The Rose He Killed novel Chapter 196

Chapter 176: Saving Diana

Caleb POV

The facility was forty minutes outside the city, tucked behind pines-a place where discretion was part of the price. I’d found it, called in favors, and confirmed a bed before dawn. The director spoke with the flat, careful tone of someone used to dealing with people like me: families driven by urgency and guilt.

Diana agreed to go. Her quiet compliance told me more about her state of mind than any words could. During the two-hour intake, I sat in the waiting room and thought about my sister at sixteen. I’d spent years trying to forget the look on her face when Victor sent her away, because remembering it meant admitting I’d done nothing. I’d been young, terrified, and focused only on my own survival.

I had filed that memory away, the “Black family method” of dealing with trauma. It was something I understood intellectually but hadn’t actually resolved.

Bella sat beside me while Diana was taken for assessment.

“You couldn’t have stopped it,” she said. “You were a child.”

I looked at the ceiling. “I know.”

“Say it like you mean it.”

I paused. “I was young. I told myself there was nothing I could do, so I moved on. It was the only way to survive, but I never went back for her. Not once in years.”

“You went back now,” Bella said.

“That’s not”

“Caleb.” She looked at me, direct as always. “You found each other, you built a relationship.” She held my gaze. “That counts, let it count.”

I looked at my hands. “I used to tell myself that finding her again made up for the years I didn’t look.” I paused. “Dr. Osei told me that was a way of avoiding the guilt rather than processing it.”

“Your therapist is right,” Bella said.

–

“I know.” I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. “I’m not looking for absolution. I’m just sitting with the fact that I was there and I let them put her in a car and I watched it leave and I told myself there was nothing I could do.” I stopped. “There probably wasn’t but I never tried to find out.”

Bella was quiet for a moment. “You were surviving in the same house,” she said. “The same man, you. didn’t have more power than she did, Caleb. You just had a different role in it.”

“She needed me.”

“Yes,” Bella said. “And you need to let yourself grieve that without turning it into a verdict on who you are now.” She looked at me steadily. “You are not Victor, you never were. And sitting in this waiting room at six in the morning is proof of that.”

I stayed silent. The weight in my chest was too old to resolve in a waiting room, but hearing Bella speak

1.3

Chapter 176 Saving Diana

the truth helped-even if I wasn’t ready to fully believe it.

Claim

Family therapy began in the third week. Diana met with Dr. Mbeki alone, then with me, and finally-at her own request-with Bella, hadn’t expected her to ask for Bella, but the doctor had a gift for cracking things open gently.

In our first session, Diana sat across from me. “I blamed you for not saving me,” she said precisely. “For years. I think you should know that.”

I absorbed the blow. “I know.”

“I don’t blame you anymore,” she continued. “I understand now. But I heed to say it out loud so it stops eating me inside.”

The room fell silent.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That I didn’t come sooner. That I let years pass.”

Diana looked at her hands. “You were surviving in the same house.”

“That doesn’t”

“It does, actually,” she interrupted, her voice tired but clear. “It does. I’m just now understanding that.”

We were both quiet for a moment.

“Do you remember the summer before he sent me away?” Diana said. “You taught me to play chess. In the library, on Sunday afternoons, because Victor never went in there on Sundays.”

I looked at her. “I remember.”

“You were patient with me.” She said it simply, without accusation or sentiment. “You didn’t have to be, you were younger than me and I was way annoying and you were patient.” She looked at her hands. “I’ve thought a lot about how someone can be two things at once-the person who was kind to me back then, and the person who didn’t bother to look for his sister for years and you were both.”

She looked up. “I need you to know that I understand that it was not your fault before we move forward.”

The grief felt honest and right-not something to control, but something I finally had to feel. Just as Dr. Mbeki had said, it was a necessary part of healing.

“Thank you,” I said, my voice rougher than I intended.

Diana nodded once, her eyes fixed on the wall. “Right,” she said. “Okay.”

We sat there with years of pain from being Victor Black’s kids between us. I finally let myself feel the grief -no more hiding it or filing it away. It was painful, but it was necessary.

Dr. Mbeki said, “This is good work.”

In week five, Bella joined us. Diana was guarded at first, but she relaxed because Bella was being completely real.

“I want to understand you,” Bella said.

Chapter 17ving Diana

Diana studied her. “You showed up at the hotel late at night, not knowing if it was dangerous.”

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