Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
Damien
Idon’t sleep that night.
I can’t.
For hours, I toss and turn, trying and failing to clear my mind, but it’s no use.
All I can think about, all I can see, is the endless list of cruel, hateful words I’ve spat at Blair Porter. Even as I try to tell myself that I didn’t know, that I couldn’t have possibly guessed at any of this, in my heart I know the truth.
If I hadn’t been so quick to shove Blair in the box I believed she belonged, cramming the lid on to protect myself, regardless of whether it truly fit… well, maybe she would have told me, maybe she wouldn’t, but now, we’ll never know.
Regardless. One apology doesn’t seem like enough.
At around one in the morning, I give up on getting any sleep.
Instead, I take out my computer and sit on the couch to research dyslexia.
Having only the most surface-level knowledge of the condition—that it mixes up letters and makes reading difficult—I feel woefully unprepared on how to properly support Blair now that I know the truth.
Learning more seems like a pragmatic, appropriate first step, but as I dig in, reading through everything from firsthand accounts from adult dyslexics, to medical journals, and descriptions of what can happen when it goes unsupported.
Educating myself doesn’t lessen my guilt.
If anything, each of the cold, clinical facts I learn, sheds a new, terrible light on the way I treated Blair.
It isn’t limited to making reading difficult, as I’d thought.
Dyslexia can affect everything from the ability to process verbal instructions, memory retrieval…
the list goes on and on, and my chest feels as though it may cave in when I finally reach an article about the long-term effects of untreated or improperly treated dyslexia.
Words like poor self-esteem, and higher rates of anxiety and depression jump out at me, as does the paragraph describing how many adults with the dyslexia will avoid situations which might force them to confront their limitations.
All of it fits perfectly.
By no fault of her own, the way Blair’s brain operates is different than mine, and most of the population’s. She has a disability, and one that was so clearly never addressed as it should have been.
If I were to guess, the fucking Porters threw money at the situation and expected that would be enough to solve it. Then, when it wasn’t, they made it Blair’s fault. Easier to write her off, to call her lazy, or stupid, or impulsive, rather than face that they had failed her.
The same way I failed her.
It’s easy to point fingers at her parents and to blame them for not supporting her in the first place, but much more difficult to hold a mirror to my own behavior, seeing it for what it truly is for the first time.
How many times did I get exasperated with her when I told her something and had to repeat myself?
How many times did I call her lazy or an idiot?
How many times did I allow my own prejudices to color the facts, warping them into a picture which best fit the narrative I’d been telling myself about Blair Porter from day one?
Exactly like the Porters, I clung to what was easy and familiar to me, without a care for what it was doing to her.
By dawn, my vision is blurry with exhaustion, and I’m sorely tempted to go back to bed, if only to allow myself a temporary respite from the debilitating guilt.
Instead, I push my weary limbs into a standing position and begin to dress for our run, possessed by the need to lay eyes on Blair, and to see her clearly for what is perhaps the very first time.
As usual, she isn’t in the entrance hall when I arrive at the main house, but when I pause in the dimly lit hall outside her bedroom door, there is a line of light spilling from beneath it, and the indistinct sounds of someone moving around inside.
I raise my fist, knocking softly. Only a few seconds later, it’s thrown open, and I find myself looking at Blair. She’s dressed for the run, but looks about as tired as I feel, and the knife buried in the center of my chest twists when I see the hint of red lining her eyes.
“Sorry,” she murmurs, not quite looking at me as she works her hair back into a ponytail. “I meant to be downstairs on time.”
I think I would prefer it if she cursed or threw something at me again.
“It’s not a problem.” I step out of the way, allowing her out into the hall, and watch in silence as she finishes her preparations.
Side by side, we start toward the stairs. “Did you, uh, sleep alright?” The attempt at normalcy, at civility, feels forced and awkward.
Blair must think so too, because in the corner of my vision, I see the corners of her lips pull into a tiny, wry smile. “Not really,” she admits calmly. “You?”
“Not really.”
Her jacketed arm brushes mine as we turn onto the sweeping main staircase, descending toward the entrance hall.
