< The Past Returns
+8 Pors
The Past Returns
~Damon~
This is not how I wanted her to find out.
f**k.
I stood there, frozen, watching the sheet slide off her trembling shoulder as she gripped the banister like it was the only thing keeping her alive. Her eyes were wide. Wet. Wounded. And they were staring at me like I’d just ripped her soul out and smiled while doing it.
Because I did.
Not with a blade. Not with claws.
With silence.
With a lie I told so long ago it felt like a different lifetime.
“She’s dead.” That’s what I told her. That’s what I looked her in the eyes and said, knowing damn well it wasn’t true. Knowing I had no f*****g right. But I told her anyway. Because it was easier than telling her the real truth. Because if I had told her the truth, I would have lost her before I even had the chance to make her mine.
And now?
Now I was watching her bleed from the inside out, wrapped in nothing but a crumpled sheet and my c*m still leaking down her thighs.
And I couldn’t move.
Couldn’t speak.
Couldn’t f*****g breathe.
Because she looked destroyed.
And I did that.
Not with my knot. Not with my hands.
With my silence.
With that one stupid lie I told the night she curled up in my bed and asked me if the woman in the picture
was my
wife.
“She’s dead,” I said.
I remembered the way she looked at me. Like she understood. Like she felt sorry for me. Like she trusted me enough to let me hold her in my arms after that.
That moment built something.
This one just burned it to the ground.
I watched her from across the room, every inch of me begging to go to her, but I didn’t move. I didn’t even flinch. Because how the f**k do you fix something like this? How the f**k do you explain why the woman you said was dead is now standing in your kitchen looking like she’s ready to reclaim everything?
III
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< The Past Returns
I didn’t know she was coming back today.
+ Pakis
Now she was here. Standing tall. Dressed in white. Hair perfect. Skin glowing like she just came from a spa retreat instead of a rehab center. She looked too good.
Too composed. Too… polished. Like maybe she’d gotten some work done before showing up. Like maybe she
knew exactly how she wanted this reunion to go.
And I didn’t give a single f**k.
Because my eyes never left Lyra.
She wasn’t speaking. She wasn’t breathing. She was just standing there at the top of the stairs like her soul had been torn out. I saw her eyes. I saw the confusion. The betrayal. The heartbreak. And then I saw the tear.
One single tear falling from her cheek as she clutched the railing.
And it broke me.
My jaw clenched. My fists curled. My throat burned with all the things I wanted to say but couldn’t, because I didn’t even know where to start. I never wanted to hurt her. I never wanted her to find out like this.
But I was out of time.
“Damon,” Camilla whispered.
Her voice was soft. Sweet. Like it used to be. But there was something else in it too. A familiarity I didn’t want. A claim she had no right to anymore.
“I missed you.”
I didn’t even have a second to react. She stepped forward and suddenly her arms were around my neck. Her body pressed into mine. Her lips crashed against my mouth like she still belonged there.
My entire body locked.
My mind went blank.
And then rage poured in like a tidal wave.
I ripped her off me so fast she stumbled backward and nearly knocked into the counter.
“What the hell is wrong with you,
woman?!”
Camilla’s eyes went wide. Her hand flew to her chest like she was the one who’d been violated.
“You kissed me back,” she said, like it was fact. Like she could rewrite the truth just by saying it with enough
conviction.
“No,” I growled, “I didn’t. I stood there because I was too f*****g shocked to helieve you were insane enough to try that in my house.
I stopped myself.
Bit down on the words.
Because that wasn’t something I could say. Not now. Not like this. Not with Lyra still standing upstairs, barely able to breathe.
“You’re still angry,” Camilla muttered, brushing herself off like she wasn’t the one who blew her last chance at
< The Past Returns
dignity.
“Angry?” I laughed once, sharp and dry.
“I’m out now, Damon. I’m clean.”
“f**k,” she added, her voice cracking as her heels clicked against the floor behind me. “I missed you. I missed you so f*****g much.”
I didn’t speak. I stood there, breathing through clenched teeth, trying to control the violent pulse hammering through my veins. My hands were already balled into fists. My jaw locked so tight I could hear it creak.
I heard her footsteps behind me before I felt her.
She came closer. Slowly. Carefully. And then-
Her fingers touched the front of my sweatpants.
It was a soft, tentative graze, like she thought she still had the right to reach for me. Like my c**k belonged to her just because it used to. Like the woman I just knotted upstairs didn’t exist. Like the scent of s*x still on my skin, the memory of Lyra’s trembling thighs and tear–soaked moans, wasn’t still tattooed across my whole f*****g body.
I looked down.
Her hand was there.
Flat against me.
And that was it.
I turned, grabbed her wrist, and yanked her hand away from me like it was poison.
