Chapter 27
She was still a hollow statue when she walked into Luca’s apartment. Luca quietly closed the door behind them, on the phone with her PR agent.
“Pay them whatever they want to keep it out of the press. Send me the bill. I don’t want there to be any evidence of what she said earlier today.
Hang on. I’ve got another call.” She pulled her phone away from her head and hit a button.
“Danica? Yes, yes, I heard. She’s here with me now.
I’ll keep an eye on her. I think she’s having some kind of break.
Well, can you blame her? Don’t worry about it.
She’s not leaving my side until she’s better. ”
That’s never going to happen, Lu.
Sarah stood in front of Luca’s window, wondering what it would be like to jump. Could she spread her wings while she fell?
Luca tossed her phone onto the coffee table. “Tell me what to do, Angel.”
Sarah pressed her hands against the glass. How could it be so warm? Was it really that sunny outside? “I don’t know what to do. I’ve been trying to figure that out for over a year now.”
“I know. I mean, I don’t know exactly, but…
” The frustration continued to mount in Luca’s voice.
Oh, Lu. Sarah tapped her forehead against the window.
Luca would drive herself crazy if she continued to freak out over Sarah’s well-being.
When would she learn that it wasn’t her place to fix Sarah?
“Why are you telling people that we’re breaking up? That’s news to me.”
Sarah slowly turned around, fingers still pressed against the glass. “We should break up. All I am is a giant liability to you and what you want. I wish you would understand that.”
“Pretty sure I’m the only one who gets to decide that.” She scoffed. “Don’t you dare tear yourself down like this. Don’t you get it? I love you, Angel. I love you like crazy.”
“Crazy is exactly what you’ll get if you keep associating yourself with me. Please, let me go. I don’t do the relationship thing very well. When I hit a low, I fall so far through the Earth that I end up in another dimension.”
“When you’re high?”
“It’s not that great, really.”
“I will go crazy without you.” Luca dared to put her hand on Sarah’s shoulder.
She jumped, adrenaline infusing into her veins, and screaming at her to run to the other side of the room.
But she didn’t. Somehow, she was sane enough to control herself.
“Maybe I’m a fool for wasting my time on a woman I love, but I’ve done more foolish things in my life. ”
“I’ll hold you back. Victor will…”
“How many times do I have to tell you to let me worry about my son? Besides, he likes you! It’s almost like loving you is a Blackbourne family trait!”
“Not to Jill.”
“Fuck Jill.” Luca released Sarah and took two steps away from the living room.
“You know what? Fuck this whole situation. You think I don’t know what it’s like to love someone who has demons in her closet?
If being married to Jill taught me anything, it was that I’m the most patient woman in the universe.
I don’t care about your flaws, Sarah. I care about how you address them.
Jill chose alcohol over our marriage. She made a lot of decisions without my input.
The only thing I regret, though, is not being strong enough to do better for her.
You’re not the only one who stays up late at night wondering how things could’ve been if only I the foresight. ”
“Please don’t compare our pasts, Luca.” Sarah’s finger twirled around the tip of her blond wig, those synthetic tresses greasy from the humid air outside.
Dust. Dirt. Sweat. It’s as unclean as the rest of me.
How about that? “You don’t know what it’s like to have your power stripped from you.
You don’t know what it’s like to lose your son.
You definitely don’t know what it’s like to have every choice you used to freely make suddenly mean nothing, to be yanked from your grasp, and there’s nothing you can do about it. ”
Luca was silent for a few seconds. Then, “You’re right. I don’t know what it’s like.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Is that what this is all about, though? Your choices?”
Sarah’s hands tangled together in front of her chest. “I didn’t get to choose.
None of it. Didn’t get to choose what happened to my son.
Couldn’t even quit my job and get away from those memories because my brother and I needed the money too much.
” She continued before Luca had the chance to interrupt her again.
“This was the only way I could reclaim any of it. At least when I was someone else, I had choices again.”
Luca leaned against the back of her couch. “Angel is the one with all the choices, is that it? And you feel empowered when you’re her?”
“When we met, that was my choice. I chose to approach you. I chose to have sex with you. I chose what happened after that.”
