the song nobody knows
because anyone who had heard it
is dead, and others can't remember.
Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me out of this bird suit?
Siren Song, Margaret Atwood
Kate's in a blur the rest of the day. A horrible, guilt-stricken blur. She does her job but her heart's not in it. It's the third time since the bombing case that Castle's taken a lunch break without her and simply not come back that afternoon. Now she understands why.
He thinks I don't care about him.
It's bad enough that she's been hiding it. But the way he found out, hearing her say it so matter-of-factly to a suspect, must have destroyed him. Like he wasn't worth her time. Like she didn't have a spare second to tell him oh, by the way, about what you said –
(Does he even still love her? Could he still love her at all after this?)
Her heart twists painfully in her chest, the ghostly ache under the faint pucker of her scar is a sick, vicious reminder of how this all started.
And now he has one. He has a hole in his heart.
(I put it there.)
By the time evening rolls around and she goes home, she's a mess, a carefully pent-up mess of fear and guilt and shame. Terrible, rolling waves of shame. Alexis' words are on an endless loop in her mind. They won't stop.
She numbly looks through her refrigerator for dinner, but the collection of styrofoam and tupperware on the shelves puts an aching lump in her throat and she shuts the door. She's not hungry.
Every woman he's ever trusted has let him down. Kyra. Meredith. Gina. Sophia. And now Kate.
Why didn't I realize it would end like this?
It was stupid to think she could hide it forever. Castle's a patient man. But how far has she pushed him?
Her future unrolls before her unwilling mind. A long canvas, unfurling in grey and black and watching him walk away, seeing him vanish, reading about his affairs with every model who crosses his path, hearing secondhand details about his wedding to yet another woman who bats her eyelashes and coos over his fortune. Her future without him. Because that's where this is going.
She's lost him.
I ruined this. I ruined everything.
She can't hold it in anymore and she leans over her kitchen counter and cries, horrible choking sobs that hurt her chest and strain her lungs and burn her eyes and shred her heart. Because she loves him. She loves him so much it scares her. She loves him so much she wants it all. She wants the whole story, the whole fairytale.
More than anything, Kate wishes she were normal. Wishes so very badly that she didn't have to drag death and sorrow and suffering into every relationship she has.
She leans on her wrists, takes a deep, shaky breath. Forces herself to think. Right now he's – he's angry. Justifiably so. I can't blame him. He has a right to hate me. Hate her. Hate –
She grits her teeth. No. Think. Think, Kate.
He's not happy right now. He's avoiding her. He's disappearing. All the slow steps forward, all the tiny victories she's won over her own insecurities, are gone. All their progress. All the soft looks. The touches. The gentle flirting. It's all over.
On the other hand, it simplifies her course of action, doesn't it?
Because this can't get worse. This is the worst-case scenario.
Now she has no choice.
There's no way but forward.