Page 66 of Deviant Illusions

“Don’t hurt yourself,” a tear-filled voice says. “Not anymore, my pretty girl.”

Kane.

Kane is here. He kisses my shoulder.

He hugs me, trapping my arms at my sides, but it’s not suffocating or constricting. It’s protective and he doesn’t move his lips from my shoulder.

“What happened—” He clears his throat then restarts. “What happened to your baby?”

I shrug. “I can’t remember. That’s where it goes fuzzy.”

I deflate as he lets all the air out of his lungs. It’s clearer now that I’ve spoken to him, but it hurts. The pain is deeper when he shakily ghosts his hand over my stomach.

“Did you,” he whispers, lowering his voice further to ask, “give birth?”

I shrug again.

“You don’t know?”

I stay still.

“Or you can’t remember?” he gently quizzes. “Did your belly grow? Or did you have scans?”

The newfound clarity disappears, replaced with sheer frustration. It makes me snap and I try to pull his arms off me.

“I don’t fucking know, okay? Is that good enough for you? I don’t know anything and it’s too hard. You’re right, I make things up and I don’t fucking know anything.”

Kane crosses his arms over my chest and lightly squeezes as he slowly rocks me side to side. “Shhh, it’s not your fault and you do know things. We’ve all fucked with your head and that’s not on you, Delilah.” He heals me only to hurt me as he promises, “I’ll find your baby. Whatever happened, I’ll get you an answer or place your baby right here in your arms.”

I can’t deal with that right now so I evade the topic. He was reading a letter while I was in the bathroom, and it isn’t what I wrote. I beg him to believe me. “I didn’t write it, I promise. I never said anything about you that wasn’t true.”

He kisses my cheek, attempting to soothe me. “I know, it’s okay.” Tightening his arms around me, he presses his lips to my ear and whispers, “I’ll fix it all. You don’t have to trust who I am now but,”—he takes a deep inhale—“trust the old Kane and that he would never harm you. No one will touch you again. I’ll make them pay for it. For both of us.”

I cry without searching for an escape, even though I’m naked and he’s only in a towel. He lets me cry as he kisses the teartracks on my cheeks. He doesn’t tell me to shut up or to stop making an “ugly face,” as my mother called it. Kane does what he always used to—allows me to be whatever I want. I can be ugly, broken, or a bitch and he’ll gently protect me without forcing me into a mold that makes it unbearable to breathe.

He waits until my tears have stopped then tilts his body, so my head is resting on his shoulder. I’ve never seen him smoke before. I watch him like it’s something fascinating as he brings a cigarette to his lips and lights it. The old Kane would never smoke. He didn’t even like drinking, because it would make him feel sick and he hated the feeling of being disconnected from his body.

But there’s no coughing as he smoothly inhales, waits three seconds, then blows it out away from my face. He does it again in the same pattern then smiles down at me. “Why are you staring, my pretty girl?”

I turn so I’m sideways with my cheek resting on his shoulder. My wet lashes stick together as I blink up at him. “I never thought I’d ever see you do anything bad. You always had so much conviction on how you wanted your life, and you were never interested in smoking, drinking. Anything, really.”

“That’s not true,” he softly argues, repeating his timed drags.

“Hmm, it is. You would only come to my parents’ parties because I’d force you to be there.”

He shakes his head and pauses his next drag. Tobacco fills my senses as he dips his head and brushes his nose against mine. “I was interested in you and that’s all I needed.”

I love this version of him. The soft, kind one that made my heart melt before Asher tricked me by pretending to be Kane when he kissed me at thirteen. I was too embarrassed to say that I got caught in his trap and that one small mistake ruined my life.

But I don’t know the new Kane, and now we’re stuck on a secluded island with our rotting corpses of grandparents. Here on this ledge with the harsh rocks and tumultuous waters below us, we’re safer than anywhere else. So, I don’t hold back.

“I really loved you,” I admit. “More than anything else in the world and more than myself. It started off as selfish because I loved that you were mine, how you looked at me like I was your entire world. But then it changed. I would happily have taken any pain if it meant that you were safe. Maybe that was selfish too and I was only protecting that feeling you gave me. I was going to let you go though. Let you live a life without me even though it would hurt like fucking hell. It felt right that you had that.”

He smiles, but it’s weak and doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Then I was the selfish one, because I couldn’t let you go,” he whispers. “I went back to the cabin because I couldn’t do it. I needed you in any way I could have you. I drove away because I thought it would make it stop and that I could get you out of my head if I had distance, but it’s been years, Delilah, and I still can’t stop the thoughts of you.”

“We’re both fucked up and broken.” I laugh, and he nods. “Maybe we can fit our pieces together and as long as it’s us, together, it can be better.Wecan be better.”

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