Chapter 57
Did Their Love Crumble Under Pressure? Insiders Claim Kate Hamilton No Longer Works for The Darlington.
INsider headline
Kate
The days and nights that followed were a blur.
The world beyond Grace’s bedroom ceased to exist. Everything had become meaningless—nothing made sense anymore to my broken heart.
As much as Henry meant to me, I still couldn’t be with him.
My heart rebelled against this truth, while my mind tried to accept it.
It was an exhausting struggle, one I could only lose, and it drained me of every last bit of strength.
Grace kept me company every free moment she had, and I didn’t know what I would have done without her.
We didn’t talk much—mostly, we sat in silence on her bed, watching anime.
I couldn’t have recounted the plots afterwards even if my life had depended on it.
My thoughts were everywhere and nowhere, inevitably circling back to Henry.
I wondered how he was doing and what he was up to.
Had he stopped taking the Vitalyn as he had promised?
Or was he still on it now that I was gone?
Had Logan spoken to him? If so, how had Henry reacted to me ratting him out to his brother?
I had so many questions, and I would probably never get an answer to any of them.
Not only had I blocked Henry’s number, but I had also deleted him entirely from my phone to stop myself from messaging or calling him in a moment of weakness.
And unfortunately, there were far too many of those moments.
Grace had assured me that it would get better, but the pain and longing seemed to grow worse with every passing day.
I missed being close to Henry. I missed his voice and his laughter.
I missed the way he had looked at me and held me in his arms at night.
But most of all, I missed the unwavering sense of safety and comfort he had given me.
Now it felt as if I were losing my way all over again, sliding back into an abyss he had only just helped me escape.
I poked my head cautiously through the doorway and glanced left and right.
The corridor outside Grace’s room was empty.
Unmelodious piano playing drifted from her brother’s room, but otherwise it was quiet in the apartment.
The Claymores had been nothing but welcoming and understanding over the past few days, but I wasn’t in the mood for small talk, so I did my best to avoid Grace’s parents.
I didn’t always succeed, but often enough.
I crept quietly to the kitchen to find a snack.
I’d had no appetite in the first few days after the breakup; though Grace had kept forcing me to eat a little, my stomach had been as paralysed as my body—most of the time, eating had just made me feel nauseous.
But now, after about a week, my appetite was slowly starting to return.
I entered the kitchen, where Amy was sitting at the table. Her blond hair was tied up in a bun, and she was hunched over her medical textbooks, a marker pen in hand and a chaotic sea of notes surrounding her. She looked up at the sound of my footsteps and gave me a faint smile.
Amy knew I’d broken up with Henry, but she didn’t know any details.
I had only shared them with Grace, who was under strict instructions to keep them secret.
The Darlington didn’t need another scandal.
If the press ever found out about Henry’s drug problem, it would probably mark the end of the hotel.
I returned Amy’s smile. “How’s it going?”
She grimaced. “Don’t ask.”
“That bad?”
“I’m never going to pass this exam,” she said with a groan and dropped her head onto the book open before her. “What was I thinking, studying medicine? Couldn’t I have picked an easier course? Business management? Communications?”
I patted her shoulder and glanced at the notes scattered across the table. They were filled with Latin words that meant nothing to me.
“You can do it. And if not, you can always switch to business management.”
She groaned. “But I don’t want to study business management.”
“You won’t have to. You’ve got this,” I reassured her. For the first time in days, I felt like myself again. It was the first proper conversation I’d had in a long time. “When are your exams?”
“In January.”
“So you’ve still got a few weeks. I don’t know much about medicine, but if you need help, let me know. I can test you or something.”
Amy smiled. “Thanks. I might take you up on that.”
I nodded, then pulled out the ingredients for a sandwich from the fridge.
As I slipped two slices of bread into the toaster, I couldn’t help but think about Henry’s and my first night at the hotel—how he had cooked for me and made me toast with tofu scramble, as if taking care of me was the most natural thing in the world.
He was such a kind, thoughtful, and caring person that it was hard to see him as a drug addict—but that’s exactly what he was.
I turned to Amy with a sigh. She had already returned to one of her medical textbooks.
“Can I ask you something?”
She looked up. “Sure.”
“Do you know what Vitalyn is?”
“Yes, it’s a medication. Why?”
I bit my lower lip, unsure how much I could say without her figuring out that I was talking about Henry. “Can you take it even if you don’t need it?”
“You can take anything. The question is just at what cost,” Amy replied with a shrug.
“Vitalyn is . . . relatively harmless, if you want to put it that way. Which does not mean that you should treat it lightly! If you don’t need the Vitalyn to treat the symptoms it’s prescribed for, it can boost your concentration and stop you from feeling tired.
That’s why it’s pretty popular among my classmates, especially around exam time. ”
I tilted my head. “What do you mean by ‘relatively harmless’?”
“Well, Vitalyn is still a drug. You shouldn’t take it if you haven’t had it prescribed by a doctor, but you can’t get physically addicted.
You can develop a psychological addiction to it, though, if you start believing you can’t function without it.
” She tapped her bottom lip with her pen pensively.
