What Deceit Looks Like | ✓

epilogue

My stomach hits the floor when I realize what's going on. My wrists are quickly released, and I rub them gently as the door is shut without another word.

Maddox is standing on the other side of the small room, missing his suit jacket since his sleeves pushed up to his elbows and his hair an absolute fucking disaster. He crosses it quickly to check me for any marks, "Are you okay?"

It's the concern in his voice that jerks me back to reality. I pull away from him quickly, and move to put distance between us.

'Your promise to Charlie,' my brain reminds me. You promised that you'd never see him again.

"I'm fine. Why are you here?" I ask, trying to keep my voice neutral. I clasp my hands together to hide the shaking from him. I've only spent the last six weeks avoiding him, doing everything possible to keep myself together.

He rubs his forehead, "I tried calling to warn you. Didn't you get the message I left?"

I look away from him, feeling all of my suppressed emotions threatening to come to the surface. "I haven't listened to any of your messages. You're a grown ass man Maddox. If you wanted to talk, you knew exactly where to find me."

His silence speaks for him again.

"I want to go back to the cell." I say firmly, crossing my arms over my chest.

"No!" Maddox says too quickly, unable to compose himself. "I'm sorry, but no. You're not going back there."

I want to cry. I want to laugh. I'm fucking insane.

"Well I don't want to be in here with you!"

The hurt on his face is showing in his goddamn beautiful blue eyes. "You don't mean that. Not really. I know that I've hurt you-"

"Hurt me? You didn't hurt me. You disappeared. Without so much as a text message for three weeks." My walls are up completely, and I want to believe he's still the person I love. Maybe it wasn't Maddox who always saw the good in people. Maybe it was me. "I trusted you with parts of myself I didn't even know I could give. You asked me to trust you."

"Cassidy, please hear me out." Maddox tries to plead, taking a step closer to me.

I shake my head, "There's nothing to say. It was a really great experience, but we're in two different places in life. I'm going to prison because I'm guilty. Your life is going back to what it always should have been. I wish you two all the happiness in the world."

He looks torn, and he shouldn't be. Paige is everything he's always wanted. She is what he wanted. "I choose you." Maddox says it so softly that I am almost positive that I misheard him. "Cass I love you."

I need you to let him go for her sake.

"You can't say that! You don't get to say that. Jesus what is wrong with you?" I ask wanting to rip my hair out in frustration. "Your fiancé came back from the dead Maddox. You can't choose me because I don't want to be chosen."

He takes another step towards me. "I know that and I have spent every day since she came back trying to love her the way I used to. It's not a switch for me. I can't flip it from Cass to Paige in a span of hours. I just didn't think it would be that easy for you to flip it." Maddox is way closer to me than he should be.

Maddox has no idea what he's talking about. It's taken everything in me to try and flip it. "Stop. Please."

"Part of me will always love Paige, but all I have wanted to do is talk to you and be with you. I know it doesn't make sense, but I don't want to give up on us."

He's the only person she acts anything remotely like her old self around, and I just got her back.

Charlie's words flash through me. "You already did though. A month and a half Maddox. That's how long it's been since we spoke. I'm sorry that you're struggling to reconnect with Paige, but she is the one that deserves you. She always has. She can offer you everything? And what can I offer you? An orange jumpsuit and a few letters a month?"

Maddox has the nerve to roll his eyes, "You're not going to jail."

I lift my hands up to motion to the room we're arguing in, "Where are we then? Fucking Disneyland?"

"Hayes called in a favor and I paid everyone their fair share."

I push him away, "I didn't ask you to do that! You can't keep bailing me out of every situation I get myself into. I did everything that I'm accused of. I deserve to go to prison."

His jaw drops, "Are you seriously mad at me that I'm not letting you go to jail?"

"There are so many things I'm mad at you for right now that I can't even keep them straight," I mumble, trying to let the events of tonight wash over me. "So what exactly is your plan here? Does Paige realize that you're just going to leave her after everything she's been through?"

"I'm not leaving her-"

I cut him off quickly, "Oh so we'll just be sister wives?"

His patience is running thin from all of my interruptions, "Will you just please stop talking and let me explain to you what's happened the last few weeks?"

I sit in one of the chairs and motion for him to explain. "She doesn't want to be with me either. We sat down and had a talk about everything. Paige isn't an idiot, she could tell that something was bothering me. We're not the same people we were when she left. I'm giving her the condo so she can get her feet under her without having to stress about where she'll live. When I found out Paige was alive, I had no idea what I was going to do."

Maddox pauses to glance at me to make sure I'm still listening, "I wanted to make it work with Paige. Charlie left the key on the counter and she didn't have to tell me, I knew it was from you. My god this is going to sound so cheesy, but when I saw it sitting there, I knew that I would be perfectly happy with Paige. But Cass... you make my head spin with all of your changing emotions, I don't even mind when you drool on me. You were willing to let me go if it meant my happiness. I love Paige, but I'm in love with you. Seeing the key sitting there made me realize that I might have lost you for forever."

I open my mouth to speak, but I close it quickly. I start to try and find the right words to say, except nothing is coming to me.

He hesitates after completely baring himself to me in a way that wouldn't have been possible months ago. "Cassidy?"

I stand up, deciding that there are no perfect words. Nothing about us is perfect. Charlie will have to get over it. I tried, but if this is what's best for both of them, I don't think she'll have a problem. I take the few steps to get closer to him than I ever thought I would be again, before kissing him. Maddox kisses me back with an amount of intensity I didn't realize was possible.

This is the kind of love that breaks so it can regrow stronger than before. I can feel him smile, "Why are you smiling?" I mumble, pressing my lips against his again.

He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, "Because I really didn't think you'd come back to me. I'm happy."

I chuckle, playing with a button on his shirt, "I didn't plan on ever talking to you again. I can't go through that again, so if you're not serious then don't make promises you can't keep."

Maddox kisses me again gently, "I won't ever hurt you again."

"That's a pretty big promise."

"What do you say we get out of here, or did you still want to go back to the cell?"

"Let's get out of here and never come back."

He smiles down at me and I have a feeling that we're going to be okay.