristan froze.
The question hit the bedrock. This was the foundation we had to dig up.
He stared at the doctor, his breathing shallow. He looked terrified. The Titan of Industry, the man who stared down hostile boardrooms without blinking, was terrified of answering a simple question.
"I..." Tristan started, then stopped. He swallowed hard.
"It's okay," Dr. Evans encouraged softly. "This is a safe space, Tristan. There is no judgment here."
Tristan looked down at our joined hands. He took a long, shuddering breath. When he finally spoke, his voice was so low, so incredibly vulnerable, it barely carried across the room.
"Because she was too good for me," he confessed, the words tearing out of him.
I stared at him, stunned.
"I am a Johnston," Tristan continued, his voice breaking. "My father was a cruel, brilliant drunk. My mother was a ghost. My sister... we all know what my sister is. The Johnston legacy is built on control, manipulation, and ruthlessness. That's all I knew. That's all I was."
He looked up, meeting Dr. Evans’s gaze, the armor completely stripped away, leaving only the wounded, terrified boy underneath.
"And then I met Minerva," Tristan said, his voice thick with emotion. "She was bright. She was creative. She was fiercely independent. She wasn't afraid of me. She didn't want my money or my power. She just... wanted me."
He closed his eyes, a single tear escaping and tracking down his cheek.
"I never believed I deserved it," he whispered. "Every day we were married, I woke up waiting for her to realize I was hollow. I was waiting for her to see the darkness inside me and run."
He opened his eyes and looked at me. The absolute, shattering truth was laid bare between us.
"So when Ida presented the 'proof' that you were sleeping with another man," Tristan said, the tears falling freely now. "It didn't shock me, Mina. It confirmed my deepest, darkest fear. It proved that you had finally seen through me. It proved that I was exactly the monster I always believed I was."
The room was silent.
The truth hit me with the force of a physical blow.
For five years, I had believed his betrayal was born of arrogance. I thought he threw me out because his massive ego couldn't handle the public humiliation of a cheating wife. I thought he was cold, calculating, and ruthless.
I never realized it was born of a profound, agonizing insecurity.
He didn't believe the lie because he thought I was a monster. He believed the lie because he thought he was.
"Oh, Tristan," I breathed, my heart breaking completely.
I didn't care about the therapist. I didn't care about the rules of the room.
I shifted on the couch, closing the gap between us, and wrapped my arms around him, pulling him tightly against my chest.
He broke.
The man who had survived a gunshot wound without a single tear finally collapsed. He buried his face in my shoulder, his broad shoulders shaking violently as years of repressed guilt, self-loathing, and fear poured out of him in harsh, racking sobs.
I held him. I stroked his hair, murmuring soft, meaningless words of comfort, pressing kisses to his temple.
"I'm sorry," he cried against my sweater. "I'm so sorry, Mina. I was so afraid of losing you that I pushed you away."
"It's okay," I whispered fiercely, tears streaming down my own face. "I'm here. I'm right here. I see you, Tristan. And you are not a monster."
Dr. Evans watched us quietly from his armchair, making a single, brief note on his pad before setting the pen down.
We stayed like that for a long time, holding each other in the quiet office, the walls finally coming down, revealing the shattered pieces we needed to put back together.
The session was brutal. It was exhausting.
But as we finally walked out of the building an hour later, stepping onto the busy sidewalk, the air felt lighter.
Tristan’s arm was wrapped securely around my waist. He looked exhausted, his eyes red-rimmed, but the heavy, suffocating tension that usually carried in his shoulders was gone.
"How do you feel?" I asked softly, leaning against his side.
He took a deep breath of the city air.
"Empty," he admitted honestly. "But... a good kind of empty. Like a room that's finally been cleared out."
He stopped walking and turned to me.
"I love you, Minerva," he said, his voice steady, entirely devoid of the fear that had haunted his confession. "And I am going to spend the rest of my life proving to you—and to myself—that I am worthy of you."
I smiled, reaching up to gently touch his cheek.
"You already are," I promised.