13. Thorn
Chapter thirteen
Thorn
T he sun is bright and warm in the bedroom when I crack an eyelid.
I’m in my bed, sans clothing, which is not how I sleep nor where I should be sleeping.
I remember in an instant why I’m in the house and not at the office. I’m facing the wall, but I turn as gently as I can so I don’t disturb—
She’s not here.
I shoot out of bed. The sheets aren’t even peeled back. The comforter is rumpled. I still have my phone in my pants pocket, and I check the time. 9.28 a.m.
Jesus. I never sleep past five or five-thirty.
Ephemeral talked about leaving, but has she? Will she? We talked last night, but I want to talk to her more. I want to do all the talking with her. I want to hear her truths and share things I wouldn’t ever consider telling anyone else. She made me see so clearly what I’ve been blind to. I want to find her and thank her, kiss her good morning, make her breakfast, and call my mom and book a trip there to tell her and my brothers that I’m so sorry for all this wasted time. Sorry that I thought money could make anything better and for thinking they might prefer it over me. Sorry for shoving my head up between my arse cheeks and trying to function with it locked in place there.
I rush out of the bedroom like a fire is lit under me, roasting my backside into high gear. I’m not even thinking about work. Normally, that would be my first thought. How many meetings did I miss? Is the place falling apart? What catastrophes need to be fixed? But this morning, all I feel is a chest now curiously full to bursting, even though it was so empty just a few weeks ago.
My hip hurts a little bit this morning, but it’s more stiffness than pain. I’ll have to take an extra fifteen minutes and do some stretches. I ignore the twinges for now, powering through it in favor of finding Ephemeral and telling her everything that’s on my mind.
I slept like the dead. It’s amazing how being held and mattering to someone on a personal level can do wonders for insomnia. I’m turning into one of those clichés, the man who falls for a woman and finds himself , but I still can’t summon up enough fucks to give, fuck you very much. Proper fucks. Not just regular fucks.
I check her room first.
I expect to see Peach Lips on the foot of the bed, probably on her back with her belly in the air, her lips flapping to the side, or her tongue hanging out like a dog’s while she’s in mid-dream.
But the only thing I find is a white piece of paper at the foot of the bed.
My heart pretty much stops dead and restarts with a burping lurch, sending shivery pangs of pain through me that hurt so much more than my hip. I snatch up the note with an uncharacteristic tremble. I’ve faced down most of my life with steady hands, but not this.
Thorn,
You opened part of your heart to me last night, and I truly hope this doesn’t cause you to regret it or to regress back behind hard stone walls.
I don’t believe in systems or putting yourself into a box. Life should be lived by the rules you make, as long as they don’t hurt anyone else. That said, our worlds are so different. My number one rule is to do less harm wherever it’s possible. I don’t want to hurt you, and I’m honest enough with myself to say I don’t want to be hurt either. Thank you again for everything, including opening your house, making Peach Lips comfortable, the incredible cat posts and the grade-A litter boxes, the marketing makeover, and giving me the financial freedom to start my life over.
I fell asleep right away last night, even with my worries mounting that we’d only hurt each other if we continued forward. I wanted to tell you this, to try to explain myself. I thought we had an understanding when we talked, but maybe we didn’t. If that’s true, then I’m so very sorry for not being clear again. In my head, I knew it was one night, but maybe you thought it would be more. Again, forgive me if I caused you a single second of stress by waking up and not finding me here this morning.
I woke up before you, and all I could think of was that we didn’t have the right tools for the job, and trust me, that’s vital. Once, my mom and I grew Concord grapes in the backyard. We harvested them and boiled them down and then realized we didn’t have a proper strainer. My mom thought of poking holes in a sandwich bag, but it didn’t work. What a mess. We laughed about it long after we went and got the silly strainer. It’s just proof that one thing can’t serve in place of another.
In short, I’m not a strainer. I’m the bag where the holes don’t work, and then all of a sudden, it bursts and lets all the puree and seeds and old skins through.
I’d probably just wreck the grape juice.
Grape juice being life, and life being both of ours.
I truly do wish you the best. You deserve every good thing. I hope you see that and that you can believe it.
Best wishes,
Ephemeral
I do my best not to be an over-dramatic child who crushes the note in my fist. Best wishes. Like a damn Christmas card. How could she not have stayed and talked this out? I know what happened last night was an unexpected development, but is that really the worst thing that could have happened? Was it a no-strings-attached, nothing-going-forward understanding? I didn’t feel that way, but I can see how she would have.
