Chapter 12
STASSI
The mansion is too quiet.
Not the comforting kind of quiet, but the kind that hums against your skin, reminding you that you're not supposed to be here. That you slipped into the past like it still belonged to you.
It always gets like this at night, once Elena leaves. I stopped wandering around because I have to fight myself not to remember what it was like to live here, when the sound of Theo's voice filled the space between the marble floors and the vaulted ceilings.
Now it feels like a museum of a life I once touched but never deserved to keep. So I just stare at the damn ceiling or my phone, and I'm tired of doing both. I've showered, I've paced, I've even tried watching TV, but nothing works.
All I can hear is his voice, both of them. One from our former times here, and now his current, more harsh one.
I bury my face in my knees. I want to scream. I want to cry. But the part of me that learned how to survive doesn't allow either. She just repeats: stay in control. Don't break.
I've spent the last few nights drafting messages and deleting them. Trying to find the words that will make this right. Trying to imagine a world where Theo hears the truth and doesn't hate me. Where he holds me instead of looking at me like I'm the reason everything hurts.
Because maybe I am.
A sharp inhale escapes me, and I lean back against the headboard. I close my eyes, trying to block out the memories, but they creep in like shadows slipping through cracks in the wall.
A small part of me wishes I could have let him be. Let him move on. Maybe then he wouldn't be looking at me like that, wouldn't be tearing himself apart from the inside. Wouldn't be trying to decide whether I'm a ghost or a bomb about to go off.
I shake my head and stand.
I can't sit here anymore. I need to move. To breathe.
I leave the bedroom and walk down the hall.
Theo's probably somewhere in this house. Maybe in his office. Maybe asleep, which seems unlikely. He never used to sleep much—not when things were tense.
I see the library and decide that maybe reading will help.
I run my hands along the books on the shelves. It's got everything you'd imagine. History, philosophy, and then there were my favorites: Greek poetry. I used to make him read them to me.
I instantly remember that one night after our trip to Santorini. We'd both been sunburned to hell, exhausted, and too sore from cliff diving and wild sex to do anything. So we covered ourselves with aloe vera lotion, and he just read to me.
He sat in the patio lounge chair wearing nothing but a towel, with his legs stretched out, a chilled glass of white wine in one hand and a book of poems in the other.
"Read me something," I'd said.
He laughed, turned a page. Then he looked at me with those eyes that made me feel like the center of the goddamn universe.
"Eros shook my mind like a mountain wind falling on oak trees," he read in his sexy, low voice.
I remember the way he looked at me when he said it. Like he wasn't just reading poetry, he was reading me. My soul. My longing. My fear.
He saw everything in me.
I didn't say anything then. I just crawled across the lounge chair and kissed him.
And for that moment, the world wasn't dangerous yet. It wasn't complicated. It was just him and me, sunburned skin and all.
It's these kinds of thoughts that have been clawing to get out for four years.
I don't know how long I stand there before I realize I'm crying. Silently. No sobs, no sniffles. Just tears sliding down my cheeks like I'm made of nothing but grief and regret.
I wipe them away quickly, afraid someone might see them, or might have to acknowledge them.
I close my eyes and try to push the memory away. It doesn't work.
Instead, my mind offers me a different image, one burned deeper than anything else.
A motel room in Los Angeles. A flickering "Vacancy" sign outside the window of some shitty run down place. Me sitting on the edge of a bed with a burner phone in my lap and a loaded Glock under my pillow.
I'd been living under a different name for nearly five months. My hair was cut. My ID was fake. Every time I checked in, I made up a new story. New past. New hometown.
But what I carried never changed.
And I never stopped thinking of him.
If he knew the truth…
If Theo knew the whole story, why I left, what I was protecting, what I've been hiding, he'd never forgive me.
Not just because I lied.
But because I made the choice for both of us.
I take a deep breath and shake my arms in a poor attempt to shake away those thoughts and bring me back to reality.
Maybe a book isn't what I need.
I leave the library, and when I do, I glance down one of the halls and see the light on in Theo's office.
I walk slowly over to his door without second-guessing myself. Like a moth to a flame, his light my beacon.
When I get to the door, I stop.
I hear him. I hear movement.
My hand hovers just above the wood.
Just knock.
He'd answer. Maybe scowl. Maybe ignore me. But maybe, just maybe, he'd let me in.
I imagine it. Sitting across from him like we used to. Maybe he'd pour me a vodka soda. Maybe I'd finally tell him the truth.
That I didn't leave because I stopped loving him.
I left because I loved him too much.
My fingers curl slowly into a fist.
But I hesitate. Paralyzed by the same fear that made me leave in the first place.
Because what if I tell him, and he looks at me like a stranger?
What if he says nothing?
What if he just walks away?
I lower my hand.
It's not time. Not yet.
As I turn to leave, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I take it out, heart jumping.
It's him.
I have to talk to him.
I hurry back to my room. My phone stops buzzing.
1 Missed Call flashes across the screen.
My heart flutters. I can't miss this.
Theo flies from my mind as my phone buzzes again.
I quickly shut the door, answer the call, and press the phone to my ear, my heart skipping a beat.
"Hey," I whisper.
A pause.
Then I smile.
"I know. I miss you too. I'll be home soon, don't worry."