#Chapter 191 – Final Words

“Victor,” I say, my hands sliding down the bars of my cell as I sink to the floor. He’s just across the short aisle from me, but with these metal bars between us…

He might as well be a world away. I am desperate to go to him, touch him, help him – but I can’t.

He doesn’t say a word in response, but I can see him breathing, his breath fast and shallow. I press on.

“Victor, I’m so sorry –“

“No,” he says, interrupting me. His word is light – so light – but I hear the intensity in it, even if it’s barely audible.

I see him work to move then, to turn towards me and look at my face, but I also see him flinch, hear the hiss of breath that escapes from his mouth.

“Don’t,” I say, reaching out a hand towards him to stop him – ridiculously, as if I could touch him, stop him. “Please, Victor – don’t move – it’s not worth it.”

He pauses and then sighs, and I can see his shoulders slump. “I want to look at you, Evelyn. When I tell you how sorry I am. I want you to see it in my face, how much I mean it.”

Tears begin to slip down my cheeks then. God damnit, why are we separate in this moment? All I want to do is be with him, be next to him, press my body up against his. Where it belongs.

“It’s all right, Victor,” I say, shaking my head, not bothering to wipe away the tears that drip off my chin. “You don’t have to say anything – I know, I understand –“

“No, Evelyn,” he insists. “I have to say this to you. My darling,” he takes a deep breath, preparing himself. “Everything I did, I did wrong. And I’m not just talking about that morning, after the fire.”

I rest my forehead against the bars, closing my eyes and trying to control my tears. I don’t want him to hear me, to think that he’s somehow making me feel worse.

think I knew, Evelyn,” he says, “from that very first day when I met you again, with the boys, at that ridiculous game show – I think I knew, even then, that there was this thing between us. Whatever it is. I never

I never would have admitted it, never would have wanted to hand over the power and control over my life that loving him would have required.

then – with the

then, a thick grumble building in his chest. I open my

at all. It was not the life with you. And in the months since then, I’ve been better – I’ve been starting to build my good

own voice thick with tears, shaking my

now, to turn on the ground, with his shoulder against the floor as the pivot,

his face. Several times I whisper to him to stop, but he keeps going, determined. I’m sobbing by the time he looks

love, laid so low. At the hands of my own family, as he

never be able

it. Every single thing that has fallen apart and been rebuilt, no matter how

do know it. I know

will we even get to live it? Has the price been too

says, shaking his head ever so slightly. “The only, singular thing I would change is how I treated you that

the floor, reliving those awful moments. But he had been right

and my gaze back to his. “You can’t – you can’t blame yourself. I backed you into a corner where you had no power.” He

really able to believe what I’m hearing. He’s complimenting for what I

have done. I think I always took a little credit, unfairly,

that – racking through my agonized

be laughing

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