Chapter 132: Threadbare trust
The therapy couch's leather creaked gently beneath my weight as I shifted for the third time in three minutes. Muffled wind sighed through the slit in the window behind us, stroking the sheer curtains and lifting the light scent of jasmine from the garden outside. The office walls were a cream color, warm and modest, but nothing inside me was peaceful.
Caspian sat next to me, arms folded, shoulders rolled in. His gaze was following a worn rug on the floor beneath the coffee table—navy blue with strands of silver, probably hand-tied. He hadn't even looked at me since we sat down.
"I get jealous," he burst out.
The words hit the silence like a rock into still water. I twitched my head to the side, barely breathing.
He continued, voice gentler now, but firm. "Not because I think you still want him. But because there is something in you that still. exists in that place. And I don't know how to be here with it."
The atmosphere In the room shifted. My throat tightened around something hard and painful. He was finally saying what I'd seen in his eyes for weeks.
"You think you need to battle with my past," I breathed, not a question but a conclusion.
He let out a dry laugh, more air than tone. "I know I don't. But it doesn't dissuade the fear. It doesn't dissuade the way I measure myself—against your history, against your pain, against your silence."
I looked away, not willing to meet the gentle hurt in his face. The therapist remained motionless. She knew when to hold her tongue when words so sharp finally fell.
"I never needed you to replace what he was," I went on, my knuckles cramped in my lap. "I needed you to be what he could never be."
Caspian drew in air slowly, as if the confession pained him and relieved him at the same time.
"And I've failed at that," he said.
My gaze refocused on him. "No. You haven't. But you stopped believing in me when things got hard."
"I stopped believing in myself," he said, his voice softer now. "Because I don't know what to do when I'm not enough to make the hurt go away that I didn't inflict."
The silence that followed was like a pause in the universe, as if even time had paused for me to come up with something else. But I had nothing. Yet. There were no words that could repair the naked truth between us. There was only the weight of understanding, and the distance we still needed to cover.
The villa's atmosphere was different when we returned. The storm clouds that had built up on the ride from the therapist's office finally broke. Rain poured down the windows, filling the house with a rhythmic, hollow beat. The low light created long shadows on the floor of the living room, and the soft cream rug seemed almost gold.
Caspian leaned against the mantel, the small, framed picture in his palm. I stood at the doorway, observing the way his shoulders curved forward, the way he stood so still—as though the weight of the picture was too much for him.
It was the first of ours that we'd ever done. He was smiling, his eyes squinted against the sun, and I had my arms across his neck, wind tugging at my hair. We were untouched by anything unsightly.
"You saved it," I said, not meaning to.
He didn't lift his head. "I saved a lot of things."
I moved closer, slow footsteps, steps muffled by the rug. "Why this one?"
"Because I wanted to remember what it had been like," he said, finally meeting my eyes. "Before it all got so complicated."
I reached out and touched the frame with my hand. Our fingers brushed, just so. His eyes met mine.
"Do you still believe in us?" I asked.
His voice was low, implacable. "I don't think I ever did."
I forced the knot down my throat. His candor always hit like flint, naked and igniting something I wasn't prepared for.
"And yet, you led me to believe you did."
He winced. "Because I was furious. Not at you—just… at how trapped I felt. At how I wanted to be the one to fix it all, and I couldn't."
My chest ached. "You didn't need to fix me. I only ever needed you to stay."
He looked at me for so long afterward. Room between us was only breath, but it felt wider than the space. "I'm here," he said.
"And I still ache," I whispered.
His silence wasn't full of apology, only of acceptance. And maybe that was better. Neater. truer.
Dinner passed in slow movements and half-finished bites. The storm brewed gently at the windows, wind threading through the trees that encircled the villa. The candle on our table danced against tension, casting shadows on Caspian's cheekbones, catching in the angle of his jaw.
He'd pulled out a bottle of wine, but we hardly drank at all. The pasta was superb—always precise in his cooking—but I couldn't taste it.
We sat in silence of the last conversation still between us. He glanced up, caught my gaze over the table.
"Do you trust me?" he asked.
The question caught me off guard. I put my fork down, took a breath.
"Yes," I said warily. "But not like I used to. It's… it's quieter now. Earned in inches, not leaps."
He nodded, and something unreadable crossed his face. "That's fair."
He leaned over the table, outstretched hand. I placed my hand in his. We did not smile. We just clasped hands.
By the time we arrived at the bedroom, the storm was clearing off, leaving behind an emptiness. The room was darkly lit, with only the bedside lamp casting pools of golden light on the cream sheets and heavy velvet drapes. There was one window cracked open just a little enough to bring in the cool scent of rain and wet stone.
Caspian lay on his side of the bed, blankets pulled up to his waist. I bathed in the bathroom, then crawled into bed, trying not to disturb the tenuous peace that had settled around us like dust.
We didn't touch.
But we didn't turn away either.
The photo of us—the Amalfi one—was on the dresser in front of the bed. I could barely make out the outline of it in the dim light. Proof that we'd ever been free. Untouched.
I lay on my side and observed Caspian's chest slowly expand and contract, the line of his shoulder falling under the blanket.
"I don't know how to quit needing you," I whispered.
He didn't immediately answer. Then: "Then don't.".
Silence. The kind that breathed into its pauses.
"We'll get this right, Lily," he said quietly. "Even if it's not perfect. Even if we have to rebuild each day."
I reached out my hand towards him, not to close the distance, but just to brush the tip of it. My hand hovered, then fell back down to the blanket between us.
We lay out like that until slumber enveloped us. On either side of the same bed. With pain still wrapped around us—but so was something more.
Something like the beginning of forgiveness.
Something like love, unadorned.
Something like trust—tattered, but still whole.