Chapter 18 Elowyn
ELOWYN
Bam, bah-bam. Bam, bam, bam. Ba-bam.
It’s the beat of my heart, a strange cadence that refuses to settle. Every part of me begs it to slow down. To ease enough that my eyes can close and sleep can take me.
My body is desperate to recover. My mind aches for a chance to mend.
If only.
Unable to stay still, I toss and turn in bed. Eventually, I end up resting on my side, staring out the window.
The moon is full tonight, hanging in the sky beside a scatter of stars, their light filtering into the room.
Like me, they’re wide awake.
“Ugh,” I groan, turning again.
Other than my pulse, my damn thoughts won’t leave me be. They’re trying to trap me here forever, wide-eyed and exhausted.
He treats you like a slut, calls you one too.
But he dressed you in two gorgeous, though unconventional, gowns.
I think Duncan put the last one together himself. His own hands created something made specifically with you in mind.
I love him.
I’m mad at him.
He’s furious with Barclay. Not with me, though. Not anymore.
Something in his eyes, the pain…
Then again, he told me, “I know that’s how I got you here. You care deeply about Barclay and your childhood home. Fine by me. As I said, I’ll make you fall in love with me. That’s the only thing I care about.”
“I hate you,” I groan, knowing damn well I don’t. The sheets I’m on are new. They’re warm and soft, easily crumpling in my fist. “I hate you.”
Plagued by restless energy, I get out of bed and begin pacing the room.
Who do you really hate?
The whisper lands like an accusation.
It’s my own conscience talking to me.
“Myself. I hate myself.”
It’s true. I’m the one to blame for how things have turned out.
Years of compliance, of shrinking. Of setting my wants aside because there was always someone else whose needs mattered more than mine.
When Duncan disappeared, it was just another lesson from the universe. The day he vanished, I learned that my feelings weren’t just unimportant, but dangerous. That I did this to him.
That was the story I accepted for a long time. It doesn’t land as true anymore.
It wasn’t the universe pushing me away from Duncan. It wasn’t me either.
It was someone else entirely.
My fists clench and unclench as I pace faster now. I cross the room again and again, heat building under my skin.
“You know what? Maybe I don’t hate myself. Maybe I hate…”
The name gets stuck in my throat. Consciously, I never dared actually to hate him. I was upset, resented him, yeah. Never hated him.
But you do. You hate your brother.
The accusation hits me like a freight train. It’s not wrong either.
I hate Barclay for what he did to Duncan and me.
It was all his fault. He was the one who convinced me of his lies.
Duncan never recoiled from our kiss. He told me so, and I trust him. His anguished look, the shock on his face, they were real.
Unfamiliar anger curls around my lungs. Each breath I take tastes like ashes, like betrayal.
All this time lost. All the heartache, and for what? Why would Barclay manipulate me?
And why did Duncan leave?
The question stops me in my tracks.
I look up at the ceiling, desperate for explanations.
A groan crawls up my throat as the worst thought takes shape.
Money.
In a convoluted way, I understand that. Getting rich in Cobbledale and the surrounding towns wasn’t and never has been easy.
There are no major corporate branches nearby, nor any big law or accounting firms. Nothing like the ones they have in Manhattan, where most people in town commute to work.
By leaving, Duncan managed to gain…this. The estate. The wealth. The power.
I bow my head, dragging a hand through my hair, refusing to believe he just got up and left because he had a better opportunity elsewhere.
It doesn’t add up.
He was only in high school. Besides, he said he’d never stopped thinking about me, and I believe him. If money had been his only goal, he would’ve taken me with him. He would’ve texted. Called.
Looking for new opportunities doesn’t come at the expense of your friends.
That realization doesn’t clarify anything. It only leaves me with more questions.
Why would Barclay lie?
And why is Duncan back now, when my world is falling apart?
Why is he so furious?
He has to have a good reason. I just need to figure out what it is.
My chest tightens. I rub at it absently, fingers brushing over the silk robe that appeared in my bathroom after I showered.
Unless I have answers, I’ll never fall asleep. I just know it.
Without giving it a second thought, I cross the room, fling the door open, and storm into the hallway.
But I don’t go looking for Duncan.