Unexpected developments don’t change the facts. Ephemeral is right that we live two separate lives. We’re both busy and quite…entrenched. She’s got a schedule of cat conventions, and I have a company to run and a merger I’m supposed to be following through on.
Unexpected developments are what I control. I don’t allow for the unplanned. I’m all for tightly controlling the variables. Because if you don’t…disaster.
But that’s work.
I’ve thrown myself into my business, building a professional life and never knowing when enough was enough. There was never going to be an enough .
It took a crack in the wall of perfection to show me that maybe I was building in the wrong direction. Maybe cracks are okay. I do realize I was trying to buy my way into redemption. If anyone else had told me that all I had to do was pick up the phone and call, show up, and make contact, I’d have rolled my eyes and been mildly annoyed. I would have told myself that they didn’t know what they were talking about. It’s not as simple as just picking up the phone. I had to get to a point where I…where I was…
Fuck, I don’t even know. It all seems so foolish now. Sometimes, things really are that simple. I was trying to prove something I didn’t need to prove. Trying to buy my way back into something I never needed to pay for in the first place. I did need to get myself on track, but that’s all my family ever asked. They didn’t need me to be rich beyond belief or wildly successful. They just needed me to make peace with my life and myself.
How many more weeks, months, or even years would it have taken for me to feel like I was complete enough or worthy enough?
Even after all that therapy, I still didn’t get it.
Well, it’s still early.
Unless Ephemeral got up at the crack of dawn, I might still be able to catch her.
Consumed with the idea, I race downstairs and fly out the front door. I do note that the burner phone is gone from the hall table. I programmed the driver’s number into it under Driver , so she couldn’t have mistaken it. Even without that, she could have used the phone to call for a taxi. She could be heading to the airport right now, but I doubt it. I flew her and Peach Lips in my private jet because the regular airlines were so difficult when it came to allowing a cat to fly. They weren’t willing to bend their rules.
She won’t want to take my private jet, but I promised it to her to get her home.
I stop on the doorstep and scan the front yard like I expect Ephemeral and Peach Lips to be standing there waiting for Harvey to pull up. It’s not his real name as well, but he thought it was a great fit for the gig, which is to take anyone in the company anywhere they want to go. There are massive gaps of time when no one and no job requires his services, but he’s on the company payroll full-time anyway.
My elderly next-door neighbor, Mrs. Sanderson, is out in a leopard print bathrobe with huge rollers in her hair, puttering around her immaculate front flower gardens. It’s so like something you’ll see out of a movie. She straightens when she notices me across the way. Our yards are so huge and so far apart that she basically has to shout.
“Good morning!” She waves her arms enthusiastically, which makes the robe jiggle dangerously. It doesn’t exactly look securely tied. Then, her eyes travel down the length of me before coming to a stop.
Oh. My. Fucking. God.
I’m dead. I’m dead right here.
In my hurry, I forgot I was totally naked.
I still have Ephemeral’s note in my hand, which I quickly shove in front of my junk.
Slowly, Mrs. Sanderson’s gaze climbs back up my chest and lands on mine. Her brows rise, and she gives me two thumbs up.
I might as well ask what I want to know now that I’ve scandalized my neighbor. Or not scandalized. I’m not sure which option is worse. “Have you seen a woman—”
“She went that way,” she responds, cutting me off and pointing to the end of my driveway. It’s very clearly empty now. “I was in the living room jazzercising this morning and saw a strange woman wearing the brightest dress you’ve ever seen and an astronaut backpack walk down your driveway. I do love me a good dress-up, so of course, I had to watch her. The black SUV that dropped her off came to pick her up. Is she going for astronaut training?”
My stomach crashes, and my hopes explode in a pile of hot flaming ash. My throat is suddenly burning like I’m coming down with something, but I know it’s not a virus. “Not exactly. But thank you!”
“No problem, sweetheart. If you ever need some sugar, you know where to find me. You know, a cup or two. I’m always good for it. Flour, baking powder, whatever it is you’re trying to cook…if you run out, chances are I have it. I’m always baking, so I have the pantry fully stocked.”
She cackles so loudly at the end that I’m not sure what kind of sugar she’s meaning. I wave at her politely anyway. “Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a good day, Mrs. Sanderson.”
