Chapter 56
Fifty-Six
I awoke the next day surprised to find myself in my own bed. The last thing I remembered was falling asleep in Alfie’s arms, an accident I hadn’t meant to happen.
He must have carried me in here and that very fact was surprising to me. Old Alfie would definitely have taken advantage, new Alfie was unpredictable.
As I lay there in sun drenched sheets, running my mind through everything that had happened last night, I realised I was done with Dubai. I’d gotten everything from the Miracle Garden that I needed and I’d faced enough of my monsters. It was time to go home.
From my bed I checked available flights and managed to book one leaving in just a few hours.
Long enough to eat, shower and pack. Before I could change my mind, I sent Alfie a text letting him know what I was doing.
I stared at my phone for a few moments, waiting for a pissed off reply but none came so I forced myself out of bed.
An hour later I was showered, packed and ready to go. I heard the lift doors open as I carried my luggage down the stairs. I was unsurprised to see Alfie making a beeline for me.
He looked at my suitcase. “You’re really running again?”
“Not running,” I panted, putting my case down. “Just going home.”
Instead of the anger I thought was coming, he just nodded.
“Maybe that's a good thing.” He pushed his hands into his pockets, his face full of a million things he wasn’t telling me.
“Last night felt wrong. Being with you when this secret was between us felt wrong but I thought it would be different now that everything's out in the open, instead…”
“Instead it still felt wrong,” I finished for him.
“Yes, even now, standing here, talking to you.” He met my gaze, his brows knitted with…
I didn’t know what. “When I got your text this morning my first instinct was to come here and manipulate you into staying. I shouldn’t still be thinking like that.
” His jaw clenched. “I’m trying so hard to get this right but it’s like I have this bug in my head that gnaws on me until I do what it wants. ”
“You’re trying to find the balance between who you were, who you are and who you want to be.”
“Yes, but I’m discovering there’s a fourth man, the man I am with you.” He stared at me as if he was seeing into my very soul and I wondered what it was he was searching for. “The man that I am with you isn’t always the man I want to be.”
That I did understand. He turned me into someone I didn’t like sometimes too. “Change takes time and patience has never been your strong suit. We still have another month of our three month deal left, right? Give yourself time.”
He didn’t look convinced and the uncertainty in his face had fear prickling the back of my neck.
“Maia will escort you to the airport. You’re taking my plane home.”
“Alfie—”
“I’ve already cancelled your flight.” He cut me off, leaving me wondering how he could bounce so effortlessly from a man who carried me back to my own bed, to a man that controlled me when it suited him.
He gave me a helpless shrug, as if he were acting against his own will. “Some things are never going to change, O’Connell.”
The flight home was uneventful. Maia had left me at the airport after I’d rejected her offer of accompanying me home. I tried not to feel guilty about pushing her away but there was only so much I could face in one week and three out of four monsters wasn’t bad.
I arrived home to an empty apartment, tired yet wired. I curled up on my couch, waiting for that paranoid feeling to hit, the feeling that I was being watched. It was there, but it was faint. A wave of exhaustion hit me and despite the day still clinging to daylight, I allowed sleep to swallow me.
The room was shrouded in darkness by the time I woke, gasping for air, memories of Alfie’s dripping, rotting corpse from my nightmare still haunting me.
Immediately, I wanted Keira, but the lack of shoes kicked off by the front door told me she wasn’t home yet.
I pressed a hand to the Alfie-shaped shrapnel in my chest, wishing for the millionth time that it would let me go.
Without thinking, I grabbed my phone to call him. I panicked as it started to ring–what was I doing? Before I could hang up, the line connected.
“Lo, are you alright?”
“I…I had a nightmare.” The words spilled out of me and even as I said them I cringed, realising what an idiot I sounded.
“Tell me about it,” he answered.
So, I did. I talked about the nightmare I’d had about him more times than I could count and as I spoke, he listened. When I was done, I knew his brows would be knotted together, tight with concentration.
