Chapter 6. Alex #4
I straighten her jacket with a sad smile, opening her curled fist to slip my umbrella into her warm hand. “Stay out of trouble, Twist.”
She smiles, taking a few steps back. Away from me. Away from us. I can’t bear it, but I have to. “Promise.”
And then she’s gone again, hurrying away from my car and into the castle just like that first day we met, leaving me and my punctured heart in the torrential rain.
[DRAFT]
From: Alex Corbeau-Green
Subject: Ophelia (gone) Alex, you fool
To: Ophelia Winters
A future without you in it doesn’t feel like much of a future at all.
AN HOUR PASSES, maybe two.
I sit in the driver’s seat in the Sorrowsong parking lot, smoking my way through a pack of cigarettes until only two remain. My head is tipped back against the seat when the rain that splatters my cheek from the open window suddenly stops.
I peek open an eye to see Vincenzo’s stupid, giant head filling the space.
The scar over his eye crinkles, a crooked smile brightening his face.
He leans even farther into the car, like those overly friendly ostriches at safari parks that just want to eat all your food.
“Hey, man. Why’d I have to hear it from Colette, who heard it from Ophelia, that you were here? ”
He’s gone before I can reply, rounding the hood of the car and folding his ridiculous frame into the passenger seat.
He leans over me to steal the penultimate cigarette, raindrops running over the dagger tattooed on his index finger when he cups a hand around the flame.
His blue gaze turns to mine, never one to let his questions go unanswered.
Man, I’ve missed him.
“I’m not in the best of moods, lately.”
“Doesn’t bother me.”
“You and Colette, huh?”
His grin is face splitting. “She’s so hot. I … we … do you know what a spreader bar is?”
I wave my hand in a cut it off motion. “No details, please.”
“Your loss.”
“I sincerely doubt that. She your girlfriend?”
His face falls. “Nah. She doesn’t want that. We’re just …”
“Friends?”
“She texts me when she wants to fuck.”
“And?”
“Then we do.”
“And?”
“And then I go back to the mansion.”
This is a familiar pattern with Vincenzo. “And you’re fine with that?”
“Well … I’m hoping she’ll want to hang out more as time goes on. You know … go on hikes and stuff, meet my mom.”
“And have you spoken about it? Does she know you want a girlfriend?”
“Kind of. Probably. Yeah. She doesn’t want commitment.”
Christ. I’ve been so caught up in my own world, I forgot other people have relationship issues, too. “Then she probably won’t want to go on hikes and stuff, Vin.”
“We’ll see.”
Vincenzo is a mass of contradictions. Trained by his father to be a ruthless killer, he also has this soft, gentle faith in the world that only people with a stable homelife and two loving parents can have.
He has an unfair reputation as someone who sleeps around, but he’s desperate for a girlfriend.
Something steady and reliable in his world of crime and chaos.
A hand squeezes my biceps. “You look good, bro.”
He might be the single most punchable human in my life, but I have to admit that it’s good to see him. “Thanks.”
“So … how did it go with Ophelia?”
I take a long drag. “We’ve split. Officially, now, rather than unofficially.”
“Fuck. Like … forever?”
“Yeah.”
“She might not want to lose you completely. She might want to be—”
“Don’t say friends,” I bite out. He shuts up.
We smoke in silence, lost in thought. He opens and closes his mouth every now and then, like he wants to say something.
“How’s Elise?” Is what eventually comes out, but I can tell it’s not whatever is sitting on his tongue.
I’m grateful for Vincenzo. Grateful I never need to sugarcoat anything. Grateful for his unwavering friendship. I hope I never lose it. “I think she’s dying, and I don’t think I can do anything to stop it.”
He doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t tell me it’ll all work out fine. He just sighs, passing me the final cigarette. “I’m sorry. That fucking sucks.”
“It does.”
“The girls?”
“They’re good. They’re all stronger than I am. I don’t know how they stay so positive all the time.”
