Burden Of Guilt: Haunted By Lies Novels & Stories

"What?" "For years. She's been blackmailing me with a lie about a miscarriage. She claimed my pushing her caused her to lose our baby, that I was responsible for this tragedy. And I believed her. God help me. I knew how she fell, I remember the blood." His voice cracked. "I've been living with that guilt, that knowledge that I'd hurt someone I cared about, that I'd caused the death of a child. And she used that guilt to control me, to push me toward this engagement, to make me compliant."

Can't you hear? He closed his eyes, pinched his nose, "If it were because of last night, then you don't have to feel guilty or humiliated, its normal. I know it sounds not like this easy for you but we were husband-wife, Lia. So don't feel burdened."- His words carried a weight that pressed on my conscience. I felt guiltier, burdening him with the consequences of my actions.

"Layla, it's... It's not just physical exhaustion. Margot thinks it's a manifestation of the emotional toll the battle and Isabella's death took on me." I sat down beside her, my voice soft. "What does that mean?" Kimora let out a sigh, her gaze fixed on the fire. "I've been holding onto guilt, Layla. Guilt for not being able to save Isabella, for not being able to prevent the losses. I thought if I pushed myself harder, if I fought even more fiercely, I could make up for it. Knowing meeans I feel better, and I can figure out how to solve it, but when the problem is guilt that is this great? What exactly do I do?"

she asked. "No, he would have lived or died with guilt," she replied. "I do not expect anyone to understand me because none of you knows the guilt that weighs me down," Sarah explained. "The guilt that I have carried for ten years. Yes, he may never forgive me, but I just want to say sorry to him," she added, wiping her tears. Chelsea looked away, out of words that would pump some sense in her friend. The morning came, and Ezra woke up early. He had not seen his mother as he knocked off late the previous day, so he decided to speak to her.

The guilt had been there since the consultation room, since the hotel room, since every Tuesday and every phone call. But it had been abstract guilt, the guilt of a decision made, a line crossed, an ongoing situation. Sitting across from Maya’s folder watching her trace the timeline of a family with her finger, the guilt became structural. Load-bearing. The kind that held everything up and threatened to bring it all down simultaneously. I could not keep doing both. The sentence arrived with the specific finality of something that had been true for weeks and was only now being admitted. I could not keep doing both.

She doesn’t know that when my mother walked in, I turned toward her with my finger already on the trigger. She doesn’t know that some sick part of me wanted her gone. Wanted Roman’s attention all to myself. Wanted to not hear them fighting anymore. She doesn’t know that I’m not sure it was an accident at all. “I don’t feel guilty,” I lie. “It happened a long time ago. I’ve moved on.” “Have you? Because Roman seems to think you haven’t. That you’ve been carrying this weight for years and it’s finally starting to crush you.” “Roman worries too much.”

“All my life,I've felt an immense amount of…responsibility and gratitude towards a man…who saved my life.” I waited for her nod before continuing. “He happened to be in the right place,at the right time…otherwise I’d have died.” “So you feel indebted to this person, correct?” “Yes,” I shrugged. “I feel like I owe him my life,and although he's hurt me so many times,in so many different ways…I still find myself feeling guilty fo…for knocking him down.” This time,the doctor's encouraging nod came with a rueful smile. “First of all,you do not owe anyone your life. Can we agree on that?”

How could I have been so selfish, so cowardly, as to deceive the one person who meant everything to me? With each step I took, the burden of my life grew heavier, dragging me down into a bottomless pit of despair. I sank onto the edge of my bed, burying my face in my hands as the tears flowed freely down my cheeks. The ache in my chest was almost unbearable as I grappled with the crushing weight of my guilt.

I didn't know how to move forward, how to face the world knowing that I was responsible for someone's death. I closed my eyes and tried to push the haunting thought away, but it was like a persistent shadow that wouldn't leave me alone. I knew that I would never be able to escape it, that it would be a part of me forever. The guilt was my punishment, my reminder of the terrible things I had done.

But it was really out of my control, like so much about my life that day; it seemed like no matter what I did, things kept going wrong. After our one round earlier, he told me I could cleanse myself of him, and there he lay in the bed; lost in thoughts only known to the gods. I left him to his own devices as all I wanted was a reprieve from this burdensome affair. As much as I had tried to deny it, I was being weighed down with guilt and shame. My heart felt like lead, my mind raced like a wild horse. How could I have gotten myself caught up in such a unescapable situation? “Darling, I want you to come out there.”