Chapter 29: The Confession

POV: Avalon Pierce

Avalon barely slept.

He spent the entire  night replaying yesterday’s deposition—every question, answers even moments his control had cracked. Sullivan had torn through his defenses like they were paper and  today? Today  would be worse.

Diana had warned him that Sullivan would push harder on the “learning to love” angle, on whether he was even capable of it after ten years of emotional shutdown.

Selene was still asleep beside him when he got up. He dressed quietly, made coffee he didn’t drink, and stared out at the Bay looking emptily at the road.

His phone buzzed. 

Diana.

Ready? Meeting you there at 9.

He wasn’t ready. But that didn’t matter.

The deposition room looked exactly the same as yesterday.

Same walls, fluorescent lights and the table stretching between him and Sullivan like a battlefield.

But Avalon felt different, he felt raw, exposed like yesterday had stripped away the last of his armor.

Diana Chap sat beside him. “Remember what we discussed? He’s going to push on your capacity for love, please don't get defensive...just be honest.”

“That was what got me in trouble yesterday.”

“No, it made you believable.” She opened her folder. “Ready?”

Sullivan entered before Avalon could answer.

“Good morning, Mr. Pierce. Shall we continue?”

“Yes, we can.”

The court reporter’s fingers found the stenotype keys , and just like that, the interrogation resumed.

“Let’s talk about love,” Sullivan began without preamble. “Yesterday you said you’re ‘learning to love’ your wife. What does that mean exactly?”

The question sounded simple,but Avalon knew it wasn't.

“It means I’m working through ten years of hurt. Rebuilding trust, allowing myself to feel things I buried decades ago.”

“That sounds very therapeutic but it’s not love, is it?”

“It is the process of getting there.”

“How long does this process take?”

“However long it takes.”

“Convenient. An indefinite timeline means you never have to actually arrive, you can decide to stay in ‘process’ forever.”

Avalon’s jaw tightened. “Maybe it means I’m being honest instead of pretending to be somewhere I’m not, yet.”

“Honest. Let’s explore that.” Sullivan leaned back. “When you married Selene, did you love her?”

“No.”

“Do you love her now?”

The question hung between them.

Avalon thought about therapy sessions. About  when Selene cried in his arms, and him watching her sleep every night now ,and he instantly felt something shift in his chest.

“I’m close,” he said finally.

“Close isn’t yes. So after seven weeks of marriage, you still don’t love your wife?”

“I’m getting there.”

“But you're not there.” Sullivan made a note. “Mr. Pierce, do you think you’re capable of loving anyone after spending ten years emotionally shut down?”

The question landed hard.

“Yes.”

“Based on what evidence? You haven’t had a serious relationship in a decade, you prioritized work over connection, you built walls so high even your own mother couldn't reach you. So, what makes you think you can suddenly dismantle all of that for Selene?”

“Because I’m trying.”

“Trying isn’t evidence. It is hope and hope doesn’t make a marriage legitimate.”

Avalon felt something crack inside.

“You want evidence?” His voice came out harder than intended. “Fine.....Evidence is going to therapy twice a week even though I hate talking about feelings, it is moving her into my bedroom when keeping distance would be easier and me looking at her and feeling terrified because feeling anything after ten years of nothing scares me.”

Sullivan’s pen paused. “Your fear is noted, but fear isn’t love either.”

“No but fear means I have something to lose. You don’t fear losing what you don’t care about now, do you?”

“Care isn’t love.”

“Care is human basics and also It is the road to loving.”

Sullivan made extensive notees while he lets the silence stretch.

Then he shifted.

“Your grandmother, Lorraine Pierce. She raised you after your father died?”

“Yes.”

“And when she died, how did you feel?”

Avalon’s throat tightened. “Grief, loss and anger that she too had left me with an impossible situation.”

“Anger at the will?“

“Yes.”

“So, you were angry because you were being forced to marry Selene?“

“Not really, just at being controlled by Nene from beyond the grave.”

“Do you still feel that way?”

Avalon thought about Nene’s letter,  realizing his grandmother had seen something he’d been too hurt to see.

“No,” he said quietly. “She was trying to fix what my mother broke and I understand that now.”

“Convenient understanding? Right when the inheritance is secured.”

“Not at all, it is a true understanding after spending time with Selene and realizing we had unfinished business.”

Sullivan flipped a page. ”You cut your mother off because of what she did to Selene, yes?“

“Like I had previously answered, not just because of Selene but the pain and torment her act had costed myself and my wife.”

“Yes, but yet Selene also kept that secret for ten years under the guise of young and terrified. Doesn’t that kinda make her a complicit?”

“No. It makes her a victim.”

“Victim? Or someone who lies by omission and keeps devastating secrets and can’t be trusted.”

Avalon was frustrated but answered calmly “Again, she was twenty-two and terrified.”

“She was twenty-two ten years ago. What about the years after? The decade she could have told you but chose not to?”

Avalon was beginning to get angry. “She thought she was protecting me.”

“From what? The truth? That’s not protection, that’s control if you ask me.”

