death is the only ending for the trash queen

Part 14

The very few times Alver had ever seen his wife's face this close cascaded through his memories in a waterfall of strange emotions.

Cale was beautiful.

It was just a fact that he knew. He didn't marry her because of it, for his purposes marrying a squid would have been just as well if it would have worked, but he was always aware of her beauty.

She had a striking and sharp beauty that attracted the eye whether one attempted to look away or not. Sharp narrow eyes, delicately shaped cheek bones, full lips, crimson hair–he could easily list all of the factors that made her beautiful but somehow all of the intellectual descriptions in the world didn't do justice to the person in front of him.

When faced with a beauty like her, especially up close like this, logic could only make its muted complaints while the heart pounded and greedily drank in her effortless beauty.

So many words to say he was left breathless.

Her soft and calloused hand resting on his cheek, her stunning brown eyes blown wide with surprise, her pink lips partially parted as though she'd forgotten to scowl at him. She was always beautiful and yet in moments of weakness, that beauty really struck him and stole away everything but the racing of his heart.

Perhaps he was still sleepy because he unconsciously leaned into her touch as his drowsy eyes searched for answers.

Why was it that she lied?

He never would have said those things to her if he'd known. He hadn't even wanted to say it. He hated the words and he hated the reality and he couldn't understand why she was so determined to hide the truth from him.

He didn't even know what the truth was. Not entirely. But he knew enough to know that she lied. She'd purposefully misled him into believing that she didn't care for their daughter. Who knew what else she was lying about.

And even as he sought out answers, his heart ached wretchedly in his chest. If he could take the words back now–no, if he could take the very thoughts back. If he could turn back the clock and understand–

The perfectionist inside of him couldn't cope with his mistake. It made sense. He bet his life on his ability to read others and he'd missed something so big and so close. He'd missed so much and he didn't even know how or why.

Yet... that didn't encapsulate his feelings.

Regret, remorse, the desire to change things, the frustration, the pain, the confusion, the curiosity... all of it simply orbited around the pain in his heart.

He hurt her.

How could those feelings be fully conveyed? It hurt too much to manage. He hurt her and it was for nothing. Her face full of fear and pain, her body trembling with barely repressed emotion, her eyes blazing with determination despite it all–he'd seen the pain but he hadn't made sense of it and hated himself for it.

Hated the arrogance and foolishness and his crucial inability to read this important person. Hated all of it.

He wanted to treasure her.

He always had. When he promised his life to a person he didn't know and spoke those vows, he'd always wanted to treasure her. Maybe they wouldn't love one another, maybe they wouldn't even be friends, but he wanted her to be treasured and happy. He wanted her to have a peaceful life.

How many ways had he failed? He didn't even know what his mistakes were but he knew that somewhere along the way, he'd started to make one mistake after another. He'd become a source of her misery.