Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
The next morning, April thought she’d arrived early to the art studio. She wanted some time alone to set up her pieces for Nicola and focus on the task ahead of her, the prize.
The rehearsal dinner had gone smoothly yesterday—a short jaunt down the flower-bordered aisle in Ramona and Dylan’s backyard, fifty white chairs already set up for guests, followed by a simple dinner with friends and family at Clover Moon, which Owen had closed to the public for the private event.
April had managed to stay present and had even left her phone in Ramona’s guest room so she wouldn’t be checking for Daphne’s text every five minutes.
With Ramona’s wedding at five o’clock tonight, she didn’t need her own bullshit mucking everything up.
Considering she hadn’t heard a peep out of Daphne, she wasn’t sure there was any bullshit left to deal with anyway.
But fate—or the stars, the moon, the planets, or possibly just April’s catastrophic luck—had other plans, because for the second time in forty-eight hours, she stopped cold as soon as she walked into the art room.
There, at the front of the room, perched on four different easels, were Daphne’s paintings. Of course, April had seen the first piece—Daphne as a girl among the wildflowers—and she’d caught a glimpse of the fourth on Daphne’s birthday, but this…
Seeing them all together, this story, even if it was unfinished—it ended thus far with Daphne meeting Elena in Boston, and the irony wasn’t lost on April one bit—was an experience.
No, more than that. It was a commotion, a storm, an undoing.
The colors were incredible. Intricate and textured, with Daphne’s ever-changing but omnipresent white dress like a blank space somehow, an absence of life, even while Daphne’s face got a little clearer with each iteration.
April weaved through the student easels and chairs, coming to a stop in front of the display, eyes thirsty and drinking in the story.
She kept going back to the second piece, the one with Daphne as a teen inside an old chapel, dead leaves on the floor, a cross soaring right above her head.
The effect was haunting and melancholic, like a poem that hit somewhere deep inside April’s gut in a way she couldn’t put into words.
Didn’t need to.
That was the beauty of art, the magic.
And right then, April knew—these pieces belonged in the Devon.
“Hi.”
“Jesus,” April said, clutching at her chest and whirling around to see Daphne sitting on the love seat.
“Nope,” Daphne said with a soft smile. “Just me.”
April managed to smile back as Daphne stood up, but her heart didn’t slow its pace.
Daphne was beautiful. Hair long and lavender, the curls glossy in the light.
She wore a white dress, not unlike the one in her paintings, with spaghetti straps and a sweetheart bodice, and bright yellow heeled sandals on her feet.
She came closer, her eyes never leaving April’s, and April felt the sudden need to run. Fuck the Devon, fuck London, fuck her future. She wasn’t going to survive whatever Daphne Love had to say.
“Where’s Elena?” April asked. She didn’t really want to know the answer, but the question slipped out, the price of keeping her feet planted on the floor, a simple trade.
But Daphne shrugged, her slender shoulders glowing and lovely. “She left after we talked the other night.”
April frowned, trying to process this information. “I don’t understand. She left? Two days ago? Then why—”
“She asked me to marry her.”
Those six words echoed through the room, loud and soft all at once, a declaration with thorns and explosives and barbed wire attached.
“She…” April stared but couldn’t get anything out of her mouth. Her eyes flew to Daphne’s left hand, but she had it tucked away, her arms folded over her chest as though she was cold.
Daphne looked down at the ground, shook her head. “I almost said yes.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I was so close. The ring was on my finger.”
April blinked. “Almost?” she said. Because it didn’t seem real. None of it. The fact that Elena proposed, or the fact that Daphne said no—did she say no?—or the fact that April hadn’t heard from her at all since this cataclysmic event.
“Almost,” Daphne said again, then lifted her head to meet April’s gaze. Her eyes were shiny, but no tears spilled over. She looked gorgeous—strong and sad all at once. “I couldn’t do it.”
April exhaled so heavily, a laugh mingled with her breath, relief overpowering every other emotion.
She looped her hands behind Daphne’s neck and pulled her closer, kissed her mouth once before holding her in a tight hug.
Daphne held her too, arms around April’s waist, and they stayed like that for a few seconds.
April could’ve lived there forever.
And she wanted to, she realized. Her relief was tangled with Daphne’s rejection of Elena, she knew that. But underneath it all, the foundation, was the fact that she loved Daphne Love.
She loved her.