“Then your big dumb girlfriend showed up to work the next Monday and threw a wrench into everything.”
“If that never happened, if we never…” Sarah swallowed. “I would probably be in New York City right now getting whatever I could get.”
“How long did you think you could keep doing that?”
“Until I had a compelling reason to stop.”
“Am I enough reason, Angel?”
While her voice didn’t sound defeated, per se, Sarah still sensed the panic rising within Luca.
“You don’t understand. It’s not only about being fulfilled.
I need to know that something like that is never going to happen again.
I have to learn how to trust someone all over again. If you think that’s easy…”
“You know of my own trust issues. While they may not be on that level, well… we’re both learning how to trust our potential lovers again.”
Sighing, Sarah turned her whole body toward her, eyes open and wide.
“I know you’re a good person, Lu. I know you mean well and that you love me.
Theoretically, anyway. I know that. But I’ve forced myself to become so apathetic that I can’t feel it.
The only way I can feel anything good is if I dress up like this. ”
“Angel.” When did it stop being her alter-ego and become her true pet name? “I love you. Beyond words. If that means loving both halves of you, then that doesn’t bother me.”
Sarah wrinkled her nose. “It bothers me.”
“I’m sure it does. I can look at you dressed like this and know that it’s the same woman. But do you know that?”
“What do you mean?”
“Who are you right now?”
Sarah glanced at her reflection in the mirror. Blond wig. Sultry black jacket. Thick, come-hither makeup and a pair of boots that would get her kicked out of the office. “I’m…”
“Do you even know?”
“I’m a mess, is what I am.”
Luca took her hand, but did not entice her to come closer. That was Sarah’s choice, wasn’t it? “I don’t want you to be a mess. I want you to be happy and healthy. If it turns out there’s no room for me in that equation, well…” Luca looked away. “It will break my heart, but I will understand.”
“You’re too good for me.”
“Yet you’re the angel here.”
“When I picked that name,” she began, also looking away, the only thing holding them together their sweaty, linked hands, “I wanted something that was obviously not my real name. Something sexy and innocent, like everyone would get a specific kick out of me. But the joke would be on them. I wasn’t innocent.
I knew exactly what I was doing. In a way, I wanted them to use me.
I told myself that I was using them, but in those situations, they were still the ones with all the power.
Look at that video. I never knew about it.
It’s been out there this whole time, waiting to be used against me. Powerless to stop it.”
Luca squeezed her hand. “I used you, too. I admit it.”
“I know.”
“Tell me what to do. Tell me how to help you.” Luca gently turned her around again. “What do you want, Sarah?”
This time, she answered without thinking about it.
“To be whole again.”
It was the answer she had bitten back every time she asked her that asinine question. The answer she always knew was true but was afraid to admit – because then she was admitting that she had never been whole to begin with. That she didn’t have the power and free-will she craved.
“I know. I’ve been waiting for you to say it.”
She pulled Sarah into her embrace. While they didn’t kiss – yet – Sarah felt every ounce of Luca’s love coaxing her to trust her, to believe that she truly wanted the best for Sarah.
“I love you,” Luca muttered. “I’m afraid that’s one matter you don’t get a choice in.”
Sarah rested her cheek upon Luca’s chest. She was possibly the only one in the world who made Sarah feel safe in her embrace. Too bad she was about to ask Luca to shatter that illusion.
Night had almost fallen by the time Luca emerged from her bedroom. Sarah was on the living room couch, looking past the TV and upon the glistening water weaving between brand-new high-rises and warehouses as old as her mother’s lineage.
She flipped the light switch. Sarah was thrown into darkness.
“Come here, Angel.”
She had spent the past hour readying her mind for what she had asked her to do. Although Luca sounded as confident as always, she knew Sarah well enough by now to hear that slight tremor implying there was another way to go about this. No. There isn’t.
The only way Sarah would be whole again was by embracing both sides of herself.
She was the one who had willingly split herself into two as an unhealthy way of coping with her trauma.
She was the only one who could sew both halves back together – and if some of the bullshit was conveniently left out of the result? All the better.
But that didn’t mean she had to do it alone. Having a woman who loved her – and she could eventually come to trust – could make all the difference.
“Angel.”