Chapter 37
37
PENNY
I’m awakened from my fitful slumber with muffled arguing happening down the hall.
Sitting up in bed, I try to adjust my eyes to the darkness.
How long have I slept?
The memories of Nic finding me in Collins’s bed and the discovery that Luke was hired by my brothers come flooding back to me.
Nothing seems to be going my way today, and I’m starting to doubt that things will fit back into place again.
Rolling out of bed, I try to get my wobbly legs to work. I feel like I’m constructed out of cooked noodles.
Stretching, I reach my hands above my head, recirculating the blood.
Moving over to the curtains, I pull them back and stare out into the city at night.
Great. I wasted an entire day away and nothing got accomplished.
The yelling coming from outside my bedroom gets louder, and it’s now that I can hear the distinct tone of Collins’s voice. He’s here.
Feeling a burst of energy, I make my way to the door and pull it open. Artificial light flitters in through the hallway, making me squint.
“I hear her door,” Graham says.
“She can stay at my new house,” Nic volunteers. “I have plenty of room and can keep a close watch on her.”
“Okay,” Graham agrees. “If you need me to send over anything while we figure out the next steps or switch off weeks to be at my place, just let me know.”
“Sounds good.”
They are discussing me—but without me. It’s as if a divorce has happened and custody of a child needs to be arranged.
I’m the child.
Me.
Adult me is the child.
This has been the approach of my brothers for the last year, so why change things up now?
My feet carry me toward the voices, and suddenly all sets of eyes turn to me. Mine find Collins first, softening toward his appearance.
I wasn’t expecting him to be here. And I definitely didn’t expect his poor face to look as beat-up as it does.
Running, I throw myself at the man who has captured my heart. I wrap my legs around his waist and anchor myself to him like he’s my lifeline. Deep down, I hope that my display of physical affection helps solidify my place in Collins’s life for my brothers to witness. Maybe that will help them understand that Collins is my person.
“You are here,” I say breathlessly, draping my arms around his neck.
Why is everyone being so quiet—so still?
“Get down, Penelope,” Collins says, but just for my ears.
Then I realize that everything I’m experiencing right now is one-sided, and the coldness I never thought I would feel in this man’s presence is now infiltrating the warmth we had toward one another for nearly one hundred days.
Collins’s arms stay at his side. When I look into his eyes, I see that they lack the life and love I am convinced I once felt and saw reflected back at me. But it’s vanished. It’s like I’m hugging a cold statue at a museum.
It’s like I’m hugging a stranger.
The fairy tale is over.
And I’ve been deluded enough to think it was all real.
My eyes look up into his, silently pleading. “Collins?”
He ignores me.
I give him a shake but am careful not to jostle him and cause him more pain.
His hands hover over me but don’t actually make contact.
My brothers curse under their breath. But I don’t care. They already know we’re together and will be together. Once the shock wears off, they’ll come around.
I’ll make them see that Collins and I can be good together.
Looking closer at the details of his face, it fully registers to me that his cheeks are swollen. His lip is cut and there’s bruising along his jawline. He needs some ice.
I slide down Collins’s body, finding the strength to stand on my own. With gentle hands, I cup both sides of his face and run my thumbs over all his wounds.
“What happened to you?” I choke out. I already know but I want to hear his words anyway. It guts me to see him like this, and deep down, I know it’s because of me.
We may have crossed a line nearly one hundred days ago, but my brothers crossed one today.
“I’ll be okay.”
Turning my body, I glare at Graham. “You did this to him? You beat up Collins?”
“Yes.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you? And why are you being so matter-of-fact about it?”
“It’s over, Penny,” he bites out. “Grab your things and let’s go.”
Crossing my arms, I hold my ground. “No.”
“Yes!” Nic bellows.
And to think he’s typically the calm one out of the two.
“No!” I challenge. “I’m not going anywhere without Collins.”
“Let me have a chat with Penny,” Collins says solemnly.
I hate seeing him this broken. I hate that our entire relationship is blowing up before our eyes.
Graham pushes hair off his forehead. “Fine.”
“Gee, thanks,” I mumble under my breath. “How generous.”
My entryway clears out, leaving me standing face-to-face with the man I have fallen head over fucking heels for in less than one hundred days.
“Penny…”
“Can I get you some ice?”
I don’t wait for an answer and walk into the kitchen to busy myself with making an ice pack out of a resealable bag and some cubes. I then take the bag and wrap it in a clean dish towel, to keep him from getting frostbite.
“I can’t believe my brother beat you up.”
I hand him the pack, but he just places it down onto the counter.
“We need to talk.”
“I’m so sorry you are in this position.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
“Both Graham and Nic just need to calm the fuck down and then they’ll understand that we belong together.”
