Chapter 55 #2
It felt strange seeing myself like that, through his eyes. He had shown me his artwork before, mostly landscapes, but this was different. This was me with the Parisian skyline in front of me.
The city’s contours, the lines and curves of my body. My serpent tattoo seemed alive, rising up from my back and curling over my shoulder as if it were looking at the city the same way I did.
I got the serpent when I thought I’d found my family on the open road, but it had always stood for me, for the way I’d always been able to shed my skin and leave the old behind.
Seeing this was fucking beautiful.
My fingers followed the twists and turns of the dark scales on the paper.
The style he sketched, I recognized from Effy’s work in the West House.
Surreal, and realistic at the same time.
“What do you think?” Tom asked.
It took me a while to answer that question, because what I saw left me speechless.
“It’s… different, seeing myself like this. Through you.”
I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. “But it’s beautiful. I’ve never felt…”
“Never felt what?”
“Never felt like art before.”
He smiled at me, and for a split second it was Paul smiling at me. Then a soft white flash passed through my vision, and it was Tom again.
“You’ve always been art, love. You just needed someone to show you the right way.”
I hadn’t known what to say to that. So I answered by kissing him, freeing him from his clothes, and showing him the kind of art we could create together.
Paris had given us a break from all the chaos we’d left behind at Heatherfell. It had been paradise, until it wasn’t.
Reality smacked in at check-out. We were getting ready to drive back to Amsterdam so we could have one more day to ourselves before flying home.
It should’ve been simple. But nothing with us ever really is.
It all started when Tom got his card declined. Once, twice, three times.
The receptionist gave him a polite, awkward smile—the kind you give someone when you’re trying not to make them feel embarrassed.
Tom wasn’t embarrassed. He was pissed.
“Could you please run it again?” he asked.
She did, but it was the same result. Declined. A couple of fast French lines from both sides of the desk followed.
I tossed my card on the desk. “Here, use mine.”
That earned me a death stare.
“No. I’ve got this. I brought you here, so I’ll handle it.”
He fished out a crypto card and, thankfully, that one worked.
Anyway, that didn’t settle the matter for Tom. He exploded the second we got in the car.
“This has Jay written all over it. It has to be! That fuckin’ arsehole must’ve frozen my accounts. He’s punishing me for leaving!”
He slammed his hand against the dashboard. Again.
That’s when I noticed the impressive little collection of dents in the same spots, left and right.
Red flags started popping up. Undeniable ones. I know, that’s rich coming from me, but the more life experience I gained, the more I could see there was a whole palette of reds a painter would envy.
Burgundy, vermilion, crimson, maroon, and of course, the precious and intense ruby red flag. Take your pick.
So I stayed quiet in the car, letting Tom burn off some of that rage. We could save the regulating emotions talk for when we were back on the island.
We stopped at a gas station. I filled the tank, and when I came back, Tom was still sitting behind the wheel, numb.
Then he broke. He cried, he screamed, and I couldn’t watch him lose himself like that for another second.
“Hey,” I said softly, taking him into my arms. “You’re with me now, okay? Take your time to figure everything out. Whatever you need, I’ve got you.”
No reaction. He stared at the tiny waves stitched into my sweater, and I would’ve given anything to crawl into his head and hold every place that hurt.
It felt like my arms around him weren’t enough to silence the war in his mind. That frustrated me in ways I could not name, because I had always been able to do that. But no, not yesterday.
When he finally looked up, I was met with the saddest eyes I’d ever seen.
That’s… fuck. That was when I did a thing.
Maybe it had been desperation speaking. Maybe it was because sharing my personal space didn’t terrify me anymore. Better said, he had calmed every anxious part of me that loved hiding.
“Move in with me,” I said.
Silence. Again.
I scrunched my eyes, not sure if it made the wait easier or if I just wanted to disappear the longer it dragged on. Then, after a torturous eternity, the slam of the door snapped my eyes back open.
Tom walked away from the gas station to light a smoke.
I watched his shaky hands cup the lighter. I watched him take a couple of desperate first drags.
The cigarette burned too fast, so he lit another.
He paced around a picnic bench, gesturing wildly with his hands in the air, ranting words I couldn’t hear.
For a second, I thought maybe he hadn’t heard me. But no, he had heard me. He just didn’t answer.
It felt like a slap, but I swallowed it. Maybe it had been too much all at once, or maybe he needed that cigarette to think the move-in-with-me idea through.
I tried to act as casual as my bad poker face let me, pretending the last ten minutes did not happen.
After finishing his third cigarette, he came back. We switched sides and I drove us back to Amsterdam. The rest of the drive was quiet, the most awful kind of quiet.
I zip up my duffel and set it beside my suitcase in Tom’s bedroom. Everything’s neatly folded.
The soothing sense of order and control calms me. At least something’s organized, can’t say the same about the mess in my head. Still, they share one thing in common: they’re both ready to get on the plane.
Tom walks in with his phone still in hand, irritation written all over his face. I can practically see the thunderclouds gathering above his head.
