35. Sebastian
THIRTY-FIVE
SEBASTIAN
I stared at the gash in my left rear tire and almost began to laugh. Of course this would happen tonight. I wouldn’t put it past Charlie to have done it herself. Could I blame her? I deserved it. I deserved to be scared shitless when the alarm sounded. I couldn’t stand the idea of losing Charlie the way I’d lost everything years ago. She may have made it out of the theater alive, but I feared I’d lost her all the same.
My phone was quiet and dark in my hand, all my calls unanswered and unreturned.
I’d made my choice. I chose the deal of a lifetime. I chose my mother.
It was right and good to give Mom what Lydia had taken away. It was justice, to excise this town from my life, to know that my grandmother was turning in her grave at the thought of her legacy being chopped up and sold.
So why did it feel like I was the one being buried alive? I couldn’t breathe, could hardly think.
I left my car outside the Monticello. I didn’t have the energy to deal with insurance and police reports and spare tires. Watching the scene from a distance, the theater was thankfully still intact. No firehose, no ladders, maybe no fire at all. If only what had happened between Charlie and me had been a false alarm too. All I could think about was the look in her eyes when Abigail pulled her away.
Abigail had been on the stairway just a few feet from where I’d spoken to Sinclair. I had tried to ignore the bulldog expression on her face. The hostility that she’d fired across the landing toward me—hostility I’d ignored because all I could think about was getting to Charlie.
But I knew, I just knew that Abigail had heard it all.
And she’d told Charlie.
Which meant that look in Charlie’s eyes? The devastation, the pain? I’d put that look there. I’d hurt the woman that made me want to give up my plans for the chance to hold her through the night.
By morning, there was still no answer from Charlie. Her car was still out front, while mine still slumped in the parking lot all night. Surely she’d returned home very late. As much as I wanted to rush up to her, wrap her in my arms, and tell her everything, I stopped myself. If she was going to hear me out—really hear me out—she’d need her sleep. And coffee.
I dressed quickly, called a mechanic out to replace my tire, and met him in the parking lot to retrieve my car. With my donut secured, I drove over to Magnolia Café.
“Morning, Sophie,” I said with whatever smile I could muster.
She grunted, hardly glancing my way. It was the coldest greeting she’d ever given me, and the knife buried in my guts twisted a little more. I ordered my usual and added a vanilla cappuccino for Charlie. I bid Sophie goodbye, thanking her again for the liquid boosts, but she just ignored me. I walked out of the little colonial café and sipped my coffee. Ugh. Sophie’s brew was even colder than her attitude this morning. I’d lost more than Charlie last night, it seemed.
But it was temporary. I would fix this. Somehow. I’d explain to her why I’d been dealing with Sinclair. I’d tell her about The Bach Company and righting my grandmother’s wrongs for my parents. I’d…
God, she would never forgive me if I tore down her home. But if I didn’t sell Radcliffe House along with the Monticello, I was stuck. No once-in-a-lifetime business deal, no justice for Mom.
The panic that had gripped me last night began to rise again. It tightened my muscles and made it hard to swallow my cold coffee. My heart sank when I got back to the apartments. Her car was gone. Which meant that Charlie was gone.
Already knowing what would happen, I called her once more. All I got was her voicemail, the modern-day cold shoulder. I stared at the cappuccino in my hand and snorted at myself. On top of everything else, I was an idiot for thinking coffee could smooth this over.
With my head hung low, I went inside and slammed my door shut. It rattled in its frame, and the entire wall seemed to wobble. Two weeks ago, that would have been just another sign that the place needed to be torn down. Now, as the house creaked and quieted down, I found it…charming. Comforting. It felt like these old walls could feel the tempest of my emotions and had the strength to hold it for me.
Who was I anymore? How had I gotten myself so twisted up here? I could have left yesterday. My thirty days were up, and I had the deed paperwork laying on my kitchen table to prove it. I could organize the demolition from afar. I didn’t have to be here. My business was done.
The Sinclair deal sat on the table like a rattlesnake curled on top of a warm rock. Wary, I watched it from across the table and wondered if I had the guts to go through with it.
And if I had the guts not to.
After everything, I should’ve been just as excited to sign those papers as I was the night Charlie lay there in nothing but a towel with those ink-stained lips. But I wasn’t.
Signing those papers was the beginning of me severing ties with this town. And by the state of things, severing ties with Charlie. Something I was desperate to do only a few weeks ago but now couldn’t stand the thought of. Every moment looking into her eyes, kissing her tender lips, had changed things for me. Maybe it had changed everything.
I took a sip of Charlie’s warm cappuccino, breathing it in, and remembering the way it tasted so much sweeter on her tongue. And I missed her even more.
