Chapter 8 Darla
Darla
The silence in the house is louder than my father’s lecture.
It’s a listening silence, a pressure against my eardrums that makes the shallow, frantic rhythm of my breathing sound like a panicked gasp in the cold, still air.
Up in my room, the champagne-colored silk of the dress feels like a second skin I want to peel from my bones.
It’s cold against my skin, slick and lifeless, the uniform of a stranger—a ghost who answers to my name but whose soul has been hollowed out and put on display.
Every beat of my heart is a frantic countdown to a future I haven’t chosen, a frantic hammer against my ribs.
Wife. Transfer. Settlement. The words are a cage.
A future with Trent. Families uniting. A life sentence served in silk and polite smiles.
The thought is a spark in the tinderbox of my despair. It’s a jolt of heat in my chest, a sudden, sharp intake of breath that makes my vision clear. No. Not this. This is not my life. I won’t just burn it all down. I will be the one to light the match.
My movements are quiet, practiced, born from years of navigating my father’s moods like minefields.
The dress comes off in a single, fluid motion, the zipper a low hiss in the quiet.
The silk pools on the floor with a soft, defeated sigh, a shed skin from a girl I refuse to be.
My hands are trembling, but not with fear.
It’s a new, furious energy. I pull on the clothes that feel like my armor: worn-soft jeans ripped at the knee, the rough denim a welcome friction against my skin.
A faded band tee that smells of my laundry detergent—a scent of me, not of this sterile, perfumed house.
And the scuffed leather boots that have carried me through every rebellion, both seen and unseen.
The solid thud of them hitting the plush carpet is a small, satisfying declaration.
Each piece is a reclamation, a quiet vow whispered into the oppressive quiet of my bedroom.
My bedroom window overlooks the manicured side garden, the one my mother shows off to her charity league friends.
It’s a twelve-foot drop to the perfectly mulched flowerbeds below.
I don’t hesitate. My fingers find the latch, the cold metal a shock against my skin.
I slide the window open, and the night air rushes in, cool and damp and smelling of damp earth and cut grass. It’s real. It’s alive.
I slip through the opening, my boots finding the familiar, worn footholds in the ivy trellis that clings to the brick.
It’s a path my muscles remember from a lifetime of smaller escapes.
The cool air is a welcome shock against my flushed skin, a physical jolt to a system still buzzing with trapped adrenaline.
The rough texture of the brick scrapes against my palms, and a loose vine scratches my arm, the sting a grounding presence.
It’s real, unlike the brittle smiles and hollow promises I just left behind.
For a moment, suspended between the gilded cage and the dark ground, the air tastes of a freedom so pure and sharp it almost hurts to breathe it in.
The engine of my car turns over with a low, respectful hum, a sound I pray is too quiet to be heard.
I pull out of the long, gated driveway without turning on my headlights, like a shadow slipping away into the deeper shadows of the wealthy, sleeping neighborhood.
My heart is a frantic hammer against my ribs, every muscle in my back tensed, waiting.
My eyes dart to the rearview mirror as I hold my breath tight in my chest, half-expecting to see the porch light flash on, to hear my father’s booming voice shatter the night.
But there’s only darkness. A silent, empty road stretching out behind me.
I’m a ghost he hasn’t yet realized is missing.
Frankie’s apartment is above her tattoo shop, Amaranth, on a street in the grittier, more honest part of town.
Where the streetlights buzz with a different energy and the buildings lean into each other like old friends sharing a secret.
I didn’t call. I don’t have to. Ours is a friendship built in the spaces before words are necessary.
As I reach the bottom of the rickety back stairs, the metal groaning a familiar complaint under my boots, a figure descends from the landing above.
He moves with a strange, unnerving silence, his footsteps barely making a sound on the metal grate.
The buzzing streetlamp at the edge of the alley casts his face in a stark, momentary glow, and my breath catches.
I know him. Arden Thorne.
