I Was Hoping She Would Notice but again Now When She Did... Im Tired

“Huh…?”

Lucian blinked.

His mind went blank for a second. The world seemed to freeze, his thoughts scattered like leaves in a storm. He just stood there, speechless, staring at Cassandra.

Her smile remained stretched, far too wide, too perfect.

“I said,” Cassandra repeated, voice disturbingly gentle too sweet, like sugar coating poison, “let’s get married.”

Silence.

Lucian’s brows furrowed. He sighed, a long, tired exhale from deep within.

“Cassandra… are you being serious right now?” His voice was flat, calm on the surface, but the storm beneath was growing louder. Why does it always happen like this? Just when I want to stay away from these women, they do something that flips everything.

Cassandra tilted her head. Her eyes were far too wide haunted, strained, teetering between emotional implosion and collapse. A storm brewed inside her, barely concealed.

“You thought I would kill you, didn’t you?” she asked quietly, her gaze unwavering. “And maybe I wanted to… back then. Maybe I even hated you. But right now, I hate myself more.”

She took a shaky breath. “Maybe you’re right I did want to kill you. But I didn’t. I saved you too right. Because you were Harry. After I found out who you were… only I know what I went through. And yes even knowing that you are you’re Lucian… the son of that man.”

Her smile finally cracked. It trembled on her lips before vanishing entirely.

Emotion surged into her eyes, filling them like rising tides pressing against the fragile walls of her sanity.

“I can’t think straight anymore. Everything feels like it’s falling apart,” she whispered. “But I remember those moments with Harry… you made me feel like I mattered.”

She took a shaky step forward. “I need to believe that meant something.”

Lucian stared at her, the air thick with emotion, his chest tight. She wasn’t lying he could feel it. Her voice, her trembling hands, her pleading eyes everything about her was honest in its pain. But that only made it worse.

“Let me prove it,” she said, voice trembling. “Let me show you that I don’t hate you anymore. That I…”

She paused, choking back the storm. “You should know right? I’ve had feelings for you for so long. Think? Why do you think I kept meeting that boy in the dark? The one whose face I couldn’t even see?”

Her laugh was soft, almost broken. “You really thought it was just about the bikes and racing?” She shook her head, a bitter smile creeping back. “No… I loved you. Harry. Even while I hated Lucian. And now… I can’t separate the two. Because they’re both you. And I love you more than I hate you.”

Lucian stared at her, caught in the gravity of her spiraling emotions. He had no words. He felt conflicted too. She wasn’t lying he knew that much. But the weight of it all, the suddenness, the emotional whiplash it was too much.

“Cassandra…” he finally said, voice low, “what you’re feeling… it isn’t love. It’s confusion. Guilt. You don’t have to do this.”

“”I know what love is!” she snapped, her voice like shattering glass sharp, fragile, screaming for acknowledgment. “Don’t tell me I’m confused. I’ve lived in confusion my whole life. But right now? I’ve never been more clear.”

Lucian Sighed.

“Then why are you crying?” he asked rubbing his forehead.

She blinked, startled.

Slowly, her hand rose, trembling, fingers brushing against her cheek. Wet.

“…I didn’t notice,” she whispered. Her brows drew in, as if surprised by her own pain. “Why am I crying…?”

Lucian looked away. He couldn’t take the intensity in her eyes anymore. She was hurting, no question about that.

“You don’t love me, Cassandra. We were just… friends. Or something close to it. But this? This is too much, too sudden Maybe you are exausted or too much stress. You need to rest. Think. Clear your mind.”

“Whatever this is I don’t care!” she cried out, taking a sudden step forward. The movement was so abrupt that Lucian’s body instinctively tensed.

“You knew everything,” she continued, voice cracking. “You knew about my past. My hatred. And still, you stayed. You kept meeting me, again and again… That’s enough for me to prove that you cared for me.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks, unrestrained. And yet, her face didn’t look weak. It looked real. Vulnerable.

Lucian didn’t speak.

“Please, don’t say anything like ‘I don’t know what to say,'” she begged. “I just… I don’t want you to leave me.”

She stepped closer. Her hands clenched tightly.

“You’re the only person in this world who made me feel like I could live… like I deserved to. Can’t you just be with me? Just like you were when you were Harry. You know me. I’m not a bad person. I treated you kindly, remember? I’m better than Avey, right?”