“In my nightmares, I poison our Evergarden with my touch and it kills you.”
I could see the image he’d painted clearly. It made perfect sense that he would have nightmares like that, Alfie’s subconscious was a dark and twisted place. But so was mine.
“Do you still dream like that?” I asked him.
“Not so much now.”
“Me either.” A soft silence settled over us. He sounded tired, I wondered if he’d slept at all last night. “Alfie, maybe we dream less now because we’re healing?”
“Or maybe our dreams are a warning that we’re still not ready.” That was the second time he’d spoken like that and I didn’t know what to make of it. “Lola, I miss you.”
I closed my eyes, allowing my walls to sink and let myself feel. “I miss you too.”
“You shouldn’t. After everything I’ve done, you shouldn’t miss me.”
He was right, I shouldn’t but I still didn’t like to hear him talking like this.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. It’s late, go back to sleep.” Before I could argue, his tone softened. “I’ll see you when I get back.”
I decided to let it go and said goodnight. His words left me feeling fearful, but fearful of what I didn’t know. If Alfie was another man I would think he was about to let me go, but Alfie Tell didn’t let things go, he held on like a Pit Bull. At least, that’s what old Alfie used to do.
I stood, the moon outside wondering what I was doing awake so late at night, or so early in the day depending on how you looked at it.
I headed for the kitchen and made a coffee, then I grabbed Ryan’s latest letter from the post pile and settled in with it.
The boy was a good writer for a ten year old, he had an incredible imagination which was no surprise, but him having the patience to write consistently was unexpected.
Ryan was like a pinball, bouncing off in all directions, it was hard to imagine him sitting down to write every day.
Yet, here was his scrawl scribbled all over the coloured pages.
His illustrations of one-eyed pirates and monsters from the deep ocean were as familiar to me now as my own floral sketches.
My hand drifted to my necklace. I missed my family.
I loved my life in London but every now and then, usually on nights like this when my ghosts were at their most haunting, I just wanted to go home. To my old bed, to snuggle in my gran’s throw in front of the fireplace and eat bacon sandwiches for breakfast.
Anxious thoughts gnawed at me. My project, Keira, my worry for Natalie and Riley and as always, there was Alfie. I sat on the couch, chewing my lip until the dawn rose and I couldn’t stand it anymore.
I headed for my bedroom and fifteen minutes later, after changing and grabbing the bag containing Natalie and Ryan’s gifts from Greece, I was out of the door and on my way to the train station.
My Memory Garden was looking tired as it bedded down for the winter. The herbs had faded, the wedding cake tree was naked and my mum's bleeding hearts lay shrivelled and lost in the earth.
It should make me sad to see it like that but it never did. I loved to see the ebb and flow of time in nature. Every year, winter threatened to kill these plants and every year they came back stronger.
In the cool bite of the morning, before the house was stirring, I retrieved my tools from the garden shed and set about fixing the garden up.
I felt like I was losing my connection to this special place.
Lost in work and my life in London, weeks went by without me tending to it and every visit only reminded me that I wasn’t taking care of it the way it needed.
The way my mum and gran would want me to.
It was a helpless feeling but for now, I just tried to enjoy being here.
When it was done, I sat in the garden seat nestled between bleeding hearts, contemplating the skeletal wedding cake tree, the roots of which were the eternal home of my mum and gran’s ashes.
How many times have I sat here and contemplated my life? More times than I could count. I had spilled endless tears in this place, over Adam, over my grief, over Keira, over Alfie.
Alfie.
Always Alfie. Every thought I had always brought me back to him, a neverending pull drawing me to his side.
I drew my knees up, shielding myself against the sharp breeze, and wrapped a hand around my mum’s necklace.
At this point, I had no idea what she would tell me to do.
She had been patient, forgiving. My father had abandoned her, yet I had never heard her say a bad word about him.
Only ever good things. She would want me to forgive Alfie for my own peace of mind, I knew that much, but take him back? That was a whole other thing.
The shrapnel throbbed, reminding me of the cost of