Chapter 6. Alex #2
Her smile is soft when she reaches out to pull a lock of hair out of place, letting it hang over my eye just how she likes.
When her finger grazes my skin as she withdraws her hand, I swear I feel a crackle of electricity.
My heart stumbles around a heavy, thick beat.
I hear her breath catch in her throat. Somehow, we’re close.
So close I can see each and every one of the freckles that are scattered across her nose, cheeks, forehead, chin.
So close, I can hear how her breathing has changed, dragging air into her lungs through the hot, heavy tension in the car.
Her tongue darts out to wet her lower lip, and maybe the world isn’t such a terrible place, after all. Maybe everything will work out.
She catches herself, shaking her head as if trying to dispel this intoxicating atmosphere. “There,” she rasps, her throat hoarse when her eyes flick back up to my hair. “You’ll get a threatening text in no time.”
And just like that, the bubble bursts. The love and the lust and the desperate hope, they all seep out of the car and into the crisp air beyond when she turns away from me.
I swear I almost see the world outside turn grayer, more muted in color.
I’m not naive enough to think that being with Ophelia will simply cure me, but she’s a million and one little reasons to keep going, neatly wrapped up in a holey jacket and moth-eaten scarf.
“Colette says you’ve shut Vincenzo out.”
My hand pauses where it turns on the heater beneath her seat, the question taking me by surprise. Guilt swirls somewhere between my ribs. Vincenzo deserves better. I’ve shut everyone out. “I haven’t had time for friendships, lately. I haven’t had time for much except …”
“Treading water,” she finishes for me, when I cannot find the words.
I breathe out a soft laugh, but it’s devoid of humor. It’s the perfect analogy. I’m not making any forward progress, not getting anywhere. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to start the day with an aim that isn’t just getting through it.
Making no progress has never felt so exhausting.
I undo my top button, suddenly too hot, the conversation uncomfortable for me. “Back to your stalker,” I say.
She either doesn’t hear me or doesn’t listen. “Promise me you’ll keep treading water.”
“You said we can only talk about the investigation.”
She stares at her lap, fiddling with the friendship bracelet my sisters made for her.
I trace my fingers over my matching one, the braided rope smooth and worn.
“Shutting me out, shutting your friends out, I know you think it’ll make things easier.
I know your depression convinces you that shutting people you love out is the right thing to do, because it’d be easier to disappear if no one would come looking—”
My voice comes out soft, pleading for her to be gentle with my fragile mind. “Ophelia.”
“It’s lying to you, Alex. Shutting people out will fix nothing. Believe me, I tried it for four years.”
“You and Harwood would be friends.”
She gives me a look I’ve missed so much. Amused exasperation, I think. But she drops the topic, which I’m grateful for. “I’m not afraid of your father, Alex. If he really is here, I wouldn’t run.”
God. Even the thought has me white-knuckled around the steering wheel. “Well, you should.”
“He doesn’t scare me.”
Too stubborn for her own good. But then again, that might be why I fell in love with her.
“I need you to cooperate with Mack, Ophelia. Anything he asks, tell him. If anything happens to you, anything suspicious, any strange mail or emails, anyone says anything unkind, you tell him straight away.”
She snorts. “Plenty of people have unkind things to say about me.”
This is true. The reaction to the article has been broken and backward. The only person who has received more hatred at Sorrowsong and on social media than my father—the man with a rotting mess for a heart—is Ophelia.
It’s the story of my mother’s life, and I hate how much it’s become Ophelia’s. The media will hold anyone accountable except those who are truly responsible.
Men like my father play chess with real people’s lives, and it’s always them who come out holding the medal.
The family divider, the torturer of an already sick woman, the disrupter of six little girls’ homelives, the betrayer of Alex Corbeau-Green.
An elaborate painting has been constructed of Ophelia this past month, and it isn’t flattering.
Each brushstroke is a new way to pick her apart.
I’d throw every penny I can into having it taken down, but like with what people say about my mother, there isn’t a net big enough to catch it all.
Ophelia is the strongest person I know, but I see the heavy weight of it, the abuse, the texts, the attention. I want to pull over and wrap her so tightly in my arms that we both forget what it feels like to be splintered into so many pieces.
I can’t keep the pain out of my plea. “Please don’t believe what they say, Ophelia.”
“I try not to.” She shrugs, and though the tears that she blinks away gut me, it’s the fact I can’t pull her into my lap that delivers the killing blow. She should still be mine. None of this is the way it should be.