He’s a family friend of Frankie’s. Arden’s a mysterious, quiet man who used to show up at her house sometimes when we were in high school. He looked older then—maybe late twenties—and always carried an unnerving stillness that made the air in a room feel heavier.
The strange thing, the thought that makes the hairs on my arms stand up, is that he looks exactly the same now as he did all those years ago.
Not a single new line on his face. Time just..
. missed him. The same sharp cheekbones, the same dark, watchful eyes.
It feels like the air becomes thinner around him.
A faint metallic scent, like storm-charged air, prickles at the back of my tongue. It’s unsettling.
He gives me a single, unreadable nod as he passes, his gaze so intense it feels like he’s seeing straight through me, cataloging every secret I’m trying to hide. Then he’s gone, a shadow swallowed by the darkness of the alley.
Shaking off the strange encounter, I take the stairs two at a time. Her door is unlocked. It always is for me.
The loft is a chaotic sanctuary. It smells of sage, turpentine, and the sharp, clean scent of green soap she uses for her ink.
Unfinished canvases lean against walls covered in charcoal sketches and flash designs.
Music plays from a vintage record player in the corner—something low and smoky with a female vocalist whose voice sounds like heartbreak and whiskey.
Frankie is curled on a worn velvet armchair, a sketchbook open in her lap, her dark hair falling across her face.
She looks up when I step inside, and her eyes, sharp and knowing, take in my ripped jeans, the lingering tension in my shoulders, and the ghost of my father’s house I’ve dragged in with me.
My voice is a little breathless, the image of the man in the alley still fresh in my mind. "I just saw Arden Thorne leaving."
Frankie lets out a long, weary sigh and rolls her eyes, a look of pure, long-suffering familiarity.
"Yeah, he's looking for my sister," she says, her tone dismissive.
"But then again, who isn't?" The comment is so casual, so full of a drama I'm not privy to, that it almost makes the unsettling encounter feel normal. Almost.
She closes her sketchbook, her focus returning entirely to me. She unfolds herself from the chair and says, “You look like hell. Tea or tequila?”
“Both,” I manage, my voice rough.
A real smile, small and sure, touches her lips. “Attagirl.”
As she moves to the kitchenette, I sink onto her ridiculously comfortable couch.
The cushions sigh as they take my weight.
For the first time all night, the tightness in my chest eases, the muscles in my shoulders unknotting one by one.
My father's house offered security, but Frankie's offered sanctuary. I can breathe here.
Frankie returns with a steaming mug that smells of chamomile, and a shot glass filled with golden tequila. She sets them on the table in front of me before drifting over to a small wooden chest in the corner. She pulls out a thick white candle and a bundle of dried herbs tied with twine.
“What’s that for?” I ask, wrapping my cold hands around the warm mug.
She strikes a match; the flame flares to life in the dim light.
“Just clearing the air,” she says with a casual shrug, lighting the candle, then the tip of the herb bundle.
A plume of fragrant gray smoke curls toward the ceiling, carrying a clean, earthy scent.
“You brought some bad energy with you.” The smoke curls toward me, slow and deliberate.
For a second, I swear it forms the outline of a door before it dissolves.
The hair on my arms rises, but the tightness in my chest eases.
She says it so matter-of-factly that I don’t question it.
I just watch the smoke drift, feeling the last of the evening’s suffocating atmosphere dissipate.
Frankie circles the room once with the smoking herbs before setting them in a small ceramic bowl, the scent of sage and something I can’t name settling around us like a protective blanket.
It feels strange, but in a good way. Like she’s physically chasing the ghosts out of the room.
She reclaims her seat, tucking her legs beneath her. “So,” she says, her voice soft. “Wanna talk about it, or do you just want to sit here and pretend the world isn’t a dumpster fire for a while?”
I take the shot of tequila, the burn a welcome fire in my throat, chasing away the chill that has settled in my bones. “Let’s go with dumpster fire.”
She nods, understanding completely. We don’t talk about Trent, or my father, or the suffocating weight of expectation.