“Get your hands off me,” I growled, my voice low, firm, and shaking with rage. “Don’t touch me. Ever again. Do you understand me?”
Camilla stepped back. Her eyes widened, shocked. Not because she was hurt, but because she was realizing -maybe for the first time–that whatever piece of me she thought still existed was gone.
She stared at me like I’d just slapped her across the face.
“You really hate me now,” she whispered.
“I don’t hate you,” I said, because hate would mean I still cared enough to feel something. “But I don’t belong to you. Not anymore.”
Her mouth parted like she was about to speak again, but that’s when Tasha’s voice cut through the silence.
“Dad!”
She stepped forward from the archway, her arms crossed, her expression nicked.
“Why are you treating her like this?” she asked, her voice trembling with that same emotional blindness teenagers always had. “She’s not the same person as she was two years ago. She’s clean now! You should be happy that she’s back!”
My head turned slowly, and I stared at her with every ounce of restraint I had left.
“Tasha,” I said, and my voice dropped to that dangerous quiet I only used when I wanted someone to listen to
C
< The Past Returns
me, not argue. “Don’t meddle when adults are talking. Go to your room. Now.”
She blinked.
Took a breath like she wanted to challenge me. Like she thought I would bend if she just looked sad enough.
“But, Dad-”
I didn’t shout.
I didn’t need to.
“I said now,” I repeated, my tone dropping further, thick with warning. “Do not make me repeat myself.”
She froze. Swallowed. Then backed away without another word, disappearing down the hallway with tears in her eyes and confusion on her face.
When Tasha was gone, I turned back to Camilla.
She hadn’t moved.
She was still standing there in that too–perfect dress, her arms wrapped around herself like she couldn’t believe I didn’t fall at her feet the second she walked in.
“I’m not going to lie to you,” I said, slowly walking toward her. “I am glad you’re clean. I am. I prayed for it. I begged God for it. But you don’t get to walk in here and pretend like the world froze while you were gone. You don’t get to touch me. You don’t get to talk to me like nothing happened. Because everything happened,
Camilla.”
She opened her mouth, but I didn’t give her the chance to speak.
“You left. I’m the one who held our daughter while she cried. I’m the one who sat by the phone every day wondering if you were still breathing. I’m the one who walked into your bathroom and found your body collapsed on the floor surrounded by empty pill bottles. I’m the one who drove you to that clinic and signed the f*****g forms to admit you. And I did it out of love. I did it because I couldn’t bear to bury you. But that doesn’t mean I waited for you.”
Her shoulders were trembling now, and I could see the way her lip shook, but I didn’t stop.
I couldn’t.
Because Lyra was upstairs, broken. Crying. Probably thinking I used her. Probably wondering if she was just some replacement for a woman I once loved. And the longer I stayed down here, the more damage I knew I was letting happen.
“I moved on,” I said finally. “I found something good. Something real”
Camilla was silent now.
Tears slid down her cheeks, but I didn’t feel satisfaction. I didn’t feel vind
d
I felt empty.
Tired.
Done.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” I said softly. “But whatever it is, you’re not going to find it here.”
The Past Returns
But Camilla didn’t move.
She didn’t cry harder.
She didn’t even flinch.
Instead, she stood there like a woman who still believed she had a chance. And when she spoke, her voice was low, pleading, soaked in delusion that made the back of my neck tighten.
“I’m not going anywhere, Damon,” she whispered. “I want you. I still want you. I missed you every second I
was gone.”
She took a step forward.
And then another.
And before I could speak, her hands were at her chest. Fingers sliding over the delicate buttons of her white
blouse.
One.
Two.
Three undone.
f**k.
Her shirt fell open slightly, just enough for her breasts to spill forward–perfectly pushed up, nearly bare, like she planned it all. Her bra was sheer. Lacy. The kind she used to wear when she wanted to be forgiven with
S*X.
Her n*****s were visible through the fabric. Her breathing was soft and shallow, her lips parted, and her gaze locked onto mine like she thought showing her body would erase everything.
f*****g b***h. It didn’t.
All it did was make me see red.
“Don’t you f*****g dare do that, Camilla,” I snapped, and my voice boomed across the room like a threat wrapped in steel. “Do not mistake my self–control for invitation. I won’t lay my hands on you because I don’t hit women, but don’t f*****g push me. I swear to God–back up.”
She froze.
Finally.
But her lips were still trembling, and her shirt still hung open like bait, like she didn’t fully believe I meant it. “There is nothing for us,” I said again,/slower now, each word heavier than the last. “Avoid me, Camilla. Hear me very clearly. There is. Nothing. For. Us.”
I didn’t wait for a reply.
I didn’t want one.
I didn’t care what tears she shed or what games she tried to play next.
Because Lyra was upstairs, hurting and crying.
And it was my fault.