Even if I stopped this deal, could Charlie forgive me? She knew she couldn’t stop the demolition. She knew about the Sinclair deal. Sure, she didn’t know I was doing it to give my mother what she deserved after being run out of New Elwood for not cowing to my grandmother, but that wouldn’t be enough. It wouldn’t justify the destruction of the only home she’d ever known.
So the choice, as I saw it, was this: I could beg for forgiveness and get nothing. Or I could sell up and get out of this town, once and for all, and accomplish what I came here to do in the first place.
The stack of papers beckoned for me to sign them, and I began scribbling my signature dozens of times. So many that my hand ached by the final page.
I couldn’t see another way. Charlie would simply have to pack up her memories and find a new place to create more. Like I would, away from here.
Tossing my pen aside, I stared at the stack of papers bearing my signature. My pulse was a rush in my ears, and fine trembling had overtaken my limbs. The walls closed in around me, and I tried to drag in a deep breath. My lungs clenched. Pinpricks of black shuddered over the edges of my vision, and I stumbled to the door to get some air. My shoulder bumped into the hallway walls, the staircase balustrade, the door to the other downstairs apartment, and then I was outside, gulping down a breath of hot, humid air.
As my vision cleared and the sound of birds and insects reached my ears, I sat down on the porch steps with a heavy thud.
And noticed the moving truck.
A pair of movers with elastic back braces appeared behind me, carrying out an old couch. Shifting out of the way, I recognized it from Albert’s apartment. Inside, I found my downstairs neighbor’s door wide open, the sound of a box fan blowing at full blast.
“Hey, Albert. What’s going on?” I asked, voice deceptively normal as I stepped into his home.
“What does it look like? I’m moving out,” he said.
He still had a few weeks. “Why so soon?”
“Why wait? Life’s too short.” Albert watched me take in the scene. Stacks of boxes were piled up, but it looked like there was still a lot to do. “I’m not taking everything. Some things are too much trouble to carry, you know? But I figured since you’re bulldozing this place anyway, I might as well leave it here to die with the rest of it.”
He talked about the apartment like it was on life support. Like it was a person. That’s definitely how Charlie saw it.
She’d have to mourn another loss after her parents, her childhood. A loss I had caused.
I thought of the contract sitting on my kitchen table. The end of this springtime romance was written there in black and white.
The movers walked back inside, encroaching on our space. Albert and I scooted over to the kitchen. Colored light shimmered over the floor and cabinets, and I followed it to the fly-and-honeypot stained glass window. It, like so much of this place, was like Charlie’s fingerprint stamped all over the building. It made me want to throw a rock through it, just so I wouldn’t have to face the reality of what I’d done. What I still had to do.
Albert kicked a couple of bins, and their contents clinked, bringing my attention back to him. “You want any of these?”
I peered down at his collection of hand and power tools—the ones he’d used to patch up the roof leak and my bedroom ceiling. He’d left his prints on this place too. “You’re not taking them?”
“I’m retired now. Officially.”
I guess Albert didn’t need them anymore, and since I was going back to my life in the city, I didn’t need them either. “No, thanks.”
“Then, I’ll leave ’em behind. Maybe one of these guys will take them home.” He nodded toward the movers. Then he pulled his keys from his pocket, slipped off an old brass one, and handed it to me. “I guess this belongs to you now.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling its weight, like I’d been entrusted with something important. Something valuable. But the more I stared at it, the more it looked like an old, worthless hunk of metal warming in the heat of my palm.
“I’m leaving later tonight. Got a room at the inn. Not as nice as your theater hotel will be, but it’ll do before I head west tomorrow.”
I stuck out my hand, knowing that he wouldn’t be my neighbor anymore. “Albert, you’re a good man. I wish you all the best.”
Albert gave me a firm but warm handshake. “You too, Sebastian. You too.”
I went back inside my apartment, surveying the space once more. It was as old and worn as it had ever been. Still a death trap. Still a fire hazard. Still slated for demolition.
Teeth gritted, I sat and read over the sale contract one last time. The Monticello was being sold on the condition that the town council approved the plans to build a new hotel in its place. That condition had been met.
Radcliffe House was sold for the land. As per the contract, it was my responsibility to pay for and complete the demolition. I wouldn’t turn it over to Sinclair until the ground was scraped clear.
I read the clauses over again, grimacing. I didn’t like it, but I’d have to be the bad guy. After all, Radcliffe blood ran through my veins. Stubbornness turned my heart to stone as I stacked the sheets of paper and set the contract down on the kitchen table.
I had to do this to make things right. I just wished Charlie didn’t see me as wrong.