Chapter 20
Three days later, Cassandra finally got to see Sebastian whom she had been longing for incessantly.
Lying there in the cryogenic chamber with his eyes closed, he looked calm and peaceful, as if he had just fallen asleep.
As Cassandra stared at him, she couldn’t help but remember the countless nights she spent coaxing him to sleep. He looked then as he did now—he would lay quietly in her arms, his eyes closed, his eyelashes curled ever so slightly. He was as pretty as a doll.
She found but one difference–this time, even his eyelashes were covered in frost.
Sebastian looked ghostly pale. The cryogenic chamber had to be freezing cold, right?
“Don’t be scared, Seb,” Cassandra thought to herself. “I’ll be joining you soon.”
“I’m sorry, Seb. I lied to you,” she said aloud as she reached out to stroke his face, but all she came into contact with was the icy coffin.
She couldn’t touch him, just like the myriad of times he tried to touch her heart but got rejected by her.
“Keith isn’t my boyfriend. I don’t love him at all. You’re the one I’ve loved all along, but I dared not admit it. I thought that if I admitted my love for you, it would be a form of betrayal. I would be betraying your parents. Your mom had always treated me like her younger sister. How could I develop romantic feelings for her son? Wouldn’t that make me depraved?
“Therefore, I was too afraid to admit what I felt. I started brainwashing myself. I tricked myself into thinking that you didn’t love me at all. You were too young to know what love even was. As an older figure in your life, I was responsible for setting you straight and ensuring you didn’t make any more mistakes.
“That’s why I hired Keith and had him pretend to be my boyfriend–so that you would give up on me. It was all a lie. He works as a makeup artist. The marks you saw on him… he faked them using makeup. I never touched him.”
Cassandra continued, “The wedding was a lie too. I didn’t have any part in it. All I did was pay for it. I left everything else to Keith and allowed him to do whatever he wanted. It was a grand wedding, but I was distracted the whole time. All I wanted was for the whole mess to end as soon as possible so that I could celebrate your birthday with you.”
At the mention of that, she laughed bitterly.
Cassandra rarely ever cried, but at that moment, her eyes swiftly reddened.
“I’m sorry, Seb. I promised you I’d celebrate your birthday with you, but I broke that promise,” Cassandra said, her heart shattering to pieces. “A problem arose with the company’s project in Prismark. I was told the situation was critical, and I had to go over there to deal with it.
“At the time, I figured that I would have plenty more chances to celebrate your birthday with you. What was the harm in missing one? But… you were fine all along. Why did that suddenly turn out to be your last?
“If I had known that would’ve been your last birthday, nothing would’ve taken me away from you, not even if the sky came crashing down.”
Separated by the chamber, Cassandra had no means of touching Sebastian. She also knew that no matter how moving her confession was, he wouldn’t be able to hear it. Still, she wanted to tell him anyway.
“Seb, can you forgive me? I promise I will be with you for every single one of your birthdays after this. Till death do we part.”
Cassandra bent down and kissed the chamber, the spot just above his lips. Although the chamber separated them now, it was fine. She was certain that once he woke up again, she would be able to kiss him without any obstacle in her way.
Perhaps she would need to wait for thousands of years for that to happen, but it didn’t matter. She was willing to wait.
Chapter 21