“Well, I didn't ask you, just so you know, there is something called trauma response.”

“Is it? Or is it selfishness—left without explanation, kept you in the dark, then return when she needed money?”

“Stop.” The word came out sharp. “You’re twisting everything. Selene left because my mother threatened to destroy my future. She stayed away because she was grieving and came back because Nene asked her to and also because she still loves me”

“Okay!!! But she did needed the money. Eight hundred thousand in medical debt is a whole lot.”

“Which I offered to help with because her sister was dying and because you don’t let people die when you can help them and she was managing the situation way before I came into the picture.”

“And because you needed her to marry you.”

Avalon stopped, because Sullivan was somewhat right.

“Yes,” he said finally. “I helped because I’m compassionate and also because I needed her cooperation. Those things coexist now, don't they?”

Sullivan rested in his chair like he had struck a gold. “You keep acknowledging that—that your motives are mixed, that financial incentive exists alongside genuine feeling. Don’t you see how that undermines your claim of legitimacy?”

“No. I only see how it makes us human. Real people have complicated motivations and we are not pretending otherwise.”

“Real marriage requires love, yet, you've admitted  severally that you do not love her.”

“I have admitted I’m not there yet, that is clearly different.”

“Is it? After seven weeks, if you don’t love her now, when will you?”

“When I’m ready and can handle the vulnerability.”

“Vulnerability. What makes loving Selene so vulnerable?”

Avalon’s hands clenched.

This was it. The question he’d been avoiding.

“Losing her,” he said quietly. “Loving her means risking loss and the first time nearly destroyed me. This time—” his voice roughened, “—I’m not sure I’d survive it.”

Sullivan made notes. “So you’re protecting yourself.”

“Yes, I am also trying to heal, so that I can love her without the fear of losing, love her with the understanding that I would never let her ago again.”

“Can you heal while married to the source of the original wound?”

“She’s not the source. My mother is.”

“Even though Selene chose to leave? Chose to stay away? Chose to keep secrets?”

“Those choices were made under duress.”

“Were they? Or is that what you’ve convinced yourself so you can justify this marriage?”

Avalon felt his throat close because a part of him wondered the same thing.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe I am justifying this or lying to myself... what I do know  however, is that I’m here, making efforts and that has to count for something.”

Sullivan sat back. For the first time since the beginning of the deposition, his expression softened slightly.

“Mr. Pierce, I’m going to ask you one final question. Not for the record, this is between us.”

Avalon waited.

“What do you actually want? Setting aside the inheritance, the will, all of it—what do you want?”

The question felt genuine.

Avalon took a deep breath.

“I want Selene,” he said quietly. “I want us to work, I want to get to the other side of this fear and hurt and find something good, something real. God, I miss my woman and now I finally have her and I just want us to be genuinely happy.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s worth it. When I look at her, I see someone who survived things that should have broken her, she sacrificed everything for her sister,she came back even though she was terrified I’d hate her. That kind of person is worth fighting for.”

“Even if you’re not sure you love her?”

Avalon looked Sullivan directly in the eye.

“I am sure. I just haven’t said it yet.”

The words came out before he could stop them.

Sullivan’s pen paused.

“You’re sure you love her.”

“Yes.”

“But you haven’t told her.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Avalon’s heart hammered. “Because saying it makes it real and real means I can lose it.”

Sullivan made a final note. “No further questions.”

He stood. Gathered his materials.

“For what it’s worth, Mr. Pierce—that was the most honest thing you’ve said in two days.”

Then he left.

Avalon sat alone in the empty room ,his hands were shaking.....shaking is an understatement.....his hands were trembling.

He’d just admitted under oath that he loved Selene way before he had the chance to admitted it to himself, even before saying it to her.

Diana appeared. “You okay?”

“No.”

She sat beside him. “That was good. I mean really good.”

“I just told Sullivan I love her.”

“I know.”

“She doesn’t know yet, like, I haven’t told her.”

“Then maybe it’s time.”

Avalon looked at her. “What if—”

“What if nothing. You just said it under oath. You meant it. Now tell her.”

Selene was waiting in Diana’s office.

She turned when he entered. “How bad was it?”

“He made me admit I love you.”

Selene went completely still. “What?”

“Under oath and on record. I told Sullivan I love you before I got to tell you.”

“Do you?” Her voice was barely a whisper. “Mean it?”

Avalon walked to her and pulled her close.

“Yes. I love you. I’m terrified and scarred and still figuring out how to do this. But I love you.”

Selene’s hands fisted in his shirt. She was crying.

“Say it again.”

“I love you.”

“Again.”

“I love you, Selene.”

She kissed him—desperate, relieved and joyful.

When they pulled apart, both of them were crying.

“I didn’t plan to say it like this,” he said. “I had this whole thing—”

“I don’t care. You said it and that is what matters the most.”

They held each other while Diana quietly left.

Outside, the city moved on.

Inside, two people who’d started as strangers, became lovers, lost each other, and found their way back—

Finally said the words that made it real.