Her voice grew quiet, fragile. “I don’t know what I’m feeling, or what I’m supposed to feel right now. My head’s a mess. I keep thinking maybe if I had only known from the start… maybe things would have been different. Maybe I wouldn’t have…”

She stopped

Cassandra’s hands trembled as they clenched into tight fists, her nails biting into the flesh of her palms. Her chest rose and fell in uneven breaths as she took a hesitant step back… then forward again.

Like a child trapped in a nightmare, she seemed lost her eyes wide, her posture trembling, like she didn’t know whether to run or fall to her knees.

“Please…” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the roaring silence. “Just don’t look at me with those eyes…”

She stared at Lucian, her gaze flinching every time it met his. As if each glance burned her.

“Like I’m some kind of stranger. Please… don’t leave me.” Her voice cracked, softer now, as her body seemed to curl inwards, shrinking from the weight of her own words. “I swear, I never meant for this to happen…”

Her lips quivered.

“Just…” she breathed, the sound breaking like fragile glass, “please don’t leave me.”

“I… I really wouldn’t be able to live without you.”

She wasn’t pleading anymore. She was begging. Her voice was raw silk tearing apart at the seams, soaked in fear and regret.

“I know I’ve done things I can’t take back… things you’ll never forget,” she murmured, the words barely escaping her lips as silent tears began to streak down her cheeks. They slid one by one, unchecked her expression twisted in shame, grief, and something far more desperate.

“But please…”

Still, no reply came.

Lucian remained motionless statuesque not out of cruelty, but because his heart was tangled in a thousand knots, and every one of them screamed a different truth.

Cassandra hesitated, then slowly raised her head.

Her eyes, shimmering with unshed tears, met his.

Glass-like. Trembling. Fragile.

She looked at him like a wounded animal expecting the final blow, yet still hoping for a gentle hand.

“…Do you hate me now?” she asked.

The question was a whisper so soft, it was almost stolen by the still air between them. But its weight hit like a thunderclap.

Her voice was uncertain. Stripped bare. Yet in it a sliver of aching hope.

Lucian exhaled, slow and deep.

Her desperation was obvious. hope as if the answer might define whether she breathed her next breath.

Seconds passed. Then, after a long and hesitant pause…

He lifted his hand.

Gently. Slowly.

And placed it on her head.

She flinched, a subtle recoil instinctive, like she expected pain.

But she didn’t pull away.

“…I don’t hate you,” Lucian said quietly, his voice steady but quiet like a ripple in deep water.

She blinked up at him, stunned, like she hadn’t even dared hope those words could be true.

He let out another soft sigh.

“You think I’m silent because I’m angry?” he asked, brushing her hair back behind her ear with a touch so soft it was more emotion than movement. “Because I’m disgusted?”

She didn’t answer. But he saw it in her eyes the fear that was exactly what she believed.

“I’m not,” he murmured. “I’m just… trying to find the right words. Because none of this is simple.”

There was a pause not of silence, but of thoughts unspoken. Words clawed at the back of his throat, begging for shape.

“…Cassandra,” he finally breathed. “I know you’re a good person. Better than you think you are. I know… that everything you did… you did from pain. From hate. From grief that never found a voice. And that’s…”

He struggled for a word that fit the storm in his chest.

“…understandable.”

A part of him wanted to say, “It’s alright… don’t worry about it.”

But the words choked in his throat. Because it wasn’t alright. He doesn’t wanted to be a pushover anymore he wanted to change himself.

His voice faltered, and he turned his head away, Sighing slightly not in anger, but in internal war. Why did it feel like he was the one being asked to forgive when he was the one who almost got killed?

Why was he the one trying to comfort her… when she was the one who’d hurt him?

Shouldn’t she be the one apologizing?

But then again…

It was still her.

And it was still him.

And he could never bring himself to look at her suffering and feel anything but the need to protect.

His thoughts were still tangled in guilt and empathy when her next words slammed into him like a meteor.

Just as he was thinking.

“So… will you marry me now, since you don’t hate me?” she asked, her tone completely flipping childlike, naive, almost teasing. Wide-eyed and innocent, like she hadn’t just been sobbing moments ago.

Lucian blinked.

“…Huh?”

His thoughts screeched to a halt.

He stared at her, blinking twice. Was this a fever dream?

“…Umm… about that are you… still in there?” he asked, scratching the back of his head with a confused, helpless laugh.

Cassandra just tilted her head at him, smiling with sudden mischief.

And then

“Will you,” she repeated, “or will you not?”

Her face, so soft just seconds ago, turned dangerously still. Her smile vanished.

And her eyes?

Suddenly sharp. Unblinking. A flicker of madness buried behind glassy resolve.

Even the tears… stopped.

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