My eyes widen. My stomach drops. “How dare you.”
“I’m serious, Corabelle. Nothing else mattered down there but you and me and trying to survive. I was all you had, and we clung to each other, and we were allowed to. We had to. But now we’re back in the real world and everything’s different, and I think you miss that.”
I’m shaking my head through his words, rejecting every single one. “That’s sick. You don’t know me at all.”
“I do know you. I know you pretty damn well.” Dean sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose as a look of defeat washes over him. “I don’t want to end things like this. I don’t want you hating me.”
“Well, you don’t get a choice in that, Dean,” I say through a bitter laugh. “You’re the one ending it—you don’t get to control the fallout, too.”
He steps back, running his tongue along his teeth and shoving his hands into his pockets. “Yeah. I guess that’s fair.”
“It’s probably best if you leave now.”
So I can go sob into my dogs for the next decade.
Dean flicks his eyes up to me. There is so much pain there, so much uncertainty. But he’s doing it anyway. He’s leaving me alone to pick up the pieces of our shared trauma. I turn away, afraid I’m going to collapse with grief if I keep looking at him.
And then he’s scooping me into his arms, holding me tightly to his chest, his mouth against my ear. “God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to walk out your door without making you understand why I need to do this… but I realize you won’t understand until I’m gone. And I’m so fucking sorry, Cora. The last thing I want to do is give you more pain, but I promise this is the right thing to do.” Dean clutches me, squeezes me, his hand cradling the back of my head and threading through my hair. He peppers kisses along my neck as I start to cry uncontrollably. “Don’t cry. Don’t cry, my sweet Corabelle. I love you so goddamn much.”
I can’t stop crying. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop.
Dean pulls back slowly, his hands lifting to my cheeks and wiping away my tears. He kisses my forehead, my nose, landing on my lips with a final goodbye. “You’re still my girl. You’ll always be my girl.”
Then he releases me, turning around and heading to the front door.
I’m overcome with emotion—with love and sorrow and regret and anger—and I call out to him as his hand reaches for the doorknob. “Wait.”
Dean hesitates and faces me.
I reach behind my neck and unclasp my necklace chain, moving towards him. His eyes drift from my face to the gold locket I’m holding out as I approach him. He’s shaking his head, not wanting to believe what he’s seeing.
I take his hand in mine and outstretch his fingers, delicately placing the locket into his palm. He closes his eyes, fisting it, and heaves out a deep breath.
I leave him with parting words before I turn away: “I wish you fought for me as hard as you fought to get out of that basement.”
I should have turned around sooner, walked away faster, and disappeared down the hallway… but I waver. I glance at him before I retreat, catching his reaction.
I have seen my fair share of horrors, and many of them still keep me up at night.
But I fear nothing will ever haunt me quite like the look I see in Dean’s eyes before he steps out my front door and walks out of my life.
Chapter Thirty-One
I make it through the week, just barely.
I called into work on Monday because I hadn’t quite recovered from the bomb that was dropped on me Friday night. Now, after days of self-isolation and ignoring all of my texts and phone calls, I finally venture out and land on my parents’ doorstep that following Sunday afternoon.
My mother opens the door and I quite literally collapse into her arms.
“Cora… sweetheart,” she says in that familiar, soothing tone as she strokes my hair. “What happened?”
Oh, nothing much. Just suffered through the worst four months of my entire life, only to have my heart smashed to smithereens just when I finally see a break in the clouds.
I blubber like a sobbing idiot against her shoulder as she pulls me into the house and shuts the door.
“He left,” I croak.
I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be falling apart in front of the woman who was almost Dean’s mother-in-law—through Mandy. It’s twisted, and it just makes me cry harder.
But I really need my mom right now.
“Cora, honey, let’s go upstairs and talk.”
I collect myself enough to wobble up the staircase and dive beneath the covers of the bed in the guestroom. My mother slides in beside me, wrapping her arms around me and just letting me cry for a while. It feels good to be stripped down and comforted after a week of braving the storms alone.
Dean used to be those comforting arms, but he’s gone now.
My hair is damp from tears as she brushes it away from my face, whispering words of solace against my forehead. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I nod. I do, I really do—but I don’t know how. “I’m just not sure how to talk to you about this. I’ll sound like a huge hussy.”
“I’m your mother, Cora. I would never think of you like that. Dad and I are very aware of the situation that unfolded, and while it was an unexpected shock, we never judged you or thought any less of you.”
“How?” I glance at her through bloodshot eyes. “I judged me. I’m still judging me.”
“Because we love you… unconditionally.”
I swallow a sticky lump in my throat, nuzzling against her warmth. “None of this was supposed to happen. It’s not supposed to be like this.”
My mother continues to caress my hair, my cheek, all the way down my arm and back up again. The motions tame my erratic heart. She lets a few moments slide in silence as I soak up the temporary peace, and then she speaks. “This reminds me of your junior year of high school when you were bedridden for six days with mono,” she reminisces, her hand continuing its climb and descent. “You were so sick. You could hardly get out of bed.”
“You would hold me like this every night and sing me lullabies. I was so embarrassed and told you to leave because I wasn’t a baby anymore, but I secretly loved it.” A wistful smile washes over me. “It made me feel better.”
She nods. “And every day at dinner time, I’d bring homemade chicken noodle soup up to your bedroom.”
I still remember that soup. It was so good. I began to look forward to it every day. Even on the days I had no appetite, that soup warmed me up and made me smile. “I remember that. I loved it.”
My mother pulls back to find my eyes, a knowing smile stretching across her pretty face. She leans in to kiss my hairline, then whispers, “That soup was from Dean.”
My chest tightens, the air escaping me with a sharp gasp. “What?”
“He would come over every day after school to study with Mandy, and he’d bring you soup. He never made a big deal about it—he acted like it was nothing.” She squeezes my arm, noticing my watery, wide-eyed stare. “He’s always cared about you, Cora.”