His look of indifference is a vise around my heart, depriving my entire body of the air that once gave me life.
It’s his silence that makes me squeeze my fingers inward, pressing tightly into my palms—so tight that I’d be surprised if I didn’t leave marks.
I don’t need him to talk, when I already know what’s going to happen next.
I feel it.
It’s like a cold front blowing through in a storm that is about to destroy all hopes for my future.
Collins moves into my living room and then to the wall of windows that overlook the city of Portland. I follow behind wordlessly, shuffling through memories that were made here in this building, and are now damaged with the realization that I no longer have a place in this man’s life.
“Say it,” I lash out.
“What do you want me to say, Pen? Huh?”
“Tell me that us making floor angels and you chasing me down to tickle me over taking pictures of you was just a misunderstanding. Tell me that you caring for me during the storm was just you doing your job. Tell me that us taking baths together at your place and fooling around on the terrace was just me forcing myself on you. Tell me… Tell me that I’m the”—I choke on my next word—“ crazy one for believing in a figment of my imagination, conjured up in my own head from watching too many princess movies growing up.” I smack at his chest. “Tell me!”
Our eyes meet and I no longer see the man I thought I loved. Instead, reflected back in his callous expression, I see all of my flaws, insecurities, and weaknesses with vivid clarity. I’m not his girl. I’m not his anything.
And when this is all said and done, I’ll be a shell of who I was reinventing myself to be.
Tears cascade out of my eyes.
But Collins says nothing.
He does nothing.
He tries to save nothing.
The air between us is stifling, moving from slightly humid to borderline unbreathable.
We were created to break. This has always been the endgame, and I just refused to believe it.
It is in his seemingly uninterested gaze that my mind fractures, more now than when I was taken by Mark.
“I’m sorry,” he says stiffly, but his words hold no emotion.
My nose flares. “I’m sorry too. I’m sorry that I thought you were a man who would do everything to fight for me. I was wrong.”
“It’s for the best.”
“You are the worst kind of monster. You are the kind that stands tall behind a code of honor you live by, only to shatter the lives of anyone who goes against your narrative.”
I watch as he swallows and glances out at the river. But he says nothing.
“Look at me.”
And when he doesn’t, I jerk his shoulder to turn him.
“Look at me and remember this day. Because we will never come back from this.”
My hand flies forward with so much force, it is as if my entire life has saved up this aggression inside with the intent to release it in this very moment. The sound hits my ears first, followed by the searing pain radiating through my entire arm, and then ends with the look of shock in his solemn eyes.
Collins doesn’t even dodge the blow. Wiping at his cheek, he shifts his weight to his other foot. Blood spills from his reopened wound. “You hit me.”
“You fucking deserve worse, you bastard!”
I shove at him. And I pound my fists into his chest. And I scream out a sound that is foreign even to my own ears.
Then I back away, trying to get as much distance between us as I can.
I can’t look at him. So I keep walking.
But it’s in that silence that the realization hits me like a brick.
I’m going to be alone.
A sharp, burning sensation scratches at the back of my throat, working its way up to my mouth.
I’m going to be alone.
Turning, I look back at Collins standing in the middle of my living room. Tears continue falling like a waterfall from my eyes.
“Don’t leave me.”
Then I rush to him, falling at his feet.
“Please don’t leave me.”
My arms circle his ankles, tugging him. But he doesn’t budge.
I’m lying in a heap of limbs at his feet, and he stands stoically still.
I am stupid.
Carelessly stupid.
My teeth chew at my inner cheek, puncturing the tissue from the force. This physical pain will never compete with the emotional breakdown I am having now—one-sidedly.
And in my humiliation, I vow to never give Collins an opportunity to break me again. That no matter how much of an asshole he is tonight, I’m the bigger one for ever thinking that a contractual relationship would end any other way than it is now.
Rolling to the fetal position, I look up at the man hovering above me.
“I hate you,” I mouth. You won.
I know my message was received based on the flinch of his eyes, but he doesn’t move to me or make me get up. Instead, he just stares—his hollowed-out eyes haunting my every twitch.
Crying to myself silently, I wonder if this was his endgame all along. Was this an inevitable act to a temporary situation?
Then Collins takes a step back away from my broken spirit and walks to the door to exit.
A guttural sob escapes the trap set with my lips, bursting through my mouth like a raging fire in search of oxygen.
I hate him.
My stomach works its way up to my throat, expelling bile and acidic juices right into my mouth, before lodging itself into place. Coughing, I sputter out the liquid burning my tastebuds, doubling over as I take in the influx of knowledge, hurting my brain.
It’s over.
Collins and I are over.