Of course I miss him. The distance I put between us after the first time we had sex wounds me.
The throbbing in my temples intensifies as I know my questions will go unanswered. All because the truth hurts him too much to put into words.
I still deserve to hear it, no matter how heavy it is. I’m part of his life now, and that means sharing everything.
As I tiptoe through the hallways, searching for something I can’t name, my stomach turns. My heart is heavy, dreading what I might find.
Then sadness eclipses my dread and curiosity because…all the rooms are empty. Lonely.
This wasn’t how I pictured my life or Duncan’s.
As a na?ve teenager, I had other plans for us. I’d imagine him taking me on our first date to a picnic on a hill overlooking the Hudson River. He’d brush a crumb off the corner of my mouth. I would be bold and turn my head to kiss his fingers.
Duncan would talk to Barclay for me too. He’d help convince him that being a woman didn’t mean I was less than a man. I’d have their support, would go to college, have a career. Be with Duncan.
My dreams went on and on. Marriage. Kids. A small house where we’d share laughter, tears, and love.
I never would’ve thought he was an asshole, let alone called him that.
So these empty rooms, this lonely house, they tear me from the inside.
It’s a kind of ache that only comes from loving someone.
And I love him. Same as he loves me.
I shake my head, reminding myself that these empty rooms aren’t the end for us. We haven’t truly lost anything. There’s still plenty of time to start a family, live in a cute house, and have tons of kids and dogs together.
Before we have any of that, I have to figure out what’s going on.
At the first turn down the hallway, I take a right, to where, hopefully, I’ll stumble across paperwork.
The only place to find that must be either in a safe in Duncan’s bedroom or in his office.
My hunch tells me his bedroom isn’t down this hall. Just in case I’m wrong, I stay quiet as I go on as I keep opening door after door.
I push the door to the last room, and the scent of Duncan’s cologne fills my lungs before I set foot inside. When I switch on the light, I see, not just smell, that I’ve made it.
I’m in his office.
Unlike most of the other rooms, this place is alive. Two antique leather armchairs sit side by side on a thick rug. A heavy, dark-wood desk has been pushed against one wall.
A single, massive painting hangs on the opposite wall. Without knowing why, my feet carry me closer. A shiver runs through me as I stop in front of it. My breath catches.
A silver moon dominates the canvas, its surface bright and luminous. Instead of light, thick black resin spills from a crack, bleeding down into a dark blue sky.
The moon is lonely. Broken.
Ruined.
It’s our story.
Tears soak my cheeks, and I wipe them off with the back of my hand. My knuckles brush against my skin over and over until my pulse settles down.
Once calm, I raise my fingertips, touching the paint strokes, the ridges, and smoother planes.
“Everything you tell me, I already know.” My hand drops to my side, the corners of my lips curving downward. “Duncan suffered like I did while we were apart. It’s clear now.”
Emotional but not defeated, I go straight to Duncan’s desk, needing to see what else I can uncover. The surface itself has been wiped clean. There’s not a paper, a pen, or a speck of dust on it.
The drawers, however, are unlocked and full.
Old and new papers fill each one, piled in an order I can’t make sense of. Some papers have been torn from notebooks, while others have been printed out. Some are new; others are old and mildly yellow.
I trail my fingers over them as I move, wanting to look but being held back by a nagging fear.
What if I find something truly terrible?
Like proof of children with another woman. A birth certificate. Divorce papers.
“No,” I say to myself before slamming every drawer shut. “He looked honest this entire time. Genuinely honest and in pain. There’s been no one else.”
Something within tells me I need to keep digging. I listen to that voice, a light tremor going through me as I open the middle drawer, pull out a stack of papers, and slam it on the desk.
I don’t get to read through the first page before something slips out.
A photo.
It’s on the floor, so I can’t really see what’s on it. When I bend over to pick it up, my jaw drops.
That’s a picture of me at the bank a few months ago. That picture was taken by the bank’s security cameras, given the angle.
My chin wobbles. Of course I remember this meeting. I couldn’t forget it if I tried, and I did. Those thirty minutes when I begged the bank manager to extend us a loan were among the lowest points of my life.
No one had taught me how to act or what to say in these situations, but I did my best.
