Epoch wrote:
Venus looked at his hand on hers, liking the way they fit so nicely together. She looked up at him, his eyes glistening with worry and concern. She looked away, feeling her eyes start to well up, but she bit them back as long as she could. Instead of answering, she stood up, pulling her hand from his to pull down her waist band down a bit to reveal her hip, which was hardly recognizable with the huge, incredibly painful-looking, blackish-purple bruise. There were strings of smaller ones on her sides, which she pointed out to him as she lifted her top to expose them. Scratch marks trailed down her sides and to her hips, like little red shoelace licorices running along her skin. "He...he's not...he gets really mad, you see, and..." She stopped, her breath catching as she finally realized how much this really bothered her.
Mason was horrified, to say the least, with himself. How could he cause so much pain to a person and not even care. He never realized just how much he could have meant to Cassia, and now, right in front of his face, she was bawling in hysteria and falling apart quicker than he thought possible. He nodded and pulled her close to him, just held her there nice and close until her breathing evened out. He needed her to be calm when he told her the whole story. "Are you breathing?" he asked as he sat her down on a bench. He held her hand in his and was silent for a second before starting. "Cassia, I didn't leave you because I didn't love you. I loved you more than anything, and honestly, I still do. But I didn't feel good enough. I felt like you deserved better than me, and that you could get better than me. I hadn't been able to focus on you as much as I wanted to, because of a lot of things happening with my parents. They, uh, got divorced. So I got really distracted, and I felt I hadn't been able to give you the attention you deserved. So I figured it would be best for you to either have all of me or none of me, if I couldn't take responsibility in being in a relationship, but..." He watched as she listened, intent. God, she was beautiful. "I never meant for it to go this far, and I'm so, so sorry." he finished.