She gives me a big thumbs-up again. “You know, you could always just stalk her. I know what houses cost in this zip code. I live here, after all. You can’t be hurting for money and resources. Buy a mask, dear. Creep her good if you’re not planning on letting her know outright how you feel. I’m sure that when she finally notices you, she’ll be flattered by the level of attention.”
A very reluctant smile curls my lips, especially when I see Mrs. Sanderson’s huge grin sans false teeth. “You do know I’m in security to prevent exactly that?”
“In that case, shorten the stalking time to casing her house, put a bunch of hidden cameras in, and—”
“Thank you for the advice, Mrs. Sanderson, but I think that might be just a touch illegal.” Good jolly jelly, I hope it’s a true crime kick that this woman is on and not anything else.
“I’ve been reading these spicy dark romances, and they’re just full of great ideas like that. Masked men, hidden cameras, stalkers!” She shivers violently, sighing loudly. “I think you’d like them. Would you like me to order the box set to your house?”
“That’d be great.” I mean…no. Shit. I didn’t mean that. I’m just in a hurry to get my car keys and get to the airport.
“Speaking of ordering a package, you have a very nice one. My compliments.”
Holy living fuckity fuck.
I race inside, waving again so I’m not that rude neighbor, just the neighbor who runs out and full suns and moons everyone. I careen straight for the garage, twinging hip be damned, but then stop just inside.
Mrs. Sanderson said Ephemeral left hours ago.
Even if I managed to stop the jet, which I now realize is long gone, would that be the right thing to do? The note sounded very clear. She made a decision, and it has far more to do with her life than it does with mine. The classic it’s not you, it’s me.
But it is me too.
What can I offer her to change her mind except promises that I can be different? That I’ll work less, call my family, and find meaning that doesn’t have to do with clawing my way up in a never-ending trajectory in the hopes of someday buying satisfaction, if not real happiness.
All of it will be little more than words.
I’m smart enough to know real change takes intelligence, and real intelligence comes from change. It doesn’t come from vague promises about a future.
I glance at the car. I’m only a few feet away.
Even if I got on the jet and went to Ephemeral as soon as it touched back down, I couldn’t just tell her that what we had last night was more than just a deep conversation and a moment of temporary insanity. That it was so much more than attraction.
This is something I have no experience in, and I would never utter empty words.
I might be a tool, but I’m not the right tool for the job.
She was right about that.
Stalk her. Put hidden cameras in her house. Buy a mask.
I actually chuckle and shake my head at Mrs. Sanderson’s eager words. I know for a fact that she lives all alone in that huge house. Her husband passed last year. One morning months ago, when I saw her outside, I asked if she was getting on okay, and she said she was, but even then, she seemed lonely. I took that at face value and continued backing out of the garage, putting it out of my mind.
For years, I thought the only thing I could do to make things right with my family was to keep on providing for them, even after my mom wrote to the company—she didn’t have my home address—to ask that I stop because they had more than enough and didn’t need anything else. I saw that as a challenge. Five thousand dollars a month for rent, bills, groceries, payments, and my brothers’ tuition wasn’t enough, so I started sending ten. When the extra money was returned by a bank draft in a registered envelope I had to sign for, I sent twenty. The response? Just a typed letter I had to sign for again, thanking me and saying the extra would be divided and placed into accounts for my brothers and one for a charity they would decide on together and donate to bi-annually.
I now realize that I was only assuaging my own conscience. I was providing because I always provided, but even after I had more than enough money for all of us to retire and live good lives, I was empty. I knew what I needed was them, but giving money and looking after them from a distance was far easier than risking their rejection of me again.
I didn’t go back even when I realized there was no betrayal and rejection.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
What the fuck is wrong with me currently ?
I’m certainly not going to go into full-blown stalker mode, but I could start paying attention to the people in my life. From my employees to my family to old friends and possibly new ones that I could make if I stop working every hour of the day and holding myself to an impossible standard. I could check in on my neighbor who is so clearly and obviously lonely. I could call my mom and brothers and ask them if they’ll be open to meeting with me. I could go back to therapy and be one hundred percent honest about where I’m at this time.
I could have my team make sure Ephemeral has everything she needs security-wise to be safe and protected in her bus no matter where she is, in addition to her rebranding.
I could get my shit together right here and right now, and that includes putting on some damned clothes.
I might not have the right tools yet, but I want to have them. I want to learn to have them. She is probably right about the timing, however much it hits like a blow to the solar plexus. It’s not right now.
But it doesn’t mean it won’t ever be right.