Page 26 of Hate Me

“He really didn’t take that reminder well.”

“You don’t need to concern yourself with his reactions.”

“Cas.”

“You don’t, Bastian.” He took a seat beside me on the bench. His tone was noticeably softer then as he said, “But I understand that seeing him would’ve unsettled you, so talk to me about it. Is that why you went so hard with today’s session with Luke?”

“It did bring up some stuff, yeah.”

“Anxieties?”

I nodded. “A lot.”

“He won’t come near you. He won’t bother you again or interfere in your life in any way whatsoever.”

“I appreciate what you’ve put in place to keep him at bay. But… he smiled at me, Cas. Smiled. Genuinely. That was the first time in years that I haven’t seen ill will from him. He looked… dejected. Sad, even.”

“He’s a sociopath. It’s not real. And, worse, it’s not real to him. At least not the way that emotions are to us.”

“A sociopath, not a psychopath. He can still feel.”

“Fleetingly so.”

“He’s capable of feeling guilt and regret.”

“Is that what you think? He regrets what he did to you? That he’s sorry?”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

“He can’t learn from his mistakes, Bastian. It’s a never-ending cycle. His true nature will always win out. That resentment and jealousy toward you is an obsession. There are breaks in it, yes, but it always comes back around in the end to the same thing—him lashing out at you.”

I scrubbed my hand over my face as I took his words in. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. I guess his reaction just threw me off.”

“As I’m sure he intended.”

I didn’t completely buy that. I knew my brother, I could tell the difference between what was real and what was put on with him.

But it wasn’t enough and Cas was right, it never would be because of who and what Damien was, and would always be.

“There’s also something else.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”

And then I told him about Ashley, meeting her at the support group, the text, the up-in-the-air possibility of that date, all of it.

“I see,” he said, once I was done.

Although his response was very brief with absolutely nothing to read into, his body language was a whole other deal.

He’d noticeably tensed up.

He was worried.

“You don’t think I’m ready, do you?”

“You’re doing very well, excelling at Luxe, adhering to your recovery plan. You only have a couple of months before you graduate. And I know Reese offered you a position at Serenity Group.”

“Hold on, was that you? Did you make him do that?”

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