Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
Harry
Flashback
The pain of her not remembering us doesn’t hit me until my feet land on the concrete below her bedroom window.
Doesn’t bleed until I walk into the hands of Richard’s men.
It doesn’t matter that I didn’t tell her; the risk of approaching her was enough.
Yet the pain hurts nowhere near as the realisation that I must forget her.
That I must move on with a life she’ll never be a part of.
The stench of burnt flesh still clings to my memory. His men held me down, one on each arm, as the cold metal of the clamps bit into my temples. I could hear this awful sound over the current. My own, raw voice tearing out of my throat.
They want me to forget her.
They burned her out of me or tried to.
But the wound just makes space for her to settle in deeper.
I wake from consciousness with the skin around my temples split, seared back on the edges, and blood in my mouth.
She doesn’t remember you, Harry.
Knowing it’s the cause of her lost memory, I drink to forget.
She did it, so I’ll do the same.
I drink to numb the thought of her. To prolong the numbness in my head. To accept the debt I now owe my boss for simply seeing her.
I feel the wound throb under the club lights.
With each drink at the heist after-party, my blood becomes thinner.
A sharp flash of pain rockets through my skin.
I press a hand against it, but the blood’s already trickling down my face.
The drink and blood loss makes my head swirl and when I trip and smash my head against the edge of the bar, I reopen the wound further.
Andy whispers near my ear, “You’re fucking embarrassing yourself.”
“Don’t care,” I mutter.
I try to pull myself to my feet, only to stumble again.
He catches my arm and encourages it round his shoulders. I don’t protest this time, allowing him to lead us out of the bar and towards his parked car outside. I begrudgingly take the water he offers me, swiping the blood away with the back of my hand.
“Shit,” Andy curses behind the wheel, passing me a sidelong glance. “I’ll take you to Medical.”
I wave my hand dismissively. “Drop me off at Greg’s.”
The red liquid trickles down my forehead, dripping faster down the side of my temple each time I try to wipe it away.
I take another hefty drift of water and a mint from the console of Andy’s car, trying to pull myself together. Yet nothing does well for the fogginess in my brain. I need air.
The world tilts sideways, but perhaps that’s the effect of his piss-awful driving.
I slam my hand against the dashboard. “Slow down.”
He laughs, the sound grating on me to the point I unbuckle my seatbelt at the next red light and climb out, taking the duffle bag stuffed in his footwell.
“Oi!” he bellows. “Where the fuck are you going?”
I wave my hand again. “I’ll just walk.”
Despite the long walk and the brush of rain, the cold helps clear my head. Though I’m just as reeling by the time I walk up to the tattered porch of my family home, traipsing through the overgrown grass.
The front door is locked, but the rotting wood is that fucked that any significant push has it barrelling open. It smacks the inside wall, bouncing back quickly as I push it open and step inside. I stride towards the kitchen table, chucking down Andy’s duffel bag.
I spit the thought under my breath. “Fucking her. Fucking alcohol. Fucking Richard.”
I wipe the blood trickling from the open wound on my shoulder, searching for the first-aid kit in Andy’s bag. We always stash an emergency pack in our luggage. It’s got to be in here somewhere.
But typical – when I need it most, I can’t fucking find it.
I grumble, “Where the fuck is it?”
I’ll have to resort to the one I stash under the kitchen counter in case of emergencies.
I turn, but a gasp pulls my attention sideways. The sound is feminine, coming from a figure standing only a couple of metres away. My burnt mind has whoever’s standing in the kitchen appear as nothing more than a cloudy silhouette.
I squint. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Who am I?” the girl scoffs. “Who are you? Do you even know where you are right now?”
I recognise the voice instantly – but no. It can’t be.
Am I hallucinating right now?
I blink until I’m able to focus my vision and see her fully. It’s her as I’ve always known her. Strikingly beautiful, with brunette hair, yet this time it’s slightly messy, tumbling down her back. Her piercing eyes lock onto mine.
She’s really here.
She came back.
And she sees me.
The sight of her so close has me torn between a disbelieving laugh and a smile worthy of aching my cheeks, but I keep my gaze stern, controlled.
I’m not dreaming. This is real.
She remembers. She fucking remembers.
I distract my spiralling thoughts by answering her question, peering round the house with a nod. But I can’t help but to be drawn to her, my drunken, eager feet leading me closer until I’m pinning her against the cabinet, her body enclosed in my arms.
My heart thumps wildly in my chest.
“Care to explain what you’re doing in my house, princess?”
She raises her brows quickly, to the point they almost get lost in her hairline. Perhaps I’m more delirious than I realise.
“Your house?”
I nod, the corner of my mouth twitching further. What isn’t she understanding? I don’t care. She came back – that’s all that matters.
“You should be nicer to me.” The sight of her mouth draws me in closer. “I could evict you for trespassing.”
She shoves at my chest. “Get off me.”
Feistier than I remember.
I run my tongue over my teeth. Despite her shove, I stay still – anything to be close to her. As her stern expression zeros in on my face, I subtly bring the pad of my thumb nearer and stroke it over her skin. Just to feel her and know it’s not my mind playing tricks on me.
“What’s going on in here?”
I don’t have to turn my head to know Greg’s standing upstairs, perched at the top of the landing.
From her diverted attention, she’s none the wiser to my touch on her skin. The way I run my thumb over her hip where it peeks out underneath her top. Her skin is soft, and I touch her delicately. Fuck, she’s—
“Greg,” she starts to protest.