“Kids are crazy. Shit just bounces off them.” He reaches behind him for his seat belt. “There’s a kebab van near Ullapool that does the greasiest burgers. You wanna go?”
A greasy burger does sound good, and I haven’t eaten anything all day. I hand him my phone to plug it into the GPS. “Sure.”
I pull out of Sorrowsong’s black iron gates for the second time this afternoon, marveling at how my mood plummeted from hopeful to completely lost in the space of two hours. I have no one to blame but myself.
A low fog is seeping across the landscape, clouding my already addled mind. After fifteen minutes of silence, I’m sick of Vincenzo’s loaded inhales. “Just say it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“I think you’re being a complete fucking fool, and I want to bash your face in.”
The engine purrs as we climb a hill against a sheet of rain. “Great.”
“You love her.”
“And she has asked me, respectfully, to remove myself from her life so that she can move on.”
“She doesn’t mean it.”
I spare a glance at him while I drive us through a flooded road. I don’t like his tone when talking about her, like she’s a fool. “Are you suggesting she doesn’t know what’s best for herself?”
He throws up a tattooed hand in frustration.
“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting. Neither of you knows what’s good for you.
You’re both drowning in emotions and shit.
But I’m an outsider with a better view, and I’m telling you, categorically, that walking away is the incorrect choice, and probably an irreversible one. ”
“And I’m telling you that not walking away would be me completely disrespecting her wishes.”
He growls into his hands like I’m driving him up the wall.
“You don’t give up anywhere else. You practically stalked your mom’s doctors until they agreed not to give up on helping her last year.
You moved across the Atlantic when you thought it might help you take Green from your dad.
When I thought I was gonna die when we hiked Mount Suilven before Christmas, you dragged me up it.
And now you’re turning away from Ophelia at the first obstacle. ”
My laugh is hollow, devoid of humor. “That’s what you’d call this? An obstacle?”
“Yeah. In ten years, you’ll look back and see it that way.”
“My father letting her parents die is not an obstacle, Vincenzo. It’s a concrete wall.”
“You letting her parents die would be an obstacle. You are not your father.”
It doesn’t feel that way lately.
“Look … it’s the Sorrowsong Winter Ball the day after tomorrow.”
Panic slices through me, the gash it leaves behind stained green with envy. “Is she bringing someone?”
“Yeah, you dick. Me.”
“What the fuck?”
“I’m gonna ask her so some other guy doesn’t! She attracts attention, you know?”
I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles are the same shade as the snow-topped mountains that come into view. “I know.”
“So go to the ball with her.”
I am at the center of a media frenzy, and the talk of Sorrowsong’s dusty hallways. God knows how much more insufferable they’d all be if they knew I was here. “I can’t put her in the spotlight like that.”
Vincenzo looks like he might actually poke his eyes out with his thumbs. “More than she already is?”
Fair point.
He flings his hand into my peripheral vision, curling his fingers in a beckoning motion. “Go on. Next excuse. Let’s work our way through them.”
“I have a dinner hosted by the Minister of Aviation tomorrow.”
Vincenzo sucks a breath in through his teeth. “Alex. Listen to yourself.”
“What?”
“Green over personal life? Green over one of your eight people?”
I’m not sure if he means it as a harsh slap, but it lands like one. A cold bucket of reality over my head.
When I flick my gaze up to the rearview mirror, it’s my father’s eyes that glare back at me. I glance away and run my hand over my jaw, over the day-old stubble there. “If she rejects me again … that’ll be it.” And I’ll be a fucking mess.
“And if you walk away, that’ll be it. Oh my god. It’s like your brain has turned to mush in there. Should you even be driving if you can’t even form a rational thought?”
Finally, I turn us onto a road that at least looks like a road. “Fuck you, man.”
“She’s borrowing a dress from Colette.”
Fuck.
“Pretty sure she said it’s backless.”
Fuck!
“Ask her to be your date, Vinnie, and it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”