Chapter Twenty-Five
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
AUDREY
“Thank God,” I say when I see Willa sitting on our bed, on her phone, in much the same pose as she was a few hours ago. I close the door behind me. “We have to go. Now.”
Willa swings her legs off the bed and sits up, ready for action. “Why? What happened?”
I grab my suitcase, plop it on the bed, and start rounding up my stuff. “I just drove a stake through Toni’s heart.”
“Did she turn into a vampire?”
I huff out a frustrated sigh. “Now is not the time for jokes, Willa.”
“It’s obviously also not the time for metaphors, Audrey, but that didn’t stop you. What. Happened?”
I stop winding the cord to my Mac around the charging block. “She told me she was in love with me and wanted to grow old with me.”
“Shit,” Willa says softly.
“And I just couldn’t, Willa. I couldn’t handle it. I’m not ready for that, not anywhere close. Yes, I like Toni, a lot, and who knows what I might feel for her down the line. I mean, is this lust I feel now or something more? But she’s like well past the ‘let’s take it slow and find out’ and I tried to tell her and she wouldn’t listen and I kept trying and she kept…” I’m shaking so hard the neat bundle I’ve made of my cord falls apart. “Stupid tiny charging block,” I say as I try to rewind it, before it falls out of my hands and into the suitcase.
Willa is around the bed in a flash and holding me close. “Hey, hey, shhh. It’s OK. I got ya.”
“It felt just like talking to Shae and I knew that if I didn’t—if she kept—I had—her expression when I—” I can’t talk; I can’t breathe. Willa must be hugging me too hard because it feels like something or someone is sitting on my chest.
“OK, sit down,” Willa says. “Head between your knees.”
She sits next to me, her hand on my back, until my breathing returns to normal. Even then I keep my head on my knees so she won’t see the tears in my eyes.
“Stay here,” she says. “I’ll take care of everything.”
Willa leaves the room and I’m alone. I hear another door close in the distance and wonder if it’s Toni. Oh my God, Toni. The look on her face when I told her I didn’t want a relationship with her. Astonishment, sadness, mortification. It went through so many phases in that split second and I…I had to leave. Run. I couldn’t bear to see her.
I couldn’t bear to hear her try to convince me that we would work. That she understands. That she loves me.
It didn’t matter that I believed her. That I knew she wasn’t trying to control me. The echoes of my relationship with Shae were too strong and I did what I knew I had to do. Protect myself. Put myself first. And crush Toni in the process.
I feel Willa re-enter the room, and hear the door close.
“Here,” she says.
I look up and she’s holding a glass of water.
“Thank you.”
The cold liquid sluices down my throat and almost quenches the fire of shame and guilt roaring in my veins. But it’s too strong. The ember is still there, waiting for a burst of emotion to light it again.
“I told Greta that Mom had suddenly shown up in Denver and wondered where we were.”
I look at her in confusion.
“I know, stupid lie. Toni had apparently just left the house like a bat out of hell, and, well, she saw what happened before.”
“What did she say?”
“She said it was probably a good idea, to drive safe, and she will see us on January 2.”
“To terminate our contract, probably.”
“Oh no. Before I made it to the stairs she clarified that. Business as usual.” Willa clears her throat. “Let’s get out of here.”
We are ready to go in ten minutes.
When we leave there is no one around to say goodbye to.