SHE FEELS ANGER, raw enough that it nearly aches through her muscles and joints. is this how he constantly feels? she half-wonders in the back of her mind. the crudeness of the emotion flashes like fragments breaking loose and the feeling is nearly enough to bring cassie to her knees. the emotion close to electricity in this new body that’s not hers and never would be hers. that’s not hers, (not her face, not her body, not hers). her life gone, destroyed, for nothing. his rage, his jealousy, his sorrow, his regret. his. his. she’s merely a chapter in his story, everything revolving around him, despite his apology saying otherwise. but it’s instantly replaced with something more than agony and she feels it in the back of throat with every word he shares. that new feeling crawling forward faster than rage, there’s tears burning in her eyes and she has to blink to clear her vision. apologizes don’t mean shit without action, words are fucking words. back then, in school, there had always been an apology, a vow to do better. he’s not good, she’s good. repeat. she looks at him, long, hard, gaze unwavering and says nothing.
the look she cast cannot be weathered—rafael’s attention sunk to the ground, hard. what he’s feeling right now is okay; that subtle twitch in his eye, the quiver in his clenched fingers that couldn’t calm down—spiritually siphoning her pain feels like a thunderbolt thrown at the pit of his belly, having his heart crack, rumble, and set off in an awful fiery stream of tears that burns his cheeks. he isn’t any less of a man for this. it proves he’s more than the raging monster within. it’s a display that he isn’t the monster his guardians once treated him as.
this discernment doesn’t register with him though. even if he were told this — even if his life was made out into episodes and an analyzer was to dissect rafael’s character and show him just how human he was for feeling the way he do, it wouldn’t sell as good as his black trauma. the pang of emotions just broke out into too many shards for him to put together. he never was any good at puzzles, but to him, for him, cassie always seemed to be the master at it.
knowing this in the back of his mind, he brings it to the forefront of his thoughts, internally asking himself, what was i saying? how could i possibly reciprocate the energy she put into me? love isn’t going to be enough. he’d right in that last sentence, the world she gave him wasn’t enough. he replaced incalculable sacrifices she made in honor of their union with cheap insecurities, letting them be his guides and help put him out of a connection that made him feel as though his relationship was as youthfully endearing and boundless as fonny and tish, and as epically classic and warmingly groundbreaking as saint suttle and gertie brown. he’ll insult them both if he dares contemplate a probability of the return of those feelings, even if it’s for a slick second. that spell ended the second after she looked over at him with an expression that was beyond distinguishing anymore and took her last breath in the car he purchased for her on her eighteenth birthday.
what he could do — the attempt will be hard — is try and give her the strength that he ought to show her. she’s owed that 100x over. unclenching his palms, he reach for her hand — it’s a pathetically moves at first because it’s terribly weak. he was unsure, feeling as though he’s violating boundaries ( a part of him did want to run from this but he knows he can’t ) but he manages. interlocking his fingers with her fingers ( he deeply wish it was hers. these fingers feel so different. ), he grips her hand tightly. secured, translating without a word that he’s committed to making this right. someway, somehow—he’ll make things right. this isn’t a moment for romanticism to manifest in the air, that’s not what he’s trying to have. he’d like it. a selfish part of him would really like it, but no. it’s just a moment for rafael and cassie to have. in silence—just together.
a beast and the angel whose beautiful wings he clipped.
