51. Ambrose—present day
Ambrose—present day
H eavy feet had taken me to collect my phone from upstairs while Dollie and Shane fucked around in the backyard, not literally, thank God.
Seeing them together, even just smiling at each other, was too much.
Him down on one knee was fucking traumatizing.
My whole body shook from that moment, and the second he left my vision, my mind took over my torment.
It’d taken me three attempts to walk upstairs.
Three times to pass the blood embedded in that carpet—serves me right for not taking my regular route.
Three attempts to get back down, walk through the house without falling over Bubbles, who had come looking for me.
And then three attempts to plop myself down in this chair with the breakfast that had also taken me three times to make.
I’m just exhausted, I bare-faced lie to myself. It isn’t exhaustion. It’s the stress from him being here.
After failing twice to type a message to Dollie, I try again, ignoring my breakfast to do it.
Lucky:
Morning, Unicorn!
I hope you’re feeling okay today.
Got another gig for you if you’re interested.
And also, I’m still waiting to finish our book.
I send that last text as soon as I type it out, forcing myself not to rewrite it and not to back out. Maybe that was a stupid move, but desperation makes me do crazy things.
I stare at her continuously as I eat my cereal and refill the bowl twice.
I’m not hungry.
I feel sick, and it has nothing to do with the sugar rush I’m getting from breakfast. Another colorful spoonful heads into my mouth.
For fifteen minutes, she smiles in my view. There’s still a faraway look on her face that only disappears as little bobas float up the straw between her pouted lips and disappear beyond them. Then it comes back again.
A message pings on my phone, and it takes all I have in me to divert my attention from Dollie to the text.
Duggan, who sits on the table close by, judges me.
The message is from Valaria, who seems in a decent mood, considering I’d bowed out of work early last night.
Valaria:
Did you speak to your friend about the cupcakes?
I’d never mentioned who Dollie was to me when I told Valaria I knew someone who could help with catering. It was probably a good thing, seeing as she caught us on the dance floor with our tongues in each other’s mouths.
I can only imagine what her reaction would have been if she knew every gory detail.
The face she made over seeing me kissing someone during work hours was enough.
The fact that I spent the following half an hour in the bathroom, vomiting because the whole situation made me feel sick, only added to her annoyance.
Ambrose:
Waiting for a reply.
I place my phone down with the screen up and wait for it to flash with another message from another person. But Dollie doesn’t even have her phone in her hand as I gaze at her again, wishing I were Shane because he has his hands around her hips.
She’s the only person in the world I want to touch.
Shane’s hands move, but he avoids her waist for some reason.
I’m looking into his weird ways too much.
I glance at my phone, avoiding causing more pain by looking out the window. And another twinge catches me right in the heart because there’s still no message.
It’s been almost four weeks since Dollie told me we shouldn’t be enemies, but I’m close to giving her a reason to hate me as Shane steps into my kitchen and leashes up my dog.
Well, Bubbles—Dollie’s dog.
Bubbles, who loves me. Bubbles, whose sad fucking eyes plead to me, begging me to prevent her trip to the park with this loser.
Cereal drips from my lip as my mouth hangs open in disbelief as he looks down on me. I straighten my spine, ready to grant the dog’s wishes and a few of my own, because how the fuck does he have the audacity to be looking at me like that while in my fucking house?
Dollie follows Shane into the room, still dressed in her giant hoodie that smells of my anxiety.
“It’s nice today, surprisingly. We’re gonna take her out for a little while.”
“You smell a little. Do you wanna change first?” Shane’s inability to charm Dollie almost makes me choke on a different kind of charm as the sugary thing lodges in my throat.
“I can get another hoodie. I did sleep in this one.” She inhales it at the collar, taking me in slowly while Shane stands at her side. Stepping up to me, a gentle hand pats my arm. So gentle, I barely feel it. “Are you okay?”
A soft smile hides the concern on her face.
I nod, not to make things more awkward than they already are, but my eyes roll when she goes to the reading room to switch hoodies.
It’s nice today, she said it herself. Why isn’t she in one of those dresses she always loved? Why does she want to hide away in a hoodie, like me, who is sweating my ass off.
That thought is interrupted by Shane as he says, “I know there’s tension between us, Ambrose, but I think it’s only right we try to be civil for Dollie.
She was just saying she wants to give you a second chance.
I’m not sure how good of an idea that is, but we can try, right?