We don’t have to. Instead, a playful glint enters her eye.
“You know, I put on the Grease 2 soundtrack while I was cleaning earlier. Made me wonder if you still know every single word to ‘Cool Rider’.”
A real laugh escapes me, surprising us both. “Obviously. It’s a cinematic masterpiece and I will not hear a word against it.”
Her smile widens. “That look on your face. It reminds me of high school. The one you’d get right before you went on stage for Guys and Dolls, like you were about to commit the perfect crime.”
“My father almost had a stroke when he found out I took the lead,” I say, the memory bringing a sharp, satisfying thrill. “It was glorious.”
“You were a better Adelaide than the original,” she says, picking up her sketchbook again, her fingers finding a charcoal pencil. “You still remember any of her songs? What was that one… ‘A Bushel and a Peck’?”
The tequila has warmed a path straight to a part of me I keep locked away. A reckless, joyful part. I hesitate for only a second before a grin spreads across my face. I hop off the couch, strike a comically dramatic pose, and with a terrible New York accent, I start to sing.
“I love you a bushel and a peck! You bet your pretty neck I do!”
I kick my leg up, using the wine bottle on the coffee table as a makeshift microphone.
I’m not just singing; I’m performing. For Frankie.
For myself. The notes are a little shaky, the dance moves ridiculous, but the joy is real.
It’s a joy that fills my lungs, pushing out all the stale, recycled air from my father’s house.
As I launch into the next verse, twirling around a floor lamp, I notice Frankie isn’t just watching.
Her hand is moving, swift and sure across the page, and her eyes flick up to my face between strokes with a small, focused smile on her lips.
When I finish with a final, breathless flourish, collapsing back onto the couch in a fit of giggles, the loft is filled with a warm, buzzing energy. The performance didn’t leave me hollow. It left me full.
“Okay,” I say, catching my breath and lean forward, trying to peek at her sketchbook. She angles it away with a smirk. “What is it? Kraken versus unicorn?”
Frankie just shakes her head, still smiling, and turns the sketchbook around.
The portrait isn’t perfect. It’s better.
It’s a few quick, energetic lines of charcoal, but she’s captured it all.
The life in my eyes, the real, uninhibited smile, the motion of the dance.
She’s drawn the girl who isn’t a porcelain doll. She’s drawn me.
My breath catches in my throat. I trace the line of the smile with my fingertip, a wave of emotion so potent it makes my eyes sting.
“That’s you,” Frankie says softly, her voice devoid of pity, full of simple truth. “The real one. Don’t let them make you forget her.”
The dam breaks. The tears I’ve been swallowing all night finally spill over, hot and silent down my cheeks. I don’t even try to stop them. I just surge off the couch and wrap my arms around her, burying my face in the crook of her neck. Her arms come around me instantly, a solid, grounding weight.
“Thank you,” I whisper, my voice thick and muffled against her shoulder. “You were there through the worst of it. Even when I pushed you away, you never gave up on me.” I pull back just enough to look at her, my vision blurry. “I’m so sorry I’ve been such a ghost for so long.”
Frankie’s expression is soft, her hand coming up to tuck a stray piece of hair behind my ear. “Hey. None of that,” she says quietly. “There’s nothing to forgive. I’m right here. Always was.”
As the record crackles in the silence between songs, my mind, finally quiet enough to think, drifts back to the clubhouse.
To the back alley. To the feel of brick against my back and the heat radiating from East’s body.
“It was confused seven years ago.” His words echo in my head.
He hasn’t forgotten. The tangled mess between us feels as strong to him as it does to me.
He stopped himself from kissing me, but for a second, I saw the desire in his eyes. He wanted to.
The thought sends a slow, dangerous warmth curling through my stomach.
It’s a warmth that has nothing to do with the tequila.
It’s the terrifying, thrilling feeling that in running from one cage, I might be running toward a different danger entirely.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly what I want.