I said please, and you have to understand. I reminded him he’d been my parents’ friend. That he’d been a guest at my father’s sixtieth birthday party.
Nothing worked.
My meager salary wasn’t good enough for him. And Barclay, according to the bank manager, didn’t have a chance of reviving our real estate business.
See, rumors had spread around town. Aside from a handful of high school friends he might or might not have kept in touch with—and the rich assholes wanting to marry me—he was blacklisted everywhere. The idea that anyone would trust my brother was, and still is, laughable.
Months later, here I am. My hands shake as I stare at my tear-streaked face and the bank manager’s pitying gaze.
This entire time, Duncan’s had this picture.
He has many more pictures. More documents. Our financials. The unpaid bills. The lawsuit. Newspaper clips and articles he printed from news websites.
I stop breathing for a full minute when I see photos of me stealing pain meds from the hospital.
“Oh my God.” My teeth chatter. My hands go numb, the photos falling to the desk, the floor. “Oh. My. God.”
After a few seconds of hyperventilating, I force myself to focus.
That’s when I realize what he’s been doing goes far beyond stalking. He’s collected enough incriminating evidence to put me away for years.
If it’s revenge he’s after, he could’ve had that already.
Without me and mainly the meds, Barclay would’ve been well and truly fucked.
Except Duncan didn’t go to the police with this.
He chose hands-on vengeance instead.
He wanted to see our pain with his own eyes.
Why?
A person with a heart as huge as Duncan’s and a soul as kind as his doesn’t turn into a monster just because.
He was provoked.
By Barclay.
It’s even worse than I thought. I still don’t have the full picture, but I can feel Duncan’s pain bleeding from this desk.
The world spins around me.
I place both hands on the edge of the desk for balance. Hanging my head low, I curse under my breath.
“Barclay, what did you do?” I growl, then file the papers and photos back, shutting the desk drawer. “Why do you have to ruin everything?”
My brother wasn’t jealous. Jealousy usually means he wants me for himself, and he doesn’t, not like that.
But he does. You serve him. You looked after your parents. You gave him your trust fund. He told you to marry one rich man after the other when you started running out of money, and fully expected you to heed.
A shredded sob rips out of me. I clench a hand into a fist, slamming it against the desk.
“Stupid.” It hurts, the shock that rushes from my hand to my shoulder. Don’t care. Again. Again. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
I still don’t have my proof of what happened between him and Duncan, but being passive and weak won’t help me either. That was what got me into this position in the first place.
I have to think.
After drying my cheeks and catching my breath, I do just that. Ask myself the only question that’s been left unanswered.
What did he say to Duncan to chase him away?
“I don’t know,” I sigh.
Exhaustion weighs me down. My ribs ache.
My eyelids finally grow heavy.
The room is closing in on me. With all its secrets, with the pain this desk holds.
I can’t stay here another second.
I can’t go to Duncan’s room either, though I want to. There’s a chance that, in my current state, my questions will come out as accusations.
I wouldn’t do it to him. To us.
God knows half-truths and miscommunication have victimized us for far too long.
But…I do need him. A piece of him, anyway, to carry me through the night.
The gallery.
The place where he touched, kissed, and tortured me. That’s where I have the strongest memories of him.
That’s where I’m headed.
Guided by instinct, I find the stairs and climb them. The door at the top isn’t locked, the handle bending easily to my will.
There’s no light switch on the wall by the door. And though the room is bathed in darkness, it doesn’t bother me.
I’ve only been here twice, and I already know it by heart. Every step I’ve taken here, every look from Duncan, is burned into me.
So even when I close the door behind me, I’m not worried. I tread carefully with only the moonlight and starlight guiding my path.
As soon as I’m close enough to make out my pedestal’s shape, I lower myself on top of it. Knees first, then hands. I curl up into a tiny ball, flattening one palm on the warm surface.
I imagine Duncan is here, hugging me. That the bad days are behind us.
Maybe I don’t need to know everything to start over. Maybe I don’t want to.
He missed me.
He came for me.
He hasn’t been with anyone else since he broke up with his first and only girlfriend.
It’s more than enough. It’s perfect.
And if he ever wants to talk, I’ll be there at his side.
As his partner. His woman.
His.