“Ophelia.” Her name is a desperate prayer.
I slow the car to a stop in the middle of the deserted road, trying to recall the worst things I’ve read about her in the past few weeks.
It’s no wonder her parents couldn’t put up with her any longer.
I’d get in a broken helicopter, too. If that’s what people say online, I can only imagine it’s worse in the private confines of Sorrowsong’s dark hallways. “Shit, Ophelia.”
“I don’t need you to defend me.”
“I know.”
“Can you just drive?” she begs. “And talk about your father and Mack?”
She needs a distraction, and I’d do anything for her, so I talk.
I tell her about Brendan, how even he is struggling to get anything about the article leak.
I tell her about Mack, about his time in the military, about how he’s tracking down my father, how Brendan hacks into CCTV feeds all over New York City in his search.
I don’t turn around to go back, not until she’s completely out of questions.
I slow to a stop in a passing place on a narrow lane sheltered by trees. Fat droplets of rain and the occasional twig hit the windshield. The radio crackles quietly over the soft sound of Ophelia’s breathing.
“I’ll be careful if you will,” she says, looking up at me.
This is horrendous. To be this close to her and not allowed to touch her, not allowed to trace my finger over each freckle to see if she’s gained any more since I last lay my head on a pillow beside her.
I deserve punishment for my actions, but this is torture. “I’ll be careful, Twist.”
She smiles at the nickname, but it’s soft and sad. “How is she?”
“My mom?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s okay. She’s actually starting a trial for a new treatment soon.”
Her expression brightens, warm and genuine. “Oh, that’s good, right?”
“Yeah.” I rub my forehead. “I mean, I think so. It’s not without its risks, but leaving her on the trajectory she’s on isn’t going to do anything.”
“I’ll be crossing my fingers for her every night.”
I force a smile. It’s hard to talk about my mother. She’s going to die too young, and I’m so deep in denial about it. In my visions of a future with Ophelia—wedding or no wedding, kids or no kids—I picture my mom there throughout it all. But she won’t be.
I’m just trying to snatch years back from the cold grip of her weakening body, battered by too many drugs taken too young, too many years with her declining mental health ignored, too many letdowns by my father. “I’ll tell her.”
“Alex, she’ll—”
“Don’t,” I manage, tone harsher than I mean. I’m tired of that stupid promise. She’ll be okay. People say it on autopilot with zero thought behind what they’re actually saying. “Don’t tell me she’ll be fine. Please don’t tell me she’ll be fine. Can we talk about something else?”
“Yeah,” she says, but the car descends into silence. Between us, our meager bingo card of acceptable conversation topics is exhausted. Everything else is covered in red tape.
I stare out the window, at the rolling hills and distant Munros that peek between the trees. Ophelia turns down a call from Colette, typing out a text. She puts her phone back in her pocket, but neither of us speaks.
It’s awkward, this silence. And it’s awkward that it’s awkward—that we’ve gone from being two people who couldn’t make a silence awkward if our lives depended on it, to being two people with nothing left to say.
I start to speak, and so does she. We both stop. I watch her cheeks turn pink, her freckles lost in her blush.
“Sorry, what were you going to say?”
That I love you more than life itself. “You go first.”
“They started putting crispy onions on the mac and cheese in the dining hall.”
I huff out a breath, unsure whether to laugh or cry. “And your review?”
She picks at her fingernails, forehead creased in a frown. I wish she’d look at me. “Not good. Why must we over complicate everything? First it was chives, and now this. They keep trying to be clever with things. What were you going to say?”
“I was actually just wondering how the mac and cheese from the dining hall is at the moment.”
Her laugh heals something inside me. “Oh, you were?”
I lean my head back against the seat, heavy gaze on her. Her T-shirt is tight beneath her jacket, molded to her chest in a way I’m struggling to look away from. “Mmhmm.”
“Can you drive me back now, please?”
“My lawyer asked me to cut ties with you.”
Her whole body goes rigid, her lungs stall around her next inhale. “Not before you left, surely?”
“I left because I felt like dying. But it’s the reason I didn’t call you after I landed in New York.”
“You blocked my number.”
“Mack deactivated the number.”
“That’s not an excuse. You could’ve texted me.”
“I know.”
She’s holding her breath, staring out of her window. She can’t even face me. “If you’d have just woken me up, Alex …”
“I know.”
“I didn’t publish that article.”