I mean, if things go well, maybe you’ll even walk her down the aisle to me. ”
I don’t offer a reply. This cunt doesn’t deserve one.
I lick my dry lips, as my cold stare snaps to Dollie as she reenters from the reading room. She flicks through mail that must have arrived while she was out of the room. Giving her back to me, I see the white hoodie she wears, which has some kind of princess castle on the back.
The innocence of that is taken away as she twists around at Shane’s side, both of them standing on the other side of the table from me.
His hand slinks around her waist, and he leans in close.
Pretty blues twinkle my way, yet all I feel is rage, rushing down my flared nostrils.
Not noticing how I feel, her cute, rounded teeth appear in a smile as she looks at me, really looks at me, for the first time since I got home, seeing the man beneath the reminders of our shared trauma.
“Shane has today off and offered to get Bubbles a proper haircut. She’s gonna look like a real poodle.”
Is that why Dollie smiles? Or is it the wedding bells in the distance?
Forcing myself to contain my rage, I nod once and give a tight smile back.
God, I bet I look like my father. Tight smiles were his signature facial expression.
“See, I told you everything would be okay.” She smiles up at Shane, and I smile over at him, too, because her words indicate he’s concerned about me.
Those fading bruises leaving their lingering impact on him make me happier, but I’m still seething and need out of this room.
Shane’s eyes snag on the mail in Dollie’s hands, and my feelings of hate grow when he opens his mouth.
“Doll, look. There’s a letter from Markus Conway and Co.”
“Should I remember that name?”
“It’s the sales agent for the house. The one we messaged back at the apartment.”
“Oh, yeah.” She plucks the letter from among the others surrounding it, and another falls and lands on the floor.
The stamp in the corner shows it’s from the local hospital.
Pretty features stand out as her face pales. She bends and picks it up, handing the others to Shane, whose stubby fingers immediately jab at the seal of that top letter.
Dollie freezes.
Shane doesn’t even notice how her body stiffens, how her eyes gloss slightly with a feeling I recognize instantly. Worry.
“This one’s from the hospital.” She stands, her legs ready to give out.
“Routine checkup, maybe?”
“Or my lum—” she stops talking, eyeing me to see how much I’ve heard.
All of it, and I need to hear more.
What lump? I wonder.
She lets the table take her weight as she peels open the envelope. Her eyes quickly move from one side of the paper in hand to the other, scanning the important words that many doctors always seem to bury amongst pointless dribble.
“I have an appointment next month,” she tells Shane. “Can you take me?”
“Depends on what day and time it is?”
“On the seventh at eleven.”
Four weeks from now.
“I have work, and I have to be careful with taking time off because of my own appointments. I booked a few days off this week, so I’m not sure if I can take more.”
“Oh, okay. Well, maybe Annabelle will be able to take me.”
“Yeah, hopefully. If not, at least there’s only one hospital in town, so you won’t have to worry about going to the wrong place this time.” He laughs. She doesn’t.
Tapping the table to get her attention, I silently offer, I can take you.
I don’t even consider my shifts because she’s much more important.
“You drive?” Shane asks with a condescending look on his face.
Keeping my attention solely on Dollie, I nod and sign, I can take you.
“I don’t want to put you out.”
You won’t.
A flick of her eyes look at Shane for permission.
Before he can answer, because it isn’t his fucking place to, I stand, grabbing her attention.
I’ll take you, I tell her, then give my hands something else to do by collecting all my mess and cleaning this kitchen.
“Well, it is an important appointment.”
Yeah, it’s a fucking lump.
“So, thank you. I appreciate it.”
I shrug like it’s nothing, but it’s everything.
The paler complexion speaks of her worry. Of mine. This is a big deal.
All my thoughts slip away. The anger over the sales agency that Shane is still yapping on about, the disappointment that he’s back at all. I can’t think of any of that.
I can only think of Dollie and how I need her to be okay. Our gazes stay on each other as she moves with her boyfriend from this room to another.
A leashed Bubbles barks from the other room, waking me up from my morbid trance of the possibility of life without my girl here .
The damaged part of my brain reawakens as soon as she’s out of sight.
Admit you love her, or the lump will kill her.
And I just know that those words will torment me for the foreseeable future.
Because how could I admit I love her, in the way that I do… when she’s my sister.
And who would I tell that wouldn’t look at me like I’ve lost my mind.
Because it can’t be Dollie.
She can never know.