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Teo straightens his back and turns to face me.
“I always hated it when you lied to me,” I continue on. “Even when we were younger and you used to fib just to get your way, I hated it. But what I hated more was when you kept the truth from me by omission. At least when you lied, I could tell that you were doing it. I was so obsessed with you that I had studied all your mannerisms. Especially the ones you used whenever you told a lie. But I could never tell when you were keeping a secret from me. I could never tell that. And it hurt me. It always hurt me when you did that. Because I felt that when you simply decided the truth was too painful for me to hear, that meant you thought I was weak. A fragile little thing that needed to be kept in the dark for her own good. You made me feel inferior to you when you did that.”
“That was never my intention,” he quickly defends, grabbing my hand in his and squeezing it tight. “However, by your tone, I see Cleo has been talking to you.”
“She has.”
“You know your handmaiden, Anya, is becoming a bad influence on her. Cleo didn’t have such a big mouth before she came along,” he says, trying to ease the tension between us.
“Noted.” I let out a half-hearted smile, my way of meeting him halfway in attempting to lighten up the mood. But my attempts are in vain when I ask what I really want to know. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me go off on you like that, not bothering to tell me what really happened that night with Levi’s parents?”
“You didn’t give me much of a chance, kitten.” He smiles meekly.
“And you didn’t make much of an effort either.” He just shrugs at the accusation, as if it’s of no importance. “There. That type of attitude is exactly what I’m talking about. If it was never your intention to make me feel less than, to make me feel weak, if that’s true, then don’t do it to me now. Don’t omit anything, and don’t lie. Give me the whole truth, no matter how gruesome and vile you think it is. I can take it.”
“Well, maybe I can’t, okay?!” he shouts, standing up to his feet. “Maybe I’m the one who can’t face the horror of it all anymore. I can’t relive it over and over again, like I have for so many years. It’s taken too much from me as it is.”
“But maybe if you just explain—” I start, only for him to cut me off.
“Explain what? That it was because of me that Levi’s parents died so brutally like that? That his last memory of his mother is her decapitated body being raped and torn apart by savages? That his father sobbed and yelled as he watched them do that to her? I can’t, Katrina! I just can’t!
My entire body trembles at his vivid accounts from that night, my tears no longer trapped inside me but streaming down my cheeks. The horror that both my loves went through is just too much to be put into words.
“It’s my fault. Whether you believe it or not, it’s all my fault,” he cries, unable to keep his own heartbreak at bay.
I stand up from my seat and cup his cheeks in my hands.
“You were a boy. An innocent bystander in all of this. You had no way of knowing.”
He flinches at my words.
“Didn’t I?” he croaks. “If that were true, then why did I try so hard to get Levi out of the castle that night? Why did I wait for everyone to be asleep to go to his room and wake him up just so he could flee? No, kitten. I knew who my father was. Deep down, I knew he wasn’t there on a diplomatic mission. He had his own agenda, and a part of me knew it. And I’ll never be able to forgive myself for it either. Never.”
“Teo,” I sob, feeling the amount of pain and guilt that he went through. That he’s still going through now. And suddenly, his desires to be punished all make sense. The scars on his back all make sense to me now. He needed his body to feel some form of pain just so it could overlap the pain he felt in his heart. That was the only way he found to escape the misery he had been trapped in. Even if only for a few blessed moments.
He shakes my hands off his face and steps back from me.
“No. Don’t feel sorry for me. I’m the villain in the story, just like you accused me of. Don’t forget that.”
“You’re not a villain, Teo. You’re just another one of my father’s victims. You are not at fault.”
He closes his eyes, unable to stop the tears running down his face.
Ever so slowly, I walk to him, and lift his hand to place his palm on my cheek.
“I’m sorry I ever doubted your heart. I’m sorry for ever believing such a lie.” I swallow hard. “And Levi will forgive you too, Teo. He will. He just needs to know the truth.”
And it’s hearing Levi’s name that breaks him.
Teo falls to the floor, crying inconsolably.
I wrap my arms around him and just let him fall apart. All the while I tell him how he’s not at fault. How this guilt isn’t his to hold on to. How he is loved and cherished. I tell him all this while he weeps for the innocent boy who lost his whole self-worth that one fateful night.
I’m unsure how long we stay like this, kneeling on the floor, crying our eyes out, but I’m in no rush to move. Teo needs this. He needs someone to forgive him, even if he can’t forgive himself yet. And when his tears begin to subside, I wipe them clean from his face with my hands.
“I thought I lost you,” he stammers, his voice still raw.
“I did too,” I admit, kissing away the remaining stubborn tears.
