Chapter 46 Check Your Priorities #2
“As per tradition, Bianca is correct. In the morning, I need to get to the office and work through the new leads. I don’t want you to be my prisoner, but I also won’t leave you unprotected while Silas is out there.
Or whatever the fuck his real name is. Until he accepts a meeting with you, we’ll keep hunting him. So far, he’s eluded us.”
A shiver runs up my spine, stopping behind my gritted teeth. “I can’t believe I dated a murderer.”
The visible half of his face crimps into a grimace. “Now that you mention it, what the hell were you thinking? You’re way out of his league.” He clamps his mouth shut, clearly cutting off his words. I bet he wants to rant about Silas.
I'd better lighten the mood before it gets dark in here. And I don’t mean the lamp.
“Don’t worry. I know my worth, Reed.” I purse my lips, jokingly adding, “He came along when I was having a little sale.”
He furrows his brow at me, his lips shimmying like he’s fighting off a smile or a laugh. Instead, he snuffs out the conversation. “Well, those days are over now. I’ll pay top dollar, and you’re worth every penny.”
I redirect us in a slightly better direction. “Is Oak Winds letting me back only when I’m wearing a camera for you? Did they tell you if they fired me?”
“Honestly, I’m unsure. I’ll need to ask about that tomorrow. We’ve been moving so fast, and those kinds of things usually aren’t our concern.”
“I get it.” I twist a short strand of hair near his nape, loving how silky it is.
“Oddly, Mr. Votaw didn’t talk to me tonight.
Every time I saw him, I braced for him to scold me or bring me into his office to have the talk.
The one where HR is in the room. I saw him a few times, but he never so much as looked at me. ”
And I’m not pouting about that last part, even if I totally am.
I hate that I let him down. Before you ask, yes. I did sort of view him as a father figure, which is a trend you’ve likely noticed. Can you blame me, though? Mr. Votaw was always so sweet to me. A tad scary, but mostly kind.
Still better than my own father.
My heart pinches uncomfortably. Oh, Dad. I miss the person he was before Zara died.
He dove into his job, rarely coming home before I went to bed. And when he was around, he was a ghost of the man he was before. Mom disappeared in a different way. She hit the bottle, drowning her sorrow in vodka and gin. Much like Reed’s father did after the divorce.
Grief is a funny thing.
Everybody says it makes you stronger. Personally, I’ve never witnessed that. Perhaps the people who say that don’t know grief.
It destroys you.
The initial loss pierces you with a sharp blade.
You freeze, unable to process the shock and the pain.
It cripples you in an instant. You can’t breathe.
Can’t move. If you try, you’ll only drive the knife in deeper.
So you hold still, praying the agonizing pain will subside.
You rip out the blade, but it only makes you bleed more.
They say time heals all wounds, so maybe you can just wait it out.
Sadly, that’s another lie.
Time brings you farther away from the one you lost. The blade rusts, infecting your blood until you’ve gone septic. Desperate for relief, you seek out comfort in all the wrong places.
“Lila, did you hear me?”
If you’re lucky, simply deciding to live a life that honors the departed might be enough to heal the wound. Yet the scar never fades. And sometimes you feel a dull ache right where the blade first sliced into your flesh.
“Lila? Baby?”
At times, it isn’t an ache, but a fresh wound, somehow more piercing than the first time around.
I never know when it might happen. It only takes a random thought.
Or a nostalgic smell. A ghost of a girl walking by, hair like hers.
The chirp of her favorite bird, singing from the treetops in the early light of day. The echo of her bubbly laugh.
Sometimes, nothing at all triggers it.
Next thing I know, I’m back on that cliff.
She’s with me again, full of life and joy.
We’re happy and whole, two parts of one soul.
Then I blink, and she’s gone again. Sorrow gouges me once more, slicing me open.
I creep to the edge, terrified of what might be at the bottom of the quarry.
Before I look down, my eyes fasten shut like my brain is protecting me from seeing her lifeless body because it’ll leave me with yet another gaping wound.
But that’s my sister. I need to see her. I won’t leave her alone.
She isn’t moving.
Maybe it isn’t too late. She’s gonna be okay.
She was just talking to me a minute ago.
I can still feel the warmth of her arm in my hands from where I held on to her as she hung over the edge.
I gave her the camera because I was too scared to take the picture myself.
That’s why she did it. Zara’s always been the fearless one. She didn’t let anything stop her.
How can someone larger than life die?
“Lila!”
No, no, no. She cannot be dead. This is a trick or a nightmare.
She can’t die. She just can’t.
“Lila!”
But she did die.
And it’s my fault.
There’s no escaping this kind of grief. It didn’t make me stronger. It murdered me slowly, rotting me from the inside out.
That’s what grief does.
It kills more than the one we lower into the earth.