Page 75 of Cashmere Ruin

That annoying voice in my head—the one I bricked away in the ugliest corner of my mind—it’s roaring now. Breaking out of its cage like a starving animal.

Because that’s what I’ve been: a beast. Nothing but a miserable fucking beast.

“I’m sorry,” I repeat, pulling her against me.

At first, she struggles. Her entire frame trembles as she fights me with the last of her strength. Then, finally, I feel her slump against my chest, a puppet with her strings cut.

“I hate you,” she whispers.

“I deserve it.”

“You weren’t there for me. You’re never there for me.”

“I know.”

“You never listen to me. Never.”

It cuts so deep, I almost want to laugh. Because that’s just it, isn’t it? We never listento each other. It’s a vicious, rotten cycle, and we’re still feeding it now.

I spent so long hating April for what she did to me. Not just for taking the baby or leaving, but for not giving me a chance in the first place. For not letting me explain.

When I tried, she threw my words back at me. But this past week, when she tried to tell me something important—what did I do? What did I do, if not the exact same thing?

“I’m sorry,” I tell her again, even though it’s hard. Even though a part of me still hurts like hell at the thought of that nightmarish month without my daughter. That wound has never stopped aching, but April’s cut is fresher. And it’s bleeding right now, in front of my eyes.

I can stop it. I have the power.

“I had to name-drop you,” she cries harder against me. “You weren’t there, so I had to pretend you were— I had to tell them you?—”

The more I listen, the more one thought pushes its way to the forefront of my mind:I want to kill Dominic Flowers. I want to lay waste to his perfect little house and gut his perfect little pigs until they’re nothing more than pieces of rotting meat. I want to pry their apologies out of them with a rusty set of pliers and then leave them there to suffer. To leave them like they left her.

But for once, I’m lucid enough to realize one thing:That won’t help anyone. That won’t break the cycle.

“You did the right thing,” I murmur instead, lips pressed to the top of her head.

She scoffs. “You didn’t even know what I said.”

“I don’t care. You protected her.”You protected both of you.

“He told me I’m not fit to be a mother.” She breaks down into sobs. “And Nora, and Anne, too—they all think that.”

“Don’t listen to them,” I spit. “They have no idea what a good parent is supposed to look like.”

“But you think that same thing,” she sniffles. “You’ve told me. You do.”

I hold her tighter. “No, April, I don’t.”

“Liar.”

“I really don’t.”

“Liar, liar,liar?—”

Slowly, I tip her head up and start kissing her tears away. It’s nothing like the passion of the past few days.

This time, it’s softer.

This time, it’s gentler.

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