The Maid's Deception-Chapter 84 - 83: ’’Why Does It still Hurt So Much?’’
She walked to the subway station on autopilot, her body moving through the familiar motions while her mind drifted.
One month. Today marked exactly one month since that night in the greenhouse. Since she’d betrayed him. Since he’d walked away.
Thirty days. Seven hundred and twenty hours. Forty-three thousand, two hundred minutes.
She’d counted every single one.
People said time healed all wounds. That eventually the pain would fade. That she’d wake up one day and realize she’d gone an hour without thinking about him, then a day, then a week.
They were liars.
She thought about him constantly. Every moment of every day. Every patient reminded her of something....a man with dark hair like his, a woman wearing emerald like the dress he’d loved, a child’s laughter that sounded like the joy she’d felt in his arms.
Everything led back to him.
The subway was crowded, packed with people heading home after work. Aria found a corner and pressed herself against the wall, trying to make herself small, invisible.
A couple stood nearby, the man’s arm around the woman’s waist, both of them smiling at something on her phone. Happy. In love. Oblivious to the broken woman standing three feet away.
Aria looked away, her chest tight.
She’d had that once. That easy intimacy. That comfortable affection. That certainty that someone loved her and wanted her and would protect her.
And she’d destroyed it.
"I would have given you everything. All you had to do was ask."
His words haunted her. Every day. Every night. Every moment.
She could have had everything. Her mother’s life AND him. If she’d just been brave enough to trust him. To ask for help. To believe that he’d say yes.
But she hadn’t. And now....
Now she had her mother. Healthy, vibrant, alive. And she was grateful. So grateful. Mei’s recovery was a miracle, a gift she’d never take for granted.
But the cost had been everything else that mattered.
The subway reached her stop. She got off, climbed the stairs to street level, and walked the four blocks to her mother’s apartment in the cold February air.
Mei was waiting for her with dinner....homemade soup, bread, salad. All of Aria’s favorites. The apartment smelled like home, like comfort, like love.
"There you are," Mei said, smiling. "I was starting to worry. You said you’d be home by five."
"Sorry. Busy shift. Lost track of time."
A lie. She’d known exactly what time it was. Had just been avoiding coming home, avoiding being still, avoiding having to feel instead of just react.
They ate together, Mei chattering about her day....the book club she’d joined, the art class she was taking, the friends she was reconnecting with now that she had her life back.
Aria listened and smiled and made appropriate responses, all while feeling like she was watching the scene from outside her own body.
This was good. This was what she’d wanted. Her mother alive and happy and making plans for a future she’d almost lost.
Mission accomplished.
So why did Aria feel so empty?
After dinner, she helped with dishes, then retreated to her small room....barely big enough for a twin bed and a dresser, but it was hers.
She changed into pajamas, brushed her teeth, went through all the motions of preparing for sleep she knew wouldn’t come.
Then she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, and let herself think about him.
Not the him from the greenhouse....cold and devastated and walking away. But the him from before. The him who’d taught her about pleasure and desire. Who’d held her while she cried. Who’d looked at her like she was precious and rare and worth protecting.
"You belong to me."
She’d belonged to him. Completely. And she’d thrown it away.
Her phone sat on the nightstand, dark and silent. She picked it up, scrolled to his contact....never deleted, even though she should have.
Damien Blackwood.
She’d saved it under his full name, professional and distant, like that would somehow make it hurt less.
It didn’t.
She opened their message thread. The last text was hers, sent a month ago, the day after everything fell apart:
"Thank you. For everything. I’m so sorry. I know it doesn’t matter, but I’m sorry."
Read but never answered.
She’d sent three more texts in the first week. Apologies. Explanations. Desperate pleas for him to just talk to her, to let her try to make it right.
All read. None answered.
So she’d stopped. Had accepted that he didn’t want to hear from her. That he’d moved on. That she needed to do the same.
But her finger hovered over the keyboard now, a month later, the anniversary of their destruction making her reckless.
She typed: "It’s been a month. I still think about you every day. I’m still sorry. I still love you."
Stared at the message for five minutes.
Deleted it.
Typed again: "I know you don’t want to hear from me. I just wanted you to know I’m grateful for what you did for my mother. And I’m sorry for what I did to us."
Stared.
Deleted.
She’d done this same routine dozens of times over the past month. Written messages she’d never send. Apologies he’d never read. Confessions of love he didn’t want to hear.
It was pathetic. She knew it was pathetic. But she couldn’t stop.
Finally, she set the phone down without sending anything.
He didn’t want to hear from her. Had made that abundantly clear through his silence.
She needed to accept it. Needed to let go. Needed to move forward.
But god, it was so hard.
She rolled onto her side, hugged her pillow to her chest, and let the tears come.
Quiet tears. Controlled tears. The kind that had become routine over the past month.
Tomorrow she’d wake up and do it all again. Go to work. Throw herself into patient care. Pretend she was fine. Come home exhausted. Cry herself to sleep.
One day at a time. One hour at a time. One breath at a time.
That’s what her mother said. That’s what Marcus said. That’s what everyone said.
But none of them understood that every breath hurt. That every day felt like climbing a mountain with weights tied to her ankles. That she was drowning and didn’t know how to find the surface.
I’m sorry, she thought, sending the words out into the universe even though he’d never hear them. I’m so sorry. I love you. I’m so sorry.
And somewhere across the city, in a mansion she’d never see again, the man she loved was....what? Sleeping peacefully? Moving on? Dating someone new? Forgetting she existed?
She didn’t know. Would never know.
That was the price of her choices. The consequence of her betrayal.
She’d saved her mother and lost everything else.
And as she finally cried herself into fitful sleep, Aria wondered—for the thousandth time....if it had been worth it.
Her mother was alive. That should be enough.
So why did it feel like Aria had died in her place?
