Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Archer
Returning to New York is like trying to squeeze into the suit I wore to my first board meeting when I was fifteen.
I grew eight inches over the following two years, in case anyone’s curious about the fit.
Everything is too loud. Too bright. Too dirty. Strangers brush past me and their shoulders bump mine. Everyone is on a phone—not talking, but looking down at a screen.
“You are a porcupine-poked bear,” Bellamy says, leaning against the back wall of the elevator. I refuse to look directly at him, but there are mirrored surfaces everywhere in here, so avoiding his gaze is like trying to roller skate through a minefield.
“A what? ”
“You know how people talk about poking the bear? That’s you. But instead of being poked with whatever people poke bears with, you’ve been poked with?—”
“A porcupine. I got it.” I press a finger between my brows, knowing full well it’s not removing the crease that feels like it might be permanent.
“Rough night?” Bellamy asks. “Or rough morning?”
That’s one way to put it. Traveling to the city from Serendipity Springs isn’t the easiest, but today, my private car had a driver who wanted to talk. Then there was a delayed flight out of Boston, and the woman seated next to me in business class had a tiny dog in a travel bag who growled at me the entire flight. Almost enough to make me miss Archibald.
Which reminded me of Willa.
Not that it takes much to make me think of her. But right now, those thoughts are unwelcome. Because I can’t think of Willa without remembering the sincerity in her face when she told me that her closet magically transported her into my apartment.
Why was I surprised by this? Willa is the same woman who swore that’s how she first got into my apartment the night we met. My initial assessment—aside from recognizing something alluring about her—was that Willa was either lying or had some kind of break with reality. Because in no world do I believe in magical anything .
Given our first meeting, Willa’s insistence last night shouldn’t have been a shock. My first impression served as a warning—one I let myself forget.
I let other things cloud my judgment. I let myself get caught up in her beauty and the lightness she added to my life and?—
“Are you planning to use the elevator as an office today?”
I open my eyes. We’re at our floor, and Bellamy is holding open the door. From the tone of his voice, I expect he’s been holding it open for quite some time. Still refusing to look at him, I exit and storm toward my office, ignoring the stares. I’m sure there are whispers too but all I can hear is blood rushing in my ears.
The rest of the day goes much like this. My day is bookended by two other terrible days. Yesterday: the conversation with Willa. Tomorrow: my father’s trial.
Bellamy wasn’t wrong about my mood, even if I don’t love his animal analogy. My skin feels itchy, and my head won’t stop pounding. Every conversation leaves me irrationally angry, and when I find a tin of mints in my drawer, I have a momentary sense of calm. Until I have two in my mouth.
They do taste like spicy dirt.
I’m spitting them into a wastebasket when Bellamy walks into my office without knocking. He closes the door behind him and sits down, wearing a grim expression.
“Would you like to talk about it?” But even as I open my mouth, he leans forward and speaks again. “Scratch that. I’m not asking. I’m telling. Talk to me, Archer. This seems like it’s much larger than your father’s trial. What happened after I left? Something with Willa?”
I don’t answer.
“You’re going to make me guess? We’re playing mood charades now? Okay, let’s see …” Bellamy rubs his chin with the kind of dramatic thoughtfulness that makes me wish his chair was on wheels so I could shove him out of my office and send him careening down the hallway. “Four words. Film. How to Lose a Girl in Ten Days ? No, wait. That’s not the right title. Hm. I’ve got it! She’s Just Not That into You .”
I try not to rise to his teasing. I try. “Why do you assume it’s my fault?”
“Ah, so there is an it . It, as in breakup? Or fight?”
I drag a hand over my face. “I don’t know. Both? Neither?”
Bellamy waits. And after a moment, I lean forward.
“How would you respond if someone you love lies to you?”
I only realize what I’ve said after the brief flash of shock Bellamy quickly hides. Love. I love Willa. Not past tense but present.
Which only makes the feeling of betrayal worse.
“Did Willa lie to you?” Bellamy’s tone is measured, as carefully constructed as the brutal expression he wears. But I can still sense his shock.
He and Willa have grown fairly close as well—I blame the cookies.
“Yes, she lied.” I wince, picturing Willa’s face as she told me about transporting into my closet. She was nervous, afraid to tell me. “No. I think she believes what she said.”
“And you don’t?”
“It’s impossible. It can’t be true.”
“Do you think Willa’s delusional, then?” he asks slowly. Each word sinks like a stone in my gut.
“No.”
After a moment in which Bellamy clearly hopes I’ll elaborate and I clearly am not about to, he stands.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Bellamy says, pausing at the door. “I guess you need to think about which is more impossible: whatever thing Willa told you or the idea that she lied to you about it.”
I’m pacing my apartment later that night when my phone blows up with a series of notifications. All the bells and chimes and vibrations tell me something newsworthy has happened. And because I’m receiving phone calls and texts from Bellamy, whatever it is has to do with me.
I leave my phone on the kitchen counter face down. In my experience, which has been far too frequent the past eighteen months, this won’t be good news. Did my father find a way to ditch his ankle monitor and leave the country? Or maybe he found some new, devious way to pin it all on me.
Whatever it is, I have more important things on my mind. Specifically, a more important person.
Bellamy’s words clanged around in my head the rest of the day, almost like he was standing inside my head beating a gong.
Which is more likely—Willa lying to me? Or the existence of a magical closet?
If anyone had posed the question to me as a hypothetical, there is no question. I’d believe the person making claims about a magical closet to be a liar.
But it’s not a hypothetical person. It’s Willa. And the moment Bellamy asked the question, I knew the answer.
She’s not lying.
And I also don’t believe she’s delusional. Which leaves me caught in a kind of limbo, holding two opposing beliefs in my hands.
Willa wouldn’t lie to me.
There’s no such thing as a closet—or anything else—that can transport people from one place to another. No technology exists.
Yes, I looked it up.
Neither does magic or the paranormal or whatever category such a thing might fall under.
Magic, most would say—at least given the lore surrounding Serendipity Springs. I looked that up too.
Apparently, Galentine wasn’t the only one who believed in some kind of magic in Serendipity Springs. There are almost as many posts and blogs dedicated to the city as there are to the existence of Bigfoot, though I’m not sure that is a point for or against.
In any case, having a lot of people talk about the city’s historic good fortune and unsubstantiated claims of some kind of magic from the springs doesn’t validate anything. And it doesn’t help me with my debate.
I either need to believe Willa. Or not.
And if I do believe her, it means choosing to stand firmly in that belief and then considering the significance of her actual claims later.
I’m shocked to find myself at peace, finally, with this idea.
I don’t believe Willa is a liar.
I may not believe in magic, but I believe in her .
Which means I’ll worry about the closet thing later because I have bigger things to worry about now . Specifically, the way I left things with Willa. The look of crushed hurt on her face has been haunting me, and the need to see her and to make things right pounds like a drumbeat in my mind.
It only takes a few minutes for me to debate the merits of returning to Serendipity Springs tonight when I’m required to appear in court tomorrow.
Worth it , I decide. Even if I can’t get back and end up in contempt of court.
I’ll have to text Bellamy about a private plane. There’s no time to wait for anything else. But texting him means picking up my phone and finally facing the notifications and whatever news I’ve been ignoring.
Not quite ready to do that, I step inside my closet, wanting to pack a few more things to leave in Serendipity Springs.
But I’ve taken no more than a step inside my walk-in closet when the overhead light goes out. In fact, all traces of light from my apartment disappear. I stumble forward, hands splayed out and reaching for something familiar, but the only thing I find is a wall as I run face-first into it.