“Why didn’t you call me?” April said, pulling back and kissing Daphne one more time.
She kissed her cheeks then, one after the other, as she waited for Daphne to answer.
She wasn’t mad. Not anymore. There was too much of every other emotion to be mad about Daphne’s silence, and she didn’t care.
She didn’t fucking care about anything as long as it meant that Elena was gone and Daphne was here.
Here, and very much not engaged.
“I wanted to,” Daphne said.
“I wanted to call you too,” April said, her hands still roaming over Daphne’s face, her mouth still pressing kisses anywhere she could get them.
“I was overwhelmed,” Daphne said. “I needed some time to think, and when you didn’t text or come back, I just—”
“I’m sorry,” April said, holding Daphne’s face between her hands, their foreheads pressed together. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to do, and Ramona’s shower was happening, and I think I freaked out a little.”
“I get it,” Daphne said. “I freaked out too.”
“And that’s okay,” April said, thumbs swiping at Daphne’s cheeks. “That’s okay. What matters is right now. What matters is us.”
She went in for another kiss, but Daphne circled her hands around April’s wrists, pulling her back a little. She looked down again, teeth working at her lower lip.
“Daphne?” April asked. An alarm started deep in her belly, faint at first, hardly noticeable, but growing louder by the second.
Daphne lifted her eyes, her expression sorrowful.
Regretful.
“April, I—”
“Hello, you two.”
At the sound of Nicola’s voice, April felt her entire body lock up.
“I’m a little early,” Nicola said from the doorway.
She was dressed professionally in wide-legged cream-colored pants, a brown silk blouse, and ivory heels. April looked down at her black jeans and black blazer, feeling suddenly unprepared.
“I’m sorry if I’m interrupting something,” Nicola said.
“No, no,” Daphne said, pulling April’s hands from her face and then dropping them altogether. She straightened her shoulders, smiled. “You’re fine.”
April sucked in a breath as though coming up from the bottom of the lake for air, everything around her blurry for a split second. She glanced at Daphne once more, then managed a smile, which dimmed when she realized Nicola was indeed early, and she wasn’t ready.
“I still need to set up my pieces,” she said after clearing her throat. “I’m sorry, I’m a little behind this morning.”
Nicola waved a hand. “You’re perfect. Like I said, I’m early. I’ll just pop over here and answer some emails.” She motioned to the love seat, but April didn’t miss how her eyes flitted first to Daphne’s paintings, widening a little before looking away.
“Sure,” April said, her voice quiet, but steady. “Thank you.”
And then she went to work. She had to get this done, and if she thought about Daphne right now, the expression on her face right before Nicola walked in, the pained way she’d said April’s name, she’d fall apart, or worse, she’d shut down or get defensive, her scorpion’s tail lashing out in self-preservation.
So she worked.
She gathered the stack of her twenty-two pieces from a file box in the closet, each separated with a sheet of glassine paper to protect the pastels, then set them on eleven different easels just in front of Daphne’s paintings.
She placed them in order, from the Fool all the way to the World, making sure they were straight, unsmeared, perfect.
And they were.
She stepped back when she was finished, keenly aware that Daphne was close by, watching her.
“April,” Daphne said, her tone so different now. Tender and proud. Full of love.
April squeezed her eyes closed, rolled her shoulders back.
“These are exquisite,” Daphne said, stepping up to the Fool, then walking slowly down the line. “It’s you. This is beautifully, perfectly you.”
“Not so perfectly,” April said.
Daphne turned to look at her, her fingers just grazing the corner of the Hanged One, April’s favorite piece.
In it, she’d placed herself upside down, of course, and her limbs were tangled with the trees surrounding her, all shades of green enveloping her.
Below her, there was a small pond, but instead of her reflection, a tattooed hand reached up and out, fingertips nearly touching the crimson tips of her hair.
“That’s what makes it perfect,” Daphne said.
April smiled at her, then watched as Daphne moved along, finally making it to the World.
The end of the journey.
But this card felt more like a beginning.
It featured April standing in the middle of a road, the pavement dark and straight in front of her.
It was a bit of a desert scene, mountains rising in the distance, the sun just peeking over a ridge, flooding the sky with pink and orange and lavender.
April had a bag on her shoulder, and even though her back was to the viewer, it was clear she held one of her hands low on her forehead, a shade from the sun’s rays as she looked ahead.
Looked forward.