“And there also can be unwelcomed side effects, of course, as with any medication—loss of appetite, for example, and headaches and nausea. In rare cases, heart rhythm disturbances. Most of my classmates just get insomnia.”
It didn’t sound so bad. I still hated the fact that Henry was taking it, and most of all, that he had hidden it from me. But the fact that a medical student said it was relatively harmless made me worry less about him.
“So you can’t overdose on it?”
“You can overdose on any medication, but a typical overdose like you get with some other drugs is unlikely. At least, I’ve never heard of it.
One of my classmates ended up in hospital because of Vitalyn once.
It isn’t healthy to pull all-nighters for days without taking a break—and eventually, your body gives up.
But she was fine a few days later,” Amy said.
She gave me a sceptical look. “Just to be clear: I would definitely advise you not to take Vitalyn unless you have a prescription.”
I smiled. “Don’t worry. I hate drugs. I was just watching a TV series where someone took it, and I was curious,” I lied before turning back to my sandwich. I wasn’t sure if Amy had bought it, but she didn’t press further and returned to her textbooks.
Not wanting to distract her any further, I headed back to Grace’s room with my plate.
I thought about what Amy had said as I ate my sandwich.
Even if Vitalyn didn’t carry severe risks, it was still a drug.
And if Henry was willing to take it, he might also be willing to try other, harder drugs if he felt he had no other choice.
That was what scared me. My mum’s addiction had started with something relatively harmless too, and it had ended in tragedy.
I stared out the window. Rain pelted against the glass, and people with umbrellas darted down the street seeking shelter.
They all seemed to know where they were going.
I, on the other hand, had no idea. I wasn’t really in the mood to make important decisions about my life right now, but I needed to start thinking about what to do next.
I couldn’t stay with the Claymores forever, after all.
Sooner or later, I would have to leave the safety of Grace’s bedroom—and then what?
I didn’t want to live on the streets again.
Not just because of the cold nights, the relentless hunger, and the constant danger, but also because I was afraid I wouldn’t make it out a second time.
Thanks to Henry, I finally had a bank account and a little money again, but it wasn’t nearly enough to rent an apartment.
Maybe it was time to leave London, to use the money to buy a bus ticket that would take me out of this city that had caused me more pain in the past few years than anything else.
There was nothing left to keep me here except Grace, and in some other city, I wouldn’t run the risk of running into Henry.
Or Randell, even if I was pretty sure that his interview with William Hunt was the last I’d ever hear from him.
He’d milked me of every last penny and used up all his ammunition, which meant he had nothing left to blackmail me with.
But if I was honest with myself, I didn’t want to leave London.
This city was my home and all I had ever known.
I could apply for more jobs. Now that I was no longer working for The Darlington, I was more flexible, and if I played my cards right, I might even be able to get a reference from Giulia.
I hadn’t worked at the hotel for long, but I’d done a good job.
I was still lost in thought and running through my options when the door to Grace’s room swung open, and she walked in. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were flushed red, and the wind had whipped wildly at her hair, leaving it looking dishevelled.
“Hey! You look pretty alive today,” she greeted me.
I made a vague gesture with my hand, but I knew what she meant. Over the past few days, she’d mostly seen me curled up like a shrimp in her bed. Today, I was sitting up, at least, and I hadn’t yet cried. I probably would later, but for now, my eyes were dry.
Grace set down her bag. “How are you doing?”
“Better. I even ate something earlier.”
“Glad to hear it,” she said with a smile that faltered almost immediately. She turned her back on me to hide it, but it was already too late.
“What’s wrong?”
She sighed heavily, her shoulders slumping. “It’s nothing serious . . . Or perhaps it is. But you’re feeling better, and I don’t want to ruin it.”
“Tell me. You’re scaring me.”
“Henry came to see me today.” My stomach cramped at Grace’s words. I looked at my friend uncertainly and waited for her to continue. “He asked if I knew where you were,” she explained when I didn’t speak.
“What did you tell him?” My voice sounded thin.
Grace’s expression softened sympathetically. “I told him you’re staying with me and he doesn’t need to worry about you, but that you don’t want to see him.”
Relief washed over me. I wasn’t ready to see him yet. Perhaps I never would be. The thought of being close to Henry without being with him was unbearable. “How did he react?”
“He didn’t seem particularly happy, but he gave me something for you,” Grace answered hesitantly. “I don’t want to keep it from you, but I’m also not sure it’s a good idea to give it to you.”
I wasn’t sure either. “What is it?”
“A letter.” Grace pulled out a black envelope from her handbag. Just like the other letters Henry had sent me, it was sealed with gold wax. “You don’t have to read it just because Henry wants you to. It’s your decision. Just say the word, and I’ll throw it in the bin.”
I stared at the black envelope in Grace’s hands. My throat suddenly felt tight, and a familiar pressure started building behind my eyes. So much for not crying today.
Grace stepped closer and held out the letter to me. I hesitated, torn between the desire to know what it said and the fear of finding out. But I missed Henry, and the thought of being close to him, even if just for a few seconds through his words on the paper, was too tempting to resist.
I broke the seal and pulled out the letter. I couldn’t help but smile when I saw Henry’s messy handwriting, which was barely legible even though he had clearly made an effort.
I started reading.