Chapter 58 #2
“She is the main reason he became a lawyer instead of doing what he was born to do!”
Lara stared at me motionless, her eyes glassy pools of ice water ready to overflow.
I was a bad friend. And she knew it.
“Don't talk like you know him,” she whispered hoarsely. “Mom has known him since back then. No one knows him better than she does.”
Everything in me rebelled against this statement.
I took another step toward her.
“Just because they spent a lot of time together doesn't mean she ever truly knew him. Because if she had known him well enough to understand him, she would never have done something like this to him.”
“You know, Quill…” Lara took a step toward me as well. “I hate that whatever it is you're doing, you seem to be making him feel understood. I feel like it's driving him back into his despair.”
She knew I was helping him get back into writing. I had told her. And she seemed to realize that I was getting through to her father. Good.
“Davian is a writer. He will always be a writer. Writing is what gives his life meaning.” I gestured more energetically toward the window. “Whether she wanted to or not, your mother took exactly that away from him. And I highly doubt that such a person ever loved him.”
A realization that couldn't have come at a worse time ambushed me, and I lost Lara from my focus, staring past her into nothingness.
I loved Davian Rydell.
How could I not?
I wanted to smile, wanted to allow the tears. But I couldn't.
I loved Davian Rydell.
The thought was all I was allowed to have. And even that was too heavy for me to bear for long.
“What do you know about love, Quill?” My focus found its way back to Lara, who was now glaring at me angrily. “You're nineteen, you sleep with pedophiles, you hit on men you'd be better off staying away from.”
My heart slipped out of its place.
What had she just said?
I couldn't even keep up with my thoughts because she stepped closer, looking as if she were about to explode with rage. A side of her I had never seen before. One I didn't want to get to know.
“You need help. You should go to therapy. Instead, you preach to my father about writing as if you were some damn coach.”
“I want to help him.”
It was painful to push aside the other words she had just said, because she was right. I needed therapy.
“He doesn’t need help from a student, Quill.”
She laughed as if she were on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and it hit me where the knot in my stomach had formed.
“He needs a woman his age who understands him and is a stabilizing force in his life. Someone like Mom.”
Something about Lara’s implication pushed me to the edge of a cliff she hadn’t prepared me for.
“You're important to me, Quill.”
She calmed down again and put her hands on my shoulders.
“But that...”
She hesitated, tears in her eyes.
The fear in my stomach was now raging like a storm.
What if she suspected something?
“...is my dad.”
Shit.
“He took you in here because that's the kind of person he is. He's kind-hearted with others, understanding... He made you his protégé to help you against your father, which is absolutely crazy, but okay.”
She shook her head. Desperately. As desperate as I felt right now.
“You both read books, you both write... He gives you a damn stuffed animal because he wants you to feel comfortable here.”
I wanted to stumble back, but she held me too tightly, forcing me to look her in the eyes. Eyes filled with realization that I didn't want to see.
“My father is reasonable.”
Her voice was so quiet, so calm. Still, that didn't hide all the despair that lay in it.
“Please promise me you won't mistake it for something it's not.”
Lara didn't know it, but she had just pushed me off a cliff. And not knowing when I would hit the ground and shatter mercilessly was the worst part of it.
I fell. Saw the ground getting closer and closer. But the impact never came. That was my life. Endless suffering.
Lara was smart. Of course she knew. She put two and two together. She knew me.
But this was different. I didn't want to seduce her dad, I didn't take advantage of an older man's hospitality.
I wanted Davian. The author who had saved me from jumping. The only soul in this world who had ever understood me entirely.
The worst part was that I would never be able to tell her all these things.
Her words, the despair in them, showed that she would not understand me.
Even worse, if she found out that her dad was not her exemplary father in my presence, but a human being with needs and feelings, she would not forgive him.
She knew.
When had I been too careless? The bunny?
God, Quill. What do you keep doing with your life?
