Chapter Twenty-Four
MORNING SUN STREAMS into the guestroom, falling over the rustic, country-made furniture. The room is clean and simple but homey. Rowan sleeps curled up against me, my arms wrapped around her. I kiss her softly on the forehead, trying not to wake her, and slide my arm out from under her. She stirs but doesn’t wake.
In the en suite bathroom, I examine myself in the mirror. My lower lip is a tad swollen but not enough that anyone will notice. The cut is on the inside, small, and already better. Even so, a slew of complicated feelings rise up, namely a sense of déjà vu. I’ve been here before, at my parents’ home, hiding evidence of something having gone wrong the night before. Which is bullshit.
Rowan didn’t mean to do it , I think as I stare at my reflection. That’s the difference. The most important fucking difference.
But the unease won’t leave me. Not about Rowan but about Eva. How, even from the other side of the blockade I erected between us, she’s still fucking with me. A terrible instinctive voice tells me that it won’t stop until I have it out with her. About all of it. That the only way to be whole again is to take back the parts of me she’s still holding onto.
“Fuck that,” I mutter. “A Pandora’s box of a shit storm is all that’ll get me.”
I run the water and scrub my face. There are more important things in life to give my attention to, like the woman currently in my bed. A smile comes over my lips, and I ignore the tiny sting of the cut, like I ignore the voice.
I slide across the bed and wrap Rowan back up in my arms. She stirs awake and I kiss her neck, her cheek. She pulls back to look at me; I see her gaze drop to my mouth, but I deflect.
“You want some coffee?” I ask.
“I would love some,” she says, tracing her finger along my jaw. “But I can’t move at the moment. Which is all your fault.” She cocks a brow. “Is there anything you’re not good at?”
“No.”
Rowan laughs at my deadpan delivery, and I slide off the bed to pull on some clothes. “No doubt Mom’s got a big breakfast going, but I’ll buy you some time,” I say, and head to the door.
“Thank you, and Zach?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, Rowan.”
With all that I am.
Downstairs, my parents are in the kitchen, both working on breakfast. The scent of bacon wafts to the sunroom where my brother is sitting at a table set for five. He’s drinking coffee and rifling through the paper.
“In the last twenty-four hours,” he says without looking up, “I’ve been a bell boy, a drink server, a dinner dish-washer, and now a breakfast table-setter.” He heaves a sigh. “Next thing you know, Mom and Dad will take away my room and set me up in the cupboard under the stairs.”
“We don’t have stairs,” I say, taking the coffee press and pouring a mug. “But they’re in the kitchen right now, outfitting you with a French maid uniform.”
“That actually works for me.” Jeremy lets the paper drop. “So. Rowan.”
“What about her?” I pour some creamer into a cup.
“She’s great. We all love her. She’s very distinctly…not Eva.”
I grit my teeth. “Can we not?”
“We must,” Jeremy says, then lowers his voice. “I don’t know what finally got you to get rid of her, but I’m glad. We all are.”
“So thrilled to hear it’s a subject of discussion when I’m not around.”
“You’re surprised? We’re family.” Jeremy scrubs his hands over his face. “Look, you did your best to keep quiet about what it’s been like for you over the past few years, but we’re not blind. We saw how you became less and less happy, was as if it were draining out of you in direct proportion to how busy you made yourself, and how it led to fewer visits with us.”
“What do you want me to say, Jer?” I ask, keeping my voice down. “Things got shitty between us, and we fell apart. It happens.”
“And that’s it?”
“You need details?”
“Yeah, I do,” Jeremy says. “Preferably from you and not the fucking Scandal Sheet.”
I sigh. “I’m sorry I haven’t visited more. I’ve been working.” He starts to protest, but I cut him off. “But I promise I’ll do better. Because I’m better.”
“Because of Rowan.”
Yes, Rowan, who doesn’t throw things at my head…
The urge to tell him exactly what went down comes over me, but what good would that do? He’d just worry. Maybe tell our mother, and then she’d worry.
“Yes, because of Rowan and because I’m not with Eva,” I say. “And for a hundred other reasons that have nothing to do with my love life. There’s an Oscar on my toilet, for instance.”
Jeremy studies me, eyes narrowed. I feel like he can see right through me. He gets up and lays a heavy hand on my shoulder.
“Good. I’m glad to hear that. But Zach, someday I’d like to hear the rest. We can get good and drunk and let it all hang out. Okay?”
“Sure, man. We will.”
I take coffee to Rowan, through my family’s house that is filled with photos and heirlooms and the warmth that my parents bring to everything. Such a far cry from the glitter of Hollywood that can seem so damn cold and shallow. Jeremy’s right. I’ve been neglecting my family, not in direct proportion to my work, but in how bad things got with Eva. The worse it got, the less I could stand the idea of being here and spreading that poison to them.
“It’s over now,” I say, but it’s like reading lines in a script that’s still pages away from the end.