There are large crates and boxes set along the wall to the side, decorations for her sister’s upcoming engagement party which arrived a few days ago.
By next weekend, the house will be filled to the brim with Blair’s family members and their closest, wealthiest, most important friends.
Already, my inbox is filled with about a dozen information requests from various security teams, and I anticipate some debilitating headaches to come.
None of that is a concern for me at the moment, though.
Right now, all I can think about is the quiet, pale-faced woman at my side, who seems to have lost that bright, impossible fire which has burned so fiercely inside her from the day we met.
A fire I tried to extinguish over and over again, but now that I’ve succeeded, I can think of little else but bringing it back to life.
Fuck. Fuck.
We stop in the center of the checkered, marble floor, but as Blair raises her arms over her head, preparing to stretch for the run, I find myself proposing something I never have before.
“Why don’t we do something else today?”
She pauses, staring at me. “Something else?”
“Something you’d like to do. Instead of running,” I clarify, and my pulse thuds in my throat as, slowly, the woman at my side lowers her arms.
“Something I’d like to do,” she echoes, disbelief evident in her tone. “That isn’t running.”
“Yes.”
Blair blinks. “But you always run.”
“Not always.” I fractured my metatarsal two years ago, and then there was the flu I had last winter; apart from the odd one-off incident, however, she’s right.
Maintaining a strict, regimented routine is a holdover from my days in the Royal Navy, but I like it.
The predictability is steadying, especially when so many significant, altering parts of my life have been totally outside my control.
In fact, I can’t remember the last time I willingly relinquished a single part of it for someone else.
Shifting her weight onto one leg, Blair folds her arms over her chest, studying me. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to prove here, but—”
“I’m not trying to prove anything, Blair.”
Her expression hardens. “Well, I don’t want your pity. You hate me, remember? You’ve always hated me. Don’t stop now.”
Reaching up, I drag my hand through my hair, looking back at her with a twisted mix of fondness and exasperation.
Why did I imagine she would stop driving me mad after all this?
And how the fuck could I ever convince myself I don’t like it?
Though I hadn’t realized it until now, this new insight into Blair didn’t just turn my beliefs about her on their head, it did the same to my beliefs about our relationship.
The way I see her—us—is fundamentally different than it was even yesterday, and I’m struggling to orient myself to this new reality.
“I never hated you.”
The words hang heavily in the air between us. I can see it in her face that she doesn’t believe me. Why would she, when all I’ve done is prove the opposite?
“What would you do today? If you could do anything?” I try again. “Anything at all.”
Blair heaves a sigh. “I don’t know.” She hesitates, apparently wracking her mind for something far-fetched and ridiculous enough to prove me wrong, and I know she must have found it when she brightens. “I would leave this house.” There’s a challenge in her green eyes.
“Okay,” I agree without the slightest hesitation. “What else?”
“I’ve always wanted to go to one of those places where you drink beer and throw axes at a target.”
“Alcohol and axes, sounds like good, safe fun. What else?”
She seems to scramble for another item to add to the list. “I would learn how to make real pasta from scratch.”
“And?”
“I would invite Summer.”
“Summer, the maid?”
Blair’s nostrils flare. “Summer, my new friend, who is very kind, very talented, and who happens to work part-time as a maid.”
I nod, trying not to grin. “Okay, fine. Go get dressed in something appropriate for ax throwing, beer drinking and pasta making with Summer.”
She looks over her shoulder at me at least three times as she ascends the staircase back toward her room, as if expecting me to change my mind at any moment.
I won’t, though.
Tomorrow, I’ll find a way to navigate our increasingly complicated relationship and attempt to build some trust between us so I can help her through this, while maintaining some semblance of professionalism. If such a lofty concept is even possible for us.
Today, I’m going to give Blair Porter whatever she wants.
When she’s finally vanished from sight at the top of the stairs, I turn toward the kitchen, already pulling my phone out of the fitness holder on my arm.
I don’t have a game plan. This decision wasn’t made with any kind of foresight, and perhaps if I had thought I would give Blair carte blanche to call the shots today, I would have thought to offer her some feasible options.
Options that are private and come with little risk of Blair being seen or photographed.