“Promise me, Quill. Please.”
It would be the right thing to do. But when did I ever do the right thing?
“Three months ago, I wanted to jump off a bridge.”
The tears came faster than I could think.
“Quill... what...”
I didn't even give Lara a chance.
“I was one step away from the edge when a stranger told me he would give me a thousand reasons not to jump. He reached out his hand to me, sat down on the bridge railing with me, talked to me, and held my hand until I no longer wanted to jump.”
Lara's face looked pale.
“That night, I met an author who understands me. Not my professor. Not my best friend's father. Just Davian.”
I feared I had broken Lara. She didn't even stir. Not even the glistening water in her eyes.
“I'm sorry if my behavior hurts you. That's not my intention. But your father isn't just another man I can cross off an endless list.”
I sounded pathetic. But what did it matter?
“And maybe you're right. Maybe I need help.” I shook my head slowly. “But that will never change the fact that Davian saved my life.”
I couldn't look her in the eyes any longer, had to get out of here.
Ashamed, yet freer than before, I turned away from Lara and left her room, devastated by the uncertainty of whether I had just unintentionally destroyed our friendship.
It was only when I tried to stop thinking, to switch off my mind for a moment, that I realized, through my tears, that I was standing in Davian's bedroom.
Lara hadn't followed me, but that didn't mean I should stay here.
Exhausted, I walked over to the bed, sat down on the edge, stared at the transparent floor-length curtains in front of his windows, and wiped away my tears.
Being honest felt good. But would I be able to endure the consequences...
How many more consequences could I bear before I needed him again? And if he wasn't there, where would I go? Once I had thrown all three bullets, what would be left for me on the fourth bridge?
I need you, Davian.
My gaze drifted to his nightstand. To where I had found the Atrianima copy. It was there again.
A soft smile touched my lips, even though it was killing me inside, forcing more tears from my eyes.
I wondered what he was reading right now.
I shifted along the edge of the bed toward the nightstand and opened the drawer.
My hand froze. So did my expression.
Collateral
Gustavo Santaolalla
The drawer was completely empty. Except for the black pistol.
I stared at it for minutes, but I didn't know exactly how long, because the weapon was an unyielding focal point.
Only after what felt like an eternity did I manage to reach for it.
It was cold, heavy. Weighed more than my life in my hands.
It was on safety.
I had known that Davian had it, had searched for it.
But to actually hold it in my hands...
That heavy feeling in my stomach... I knew it from the day he had given me the three bullets.
With trembling fingers, I removed the magazine from the pistol and looked inside.
Hope was a fatal thing. I had understood that early on.
So why did I keep making the same mistake over and over again by giving it a place in my life?
With a growing inner emptiness, I stared at the one bullet resting at the very back of the magazine. Or was it shock?
He had given me three bullets. And until today, I had been sure that he had thereby entrusted me with a part of himself to take care of. A part that, as it now turned out, had never really been in my hands.
There was a fourth bullet.
I had never given him enough hope.
My heart was pounding uncontrollably in my chest.
I could have lost him at any moment.
The pounding turned into a racing.
“Quill?” came an uncertain voice from the hallway.
I hastily pushed the magazine back into the gun and slipped it into the small clutch Lara had lent me.
I should take it to my room, hide it from him, even destroy it...
Lara appeared in the doorway, staring at me, and, despite my confession, I felt caught.
“We should get going.”
That was all she said before turning away. And I didn't know if she was ignoring everything I had just said, if she hated me, or if I was hallucinating.
I didn't know anything anymore.
My head felt heavy. Was on the verge of collateral damage that only one person could save me from. That person was already at the gala, together with my brother. At least, I hoped so.
How could I have been so foolish as to believe that I had ever planted something as beautiful as hope in another soul's garden? I... Whose withered garden couldn't have been more hopeless.
Fitzek Gala
The glass dust rain has
made its way into my lungs.
– Blue