Page 39 of Cain
“She told me to go fuck myself,” he says in response.
“So, not good?” I ask unnecessarily.
Kyle gives me a flat look. “I arrested her, threw her in jail, Cain. The fact that she didn’t knee me in the nuts is her showing restraint.”
I wonder if she’ll show similar restraint with me.
She opens the door. Gives me a blank look.
She’s lost weight. Her skin is pale, which is a feat since it is a lovely café latte.
Faith has some Latin ancestry, Mexican maybe, but she doesn’t know. She was placed in foster care when she was three, and she has no clue who her parents are, and no desire to find out. This is all she told me about her past. She didn’t tell me about her ex, who beat her. She left the most important parts of her within herself.
I can’t blame her. Trust has never come easy for her—I understand that better now than I ever did. And now, the odds are stacked against me. It’s not just about earning her trust again, like before. It’s about going further, reaching for the pieces of herself she once gave me—and maybe no longer can.
“Faith,” I say. Her name catches in my throat.
Our eyes meet. Something fractures inside me. Not because she looks angry or wounded, but because she doesn’t.
Her expression is without emotion. The softness I used to know in her gaze has hardened into something unshakable.
This is my fault.
“I know I don’t have the right,” I begin, my voice rough. “But I needed to say this to you face-to-face.”
She crosses her arms. Gives me silence. She’s waiting.
I have to get this right. I know that. There’s no room for error, not after what I did to her. “I’m sorry.”
She doesn’t as much as bat an eyelid.
“I knew…I know you and…I should’ve known you’d never steal.”
Nothing. Not even a deep breath.
I continue. “I was wrong. About everything. About you. I listened to voices that didn’t deserve my trust and lost yours in the process.”
Still nothing.
This is harder than I thought it would be.
She’s shut down.Where is my sweet thing who used to laugh so hard she had tears in her eyes?
She’s in jail, Cain. You put her there.
The horror of what I have done to her is a living nightmare. If it hurts me so much, I can’t even fathom how it crushes her. I could feel her affection for me—I could feel that we were falling in love. And now I know what her ex did to her, and in that harsh light, my actions are even more reprehensible.
My hands shake slightly as I step forward. “I ignored every instinct I had about who you are because it was easier to see you as the problem than to confront the truth about the people I thought I knew. And I am so, so sorry.”
She continues to study me, unmoved.
She isn’t cruel. She doesn’t lash out. She simply watches, as though she’s measuring my words and finding them…too little, too late.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me. I wouldn’t, if I were you. But…Faith, I fell in love with you and I…if there’s even a flicker of”—I have to pause to collect myself because my eyes fill—“feelings for me, please…give me a chance.”
We stay like that for long moments. I plead silently.
“There’s nothing inside me to give,” she finally says.