Fucking Greg?
The confusion sobers me quickly.
She’s here to see me – what the fuck is going on?
The more I think about how another’s man’s name just came from her mouth, the more I feel myself starting to spiral. Mixed with the lasting effects of tonight’s drink, it’s only an opportunity for further disaster this evening.
To distract myself, I cut her off. “Don’t know where you happen to keep your first-aid kit?”
As she turns her attention elsewhere, Greg’s eyes squint into a scowl. “Under the sink.”
“You know this man?” She raises her voice.
I push myself off the cabinet and take reluctant steps backwards, opening the kitchen cupboards in search of some gauze.
I catch movement to my left and watch as she hurries towards the bottom of the stairs, where Greg has descended.
A cold shiver barrels through me. I try aimlessly to direct my attention into searching for the medical equipment.
Why the fuck would she seek his comfort?
I’m half-distracted, barely noticing that Greg has stepped into the kitchen.
“Harry, this is Gigi. Gigi, this is my brother, Harry.”
Where the fuck do I recognise that name from?
Gigi.
I think it over again. Gigi.
I swear Greg has mentioned her name before …
“I’m going out to see Gigi.”
“Gigi?”
“Yeah, my girlfriend. I told you about her.”
The memory hits me quickly, and I suddenly can’t hear anything else.
I can’t hear anything. Nothing other than the memory of Greg saying “my girlfriend”.
I’m going to be fucking sick.
My vision flashes with strobes of darkness. I’m suddenly catching the kitchen cabinet to steady myself. I swear the room is spinning.
Painful silence floods my hearing, but I think I may have shouted, “What!” in a moment of weakness.
She – Gigi – starts throwing questions at Greg, her back turned to me. I pass a sidelong glance towards her. The girl I crave with everything … promised to another. Promised to my fucking brother.
How didn’t I know? How didn’t I fucking realise my brother and I were pining over the same girl? All I had to do was ask her name. Her name.
“Gigi …” I whisper, though it feels strange on my tongue. The name of the girl Greg spoke about. The woman he’s claimed as his.
I thought the worst day of my life was the one where Dad left or the day my best friend fucking died. No. This—this is it. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, this is the worst day of my existence.
I somehow find the confidence to pull myself to my feet and put the first-aid kit on the dirty countertop. Sobriety suddenly hits me like a ton of fucking bricks, bitterness and rage drowning me instead.
“Why would you never tell me that?” Gigi asks.
A scoff slips past my mouth, and I shake my head.
I feel her attention on the side of my face, but I keep my eyes on the gauze.
Looking at her with even the slightest glance, knowing what I know now, it will destroy me.
Drain me of everything, until I’m nothing.
Nothing, because I was only ever meant to be hers, and she was only ever meant to be mine.
“Come on – please.” Greg’s voice is quiet, yet it’s profound enough that it tears my insides to fucking shreds. “Let’s just head upstairs.”
But perhaps I crave the torture … because I watch Gigi reluctantly sigh before trailing up the stairs behind him. Everything in me is mentally screaming for her to stop. Come back, I want to yell. Don’t go up there with him, baby.
I can feel myself losing her with each step she takes towards his room. I’ve fisted the rubbing alcohol so hard the contents is spilling over my hands, the cracked glass from my grip imprinted into my palms.
I’m shaking.
Stop – STOP.
Fucking stop, PLEASE!
By some miracle, she lingers at the top of the stairs. I hear the creak of floorboards on the landing as Greg walks to his room, oblivious.
Gigi tightens her palm on the banister, dropping her head to her feet as though she’s questioning why they’ve stopped working. Upon the moment of reflection, she raises her chin just slightly. We make eye contact through the open stairwell.
Strands of her dark hair cushion her face, but her eyes shine bright through the opening despite the darkness in the early hours of the morning. They’re just as devastating as the first moment I saw her.
Does she feel the energy between us; the heavy weight in this gaze? I just about notice it – the rise and fall of her chest and a look of breathlessness.
Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps she might just remember—
“Gigi!” Greg calls. “You coming, or what?”
I blink hard, bringing myself back to the reality where my brother has just called the girl of my dreams up to his fucking bedroom.
Gigi tucks her chin to her chest, shaking her head as if pushing away a wandering thought. With a final glance in my direction, she disappears upstairs. Greg’s bedroom door closing is equivalent to a heavy boulder threatening to pull me down.
The door clicks shut, and I lean my weight against the countertop, fisting it so hard I hear it groan in my palms. It’s the only thing holding me together. The only thing stopping me from screaming and charging upstairs.
I convinced myself she deserved better; that I wasn’t hurting anyone by seeing her a final time. I was done with her – if only for a moment. I was going to leave her alone. I planned to do that … until she crossed the threshold into his room.
I realise now it doesn’t matter that she’s with my brother. It matters because it’s not me.
Christ, it was my life’s mission to only ever admire her from a distance. Yet as soon as I tasted her, I was prepared for disaster.
Though she might not know the devastation she’s put me through, the traitor deserves to feel misery like my own.
I promise you, Gigi, you’ll pay for this.
I’ll make her life miserable just like she made mine.
She’ll never discover why I can’t afford to feel anything other than hatred for her. And if she does, it means I’ve done the one thing I vow to never do.
I’ve fallen in love with her.