“That was Jay. I confronted him about blocking my account, but he swore he had nothing to do with it. Apparently someone remotely froze a bunch of accounts—mine included. The bank confirmed the hack.”
“Oh god. Is your money safe? Do you believe him?”
“Yeah, I think so. He swore on our mother.”
Jay might be a prick—okay, no, he is a prick—but swearing on your mom? Jay’s probably telling the truth. Even I can’t ignore that.
Then again, their mother abandoned them, so what does swearing on her even mean?
Tom runs a hand through his hair, it’s a little habit he has when he needs to improvise.
“He’s coming over in a bit. He wants to talk to us.”
My body tenses. No part of me wants to see that man again.
“I’m not sure I want to talk to him.”
“I think he wants to apologize. So I thought… maybe we can hear him out? Only if you want that. I can tell him no and we go immediately to Effy’s gallery to say goodbye.”
He looks at me with those bright blue eyes, a pearlescent gleam over them. The hope in his eyes is impossible to ignore and I don’t know if he sees the reality for what it is.
The idea of making peace with Jay and still doing what he wants—and that is, leaving with me—feels like wishful thinking.
Tom probably knows the odds aren’t in his favor if he wants both, but at least this gives him the chance to stand up for himself and draw the line he hasn’t dared to draw for years.
I don’t know what he’s planning to tell Jay, or how long it will take before his brother starts twisting things again. But one thing I do know is that Tom deserves that final bit of closure before this trip ends.
I set my feelings aside. He needs my support more than my doubts.
“Okay,” I say softly. “I’ll hear him out.”
He plants a quick kiss on my cheek, a familiar smirk follows.
“Still scared to go into the living room?”
I roll my eyes. Oh hell, as if things couldn’t get worse.
We got ambushed by a handful of paparazzi when we arrived to Tom’s apartment building.
Tom went into full McKenna mode with his charming, cocky appearance, throwing out his usual witty bullshit to distract them so I could sneak inside.
The second he pressed the keys into my hand, we realized the journalists hadn’t come for him.
They’d flown in all the way from the United States, for me.
They fired questions aggressively: where I’d been the past four years, why I’d disappeared, why I hadn’t clarified whether I was alive or not. They called me Joshua. Joshua Fennbrae. And then they asked Tom what it was like to be in a relationship with me.
I was this close to spiraling when Finn, sitting by his window upstairs, started throwing bananas, eggs and ripe tomatoes at everyone with a mic or camera. It was enough of a distraction for us to run inside.
“They’re still there?” I ask.
“Some of them. Damn, I’ve never seen papz this aggressive. Was it always like that for you?”
We walk into the living room. There’s tea waiting for me on the table, curtains closed.
“I tried my best to stay under the radar, but that’s a failed mission with my last name.
It was always rich kid this, nepotism that whenever I achieved something.
Sometimes there were photos of hook-ups, just like now.
The only real headline came after my suicide attempt, but I never had a crowd waiting for me like this.
I guess that’s what happens when you’re rumored dead and people find out you’re not. ”
Tom opens the cookie jar, fishing out one of those mini-stroopwafels.
“So back in the States, they thought you’re dead?”
I hold up my hands. “That’s what the media made of it. I just changed my name and left.”
“Jay told me someone filmed us making out at the ice rink the other day, and now we’re going viral.
The Dutch press has started digging—and let me tell you, they dig well.
There was this one time they recognised me from a certain art-house film shot in a Berlin fetish club.
It was just one shot, but in that shot…yeah, I shot. ”
My head tips back as I burst out laughing. “I need to see that.”
He waves it off. “Nah, you don’t want to see me banging a woman in a swing.”
“You’re right. I don’t even want to imagine that.”
Tom flashes me a mischievous grin. I jab his side, and he doubles over laughing when I hit his ticklish spot.
He begs for mercy, but I grab him tight around the ribs in a jiu-jitsu grip, ruffling his curls.
He loves that.
“Okay, but seriously now,” he says between laughs. “First it went viral because, yeah, apparently I’m gay now. But after some digging, they figured out my lover was you. The American outlets went crazy and sent their freelancers over the next day, Jay said. Insane, right?”
“Yeah, totally.”
I’m not sure whether to believe Jay’s version of all this. When it comes to me, he’s probably leaking more than the broken faucet in my pre-renovation kitchen. But that’s something I can’t tell for sure. He might hate me, but he probably hates the gossip press even more.
Tom licks his lips. “How about Tiffy, does she know about you?”
I sigh and look down at my phone, which is lighting up as we speak. Dozens of missed calls and twenty-six texts from her. I pick it up from the coffee table and show it to Tom; that’s already answer enough.
“Only Erin knew because she’s my psychiatrist and confidant.”
I bury my face in my hands, shaking my head. “I knew this was going to happen one day. Honestly, I thought it’d be sooner. But no one ever recognized me in Avalon. Not even the tourists.”
“I’m sorry, love. Can’t exactly undo my fame.”
I lift my head, giving him a wry smile. “Me neither.”
He gives me that easy grin again, like nothing’s changed.
I force myself to smile back, pretending nothing has, and trying to ignore the part of me that knows it has, along with the urge to walk away.