Okay well that was not the reaction he was expecting, and he pulled up short, blinking dumbfounded silver eyes at her. He opened his mouth to respond, but for once, words failed him, and he just stared at her for a long moment. “What are...Lace, what the hell are you talking about, babe? Are you--?” But he frowned harder, brow furrowing as he listened to her words. Like really fucking listened.

Oh. Well fuck.

He was...he was the dumbest person alive, wasn’t he? The frown melted off his face as realization dawned. Oh he really fucking was the worst. “You believed me.” He’d thought he’d fixed things, thought he’d fixed the damage he’d done. He really was an idiot. Honestly, he’d almost forgotten, the details of what he’d done to her pushed into a little metal box in his head with all the other fucked up shit he’d done as a kid, all the people he’d hurt, his whole messed up childhood.

All tucked away so he could pretend he was something shiny and new, and not the kind of person who’d break a girl just because he wanted to, just because he could. Just because she was exquisite and vulnerable and perfect and everything he was too stupid to want to protect. “Oh. Fuck. Lacey, I…” He shook his head, and for the first time in years, let himself be something other than a complete and utter fucking idiot.

“I’m so sorry.”

God, he was a coward, wasn’t he? Strutting around like he was something shiny and magnificent and refusing to look any deeper than his own metallic surface, not wanting to see the rusted, twisted monstrosity that still lived beneath that gleaming exterior. “I’m sorry, Lacey, I--”

Lacey.

Wow, fuck, he was...honestly, a fucking monster, wasn’t he? He’d torn her apart, baptized her in blood and renamed her, shorn her fucking hair, how could he have forgotten the way he’d whispered in her perfect ear that no one could want her after what he’d done? Bent her and broken her til she believed every word, and fucking reveled in the beauty of his twisted artistry. That sexy lace he'd carved into her skin wasn't just lines his lips wanted to trace, it was the fucking nightmare he'd carved so carefully into her skin line by line, taking her body and making it his for the whole fucking world to see for the rest of her life.

He’d set eyes on his son and wanted so bad to sever ties with his past, be what those gorgeous silver eyes saw in him. Something bright and gleaming and wonderful, a man to be emulated, to strive after, and he was stupid and selfish enough to think he could do it, too, and leave the consequences for his actions in the past. “No, Lacey--Wallace? Fuck. I--I’m such an idiot. Baby, no. This was me, I was the fucking--none of what I did was your fault. You didn’t deserve anything I put you through, and--fuck, I’m sorry. I thought--but it doesn’t matter what I thought, does it?”

Didn’t matter what he thought, what he intended, any more than it mattered whether or not he meant to hurt Kylin or abandon her to grow up alone. Intention wasn’t worth a damn in the face of the damage he wrought. Sharp pain twisted the iron of his face, and he fought to draw a breath, to find the words to make things right between them when there was no making what he did right, and he just fucking tortured her with it, didn’t he? Day in and day out, thinking all was fuckin’ right with the world and they were friends or something more now.

He was. The absolute dumbest thing in the world. And a fucking monster to boot. “La--.” No. That wasn’t her fucking name. “Wallace,” he said softly, and he damn well made himself meet her eyes, stare into depths of brown that tried so damn hard to hide the fire in her soul. “Listen to me. Bab--” Nope, he cut himself off, didn’t deserve the casual endearments. Okay. Deep breath, and he tried again.

“You? Are everything. You’re raw and vibrant and vulnerable and exquisite and you fucking try so hard, you’re this jagged, shining, irresistible beacon of light, and I saw you and I needed everything about you, and I’m sorry. I took something delicate and fragile and lovely in you and I broke it so no one else could touch it. So no one else could touch you. So you’d be mine, because I was a greedy, fucked up little monster who’d just crawled out of a life that only ever taught me how to take.

“If I could fix it, I would, but I’m clearly still the same goddamn monster I tried to run away from, tried to pretend I’d left behind. I’m sorry I was so fucking selfish, sorry I hurt you, sorry I was too damn blind to see how badly and how much worse I’ve made it every goddamn day since I saw our perfect babies and decided I had any damn right to force myself back into your life because I wanted them too.”

God, he had fucked things up so completely, hadn’t he? “What do you need? What can I do to make any of this right?”

“Stop.”

For once, he listened. A single word cut him off at the knees, and he shut his damn mouth and listened. Saw the pain in her eyes before she turned away, and he stayed put. Let her walk away as she told him truths he hadn’t wanted to hear. His apologies didn’t matter, didn’t change anything, didn’t mean anything.

And there was nothing he could do to fix it.

He stared after her, not even watching the delicious sway of her ass as she left, just...just staring as this sharp pain lanced through his chest, pain he knew well but had made himself forget. To keep breathing after Ty’d stomped all over him and walked away. Huh. Wow. He...was an idiot. He opened his mouth again to...what, apologize? Beg her to stay? Why the fuck should she? She’d said it all, hadn’t she?

He had royally fucked up. Repeatedly. And had pretty much let himself be blithely oblivious to the pain he was causing her every day, just by existing around her. Told himself he’d fixed it when all he’d managed to do was hurt her more. “There’s no way you can make it right.” He closed his eyes and let the words wash over him again, crash through him, shove that sharp pain even deeper because he deserved it, didn’t he?

He waited until she was out of earshot to whisper it again anyhow. Even though it didn’t matter, even though it was meaningless, even though it couldn’t change anything. “I’m sorry.”