Leveling Up by Seducing Milfs-Chapter 200. Choosing To Feel Again

Nerissa shook her head, and the tears fell faster. "How...?! How can I change into anything other than what I am now when the guilt is so heavy!?"

Rick said, "By admitting that you made terrible mistakes and choosing to do better anyway..."

"And also... by admitting that you hurt people and promising to help them now."

"You can be a monster for a while, but that doesn’t mean you have to stay one forever..."

He got even closer, so close that their faces were only a few inches apart. "Nerissa... I’m a 24-year-old guy who died alone in his apartment because he was too scared to talk to real people."

"For years, I told myself I was worthless and unlovable..."

"I gave up on life before it really began... but then I got a second chance in this world, and you know what I learned?"

"What...?"

"I learned that I don’t have to stay the same person I was because I have real connections now..."

"I’ve fought for those people I care about, and... I have become the kind of person who puts himself in front of deadly attacks to protect others, even when it’s dumb."

"And now..." Rick’s voice got softer. "You have that choice right now."

"You can stay in this dark place and think you don’t deserve better, or you can admit you did terrible things and feel guilty, but you can still choose to be better."

"You can still choose to love your kids, protect your kingdom, and fix what was broken inside or outside!"

Nerissa looked at him with tears streaming down her face as he spoke. Eight hundred years of life, fifty years of emotional exile, and now a surface dweller who was barely older than a baby by her standards was telling her things she really needed to hear.

Nerissa’s voice broke as she said, "I... don’t know... if I can do this."

"I don’t know if I can handle all this pain... and still be able to do things."

Rick said simply, "You don’t have to carry it alone."

"That’s what I’ve been trying to say to you all along. You have 300 kids who want their mother to be back as the real Ocean Empress."

"You have a kingdom that needs its smart empress. And you have me, a stubborn fool from another world who won’t give up on you! And not even by one bit!"

In Nerissa’s face, something broke completely. In that moment, everything she had built up over the past fifty years—the emotional walls that had defined her life, the carefully built numbness that kept her going—came crashing down.

She made a noise that was half sob and half wail, and all of a sudden she was crying like Rick had never seen anyone cry before. Her tears were not tears of honor, nor were they quiet ones.

This was the kind of crying that came from deep inside, without any control and completely necessary.

All of the grief that had been building up for fifty years came out at once. Her whole body shook with sobs so hard that she could hardly breathe.

She put her hands over her face, as if she could somehow hide from how strong her feelings were, but it didn’t work.

There was no way to stop the flood because the dam had broken.

Rick didn’t think twice. He pulled Nerissa close to him and wrapped his arms around her.

This gave her something solid to hold on to while the storm raged outside. She fought it for about half a second before giving in completely.

Her face was pressed against his shoulder, and she cried harder than she probably ever had in her eight hundred years of life.

Nerissa cried into Rick’s chest, "I killed them...! I KILLED THEM ALL...!!!"

"I caused the deaths of those children and individuals in the trenches, despite their innocence...!"

"Rick said softly, "I know," and stroked her hair with one hand while holding her still with the other.

"I know you did."

"I left my own kids for fifty years because I was too broken to be the mother they needed!"

"I understand..."

"I let him hurt me...! I let Typhon’s betrayal change me into someone I didn’t know...!"

"I know..."

Nerissa pulled back a little to look at Rick with tears in her eyes. "Then how can you stand to touch me...?"

"How can you look at me and not see the monster I turned into!?"

Rick looked her straight in the eye. "Because I also see the woman who spent eight hours in council meetings worrying about kelp forests..."

"I see the mother who loved her two hundredth child with all her heart, and the empress who stood at the edge of her kingdom, proud of what she had accomplished."

"Nerissa Abyssryn... that woman is still alive inside her."

"She was buried under trauma and pain, but she never really died."

"How do you know that she is still alive...?" Nerissa asked.

Rick said softly, "You wouldn’t be crying right now if she had really died."

"Things that are dead don’t mourn. Machines lack the capacity to cry. Monsters don’t experience remorse for their actions, which ultimately tears them apart from the inside."

"Your breakdown shows that the real Nerissa, the one who can love and feel, has always been there..."

"...she was buried so deep that you forgot how to get to her."

Nerissa’s face crumpled again, and she pressed against Rick’s chest as another wave of tears hit her, but this time the crying sounded different. It was more than just sadness.

It was a kind of cathartic release, like cutting open a wound that had been infected for years.

Rick held her the whole time, with one hand rubbing slow circles on her back and the other holding her head against his shoulder. He whispered quiet words of comfort that she probably couldn’t hear over her own crying, but the tone seemed to help anyway.

Rick said, "It’s okay..."

"Let it go..."

"For fifty years, you’ve been keeping this to yourself."

"It’s okay to finally feel it."

"It hurts... so much," Nerissa said between sobs.

"I understand... but you have the strength to get through it."

"You lived through fifty years of feeling numb, and I know that you can also live through feeling things again."

Nerissa’s crying gradually ceased, possibly over the course of minutes or hours in the Leviathan’s stomach, which is timeless. The violent sobs turned into quiet crying, which eventually stopped and turned into hiccups and shuddering breaths.

She stayed pressed against Rick’s chest, as if his strong presence made her feel better. Her hands had gone from covering her face to holding on to his shirt like a lifeline.

She was afraid that if she let go, she would drown in the feelings that were still swirling inside her.

Nerissa finally said, "I’m sorry...," but her voice was hoarse from crying. "I’m eight hundred years old."

"I’ve been the empress of a kingdom for six hundred years... but still... why am I falling apart like a child?"

Rick gently corrected, "You’re not falling apart."

"After fifty years of forcing yourself not to, you’re finally letting yourself feel things."

"And that’s not being weak... that’s one of the most courageous and strongest things I’ve ever seen anyone do."

Nerissa pulled back just enough to see Rick’s face. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, her hair was a mess, and there were tears all over her face.

She looked awful but somehow more beautiful than when Rick first met her.

This moment was real.

This was a real feeling, a genuine emotion.

"Thanks," Nerissa said softly.

"No need to thank me... thank yourself more often that you’re still trying hard."

"I said that because you didn’t give up on me," Nerissa replied, blushing immediately.

"And there’s more... like... grabbing my face and making me feel something, also for putting yourself in front of that attack."

"But the most important part is you... for being here with me now instead of leaving me alone in my numbness."

Rick smiled. "You’re welcome, but... to be fair, I’m not sure I could have left even if I wanted to."

"We’re stuck inside a huge, broken sea monster right now."