26. Jude
JUDE
My suitcase is open on the floor, its contents spilling out.
Mel and I landed back early this morning.
Callum announced he’s staying with a friend while I get settled in.
I still have his number blocked, so he left a message for Mel.
The way he said it made it sound like he thinks he’s doing this great, heroic deed.
I snort at his audacity. I pay half toward this apartment, the same as him.
But he expects things to go back to normal now that I’m home.
My mouth sours at the thought, but he’s the least of my worries right now.
Guilt weaves a slow route through my stomach as I recall telling my father we’d get a cab when he insisted he’d collect us. I purposefully neglected to text him our flight number so that he couldn’t show up at JFK.
I want to be alone for a while before I’m thrown back into my life.
My New York City life. I wince at the memory of Slade’s voice when he called me that nickname. Whether it was said with fire, amusement, or desire, I would get the same spark of energy every time I heard it.
Now I’ll never hear it again.
I rub at my burning throat, recalling that night.
Mel was in our bungalow when I’d rushed back to it, inconsolable with body-wracking sobs.
It all came tumbling out—how we’d fought, how he was really Slade, how the world thought he was dead.
But I couldn’t bring myself to tell her he claimed to have killed his mom.
For whatever reason, those words never left my lips.
It was less than seventy-two hours ago, but somehow it feels like a lifetime.
A lifetime that’s chewed me up and spat me out again.
I’ve cursed him, cried for him, missed him.
But most of all, I’ve loved him. Despite what he told me, and how he yelled at me, my heart can’t just switch off like that.
I can’t believe what he told me. Because if I do, then it means everything we did together, the way he healed me, was all a lie. And instead of it being something beautiful and magical, it was cruel and twisted. And it means I really did fall in love with a murderer.
As I pull out the T-shirt from my bag, his scent hits me and my eyes sting with the threat of tears.
It’s the one I was wearing that night I ran from him.
Even after what he told me, I didn’t fear him.
He’s not violent. He saved me that day I jumped from the cliff and winded myself so badly I almost drowned.
I’d shouted at him, and we’d fought at the top of the rocks.
He was angry and if he’d wanted to hurt me, he could have. I was in no state to defend myself.
But he didn’t.
He saved my life, then took care of me in the way he knew I needed. And in doing so, something changed between us that day. And I cannot allow myself to believe for one second that what we had afterward wasn’t real and beautiful. Because it was.
It was so beautiful.
I didn’t run from him that night because I was scared. I ran because I couldn’t understand it.
When Slade needed to think, he closed himself off, screwing his eyes shut and losing himself between my thighs. When I needed to think, I ran away from him to get space. To be alone.
I thought I’d get the chance to see him again to ask the questions I needed to. To make sense of it all.
But the next morning, he was gone.
His boat was cleared out when I went to get my things, the small selection of his possessions gone. And his workshop had been wiped clean of all signs of him.
Except one.
I unroll the soft fabric and stare at the contents.
One letter.
One driftwood carving.
Two items left on his workbench for me to find.
Because he knew I’d go looking for him. And if he knew I would, then it shows he also believed what we had was something. It wasn’t a get on a plane and never think of each other again thing.
It was something.
I stare at the letter. It might contain the words, but it’s the carving that tells me the most. Sometimes it’s the things that don’t say anything that speak the loudest.
Slade hated goodbyes. Declan didn’t seem surprised.
He said he’d been saving for a fake passport.
A new identity. Another fake one. Another lie.
I even spoke to hotel management, desperate for something to cling onto.
A clue that would explain it all. But they only had a fake name for him too. And no way to reach him.
He really is a ghost, a shadow, just like he said.
A tear courses down my cheek, landing on the folded paper in my hand.
I hope wherever he is, he’ll be happy. But in my heart, I know he won’t. He can keep running, but all it’ll do is make him out of breath and leave him in a new place to be alone.
I unfold the paper, reading the words that are imprinted on my soul.
I’m not the man you need me to be.
I’m sorry things aren’t different, New York City.
S x
I cradle the carving, rubbing my thumb over its smooth surface.
He never creates two things the same. But the small open oyster shell is almost an exact replica of the one I admired in his workshop.
Except for two things. This one doesn’t have a carved pearl inside it.
It has a real one. One that gleams with all the magic of the ocean in its rounded surface, reminding me of the hours we spent by it.
Talking. Touching. Tumbling head over heels into this thing between us, despite pretending we weren’t.
It also isn’t engraved with the letter E for Elaina—the woman he lost. Killed, if I’m to believe what he claims.
It's engraved with a J.
For me.
For the woman who loved him, before he forced her away.
The symbolism of it guts me, and my tears fall hard and fast.
I stuff both the note and carving back inside the T-shirt, bundling it up and stalking to my drawers, where I shove it deep inside at the back before slamming it shut.
“I’m sorry things aren’t different.” His final words spin around inside my head as I sag against the drawers.
“Me too, Cowboy,” I whisper. “Me too.”