Lies
Life was simple when you had an easy life. An easy existence. Say you're sorry and confess your sins, that's all it took. But it wasn't so simple, so uncomplicated.
Not in the way he said it and not in the sentiment reflected in his gaze. Hurt, clearly; enraged, painfully; understanding, unlikely. He said it as if it made sense. As if she should atone for her past and it would fall into line- everything is as it should be. Balanced, sinner and saint alike.
She was not Rachel Mason, not here. Neither was she Amanda Fenshaw. She stood before his scrutiny, stripped bare in a vulnerability that reached beyond intimacy. Beyond the silent accusations. Stuck in purgatory, waiting for him to say what he had to say.
He said she should leave. Confess or disappear, back into the night that he assumed she was from.
"Please," she begged him.
He couldn't hear her. She had taken matters into her own hand, bringing down the pedestal that he had placed her upon, one that she had never asked for. And now she was left in the aftermath, in the devastation and dirt that she belonged in. It had never been so clearly expressed than when he looked at her.
Such deception on her part and yet, he never thought to ask why. To ask how. Only that it had happened and now here they stood, face to face. And he resented her for it.
He left his resignation on the desk, both of her names left drifting in the space between them. Past and present alike, moulding into one, suffocating her. She choked- on the air, the shock, or perhaps it was a sob. All three were plausible. Rachel did not ask him to come back. Not right then. Besides, he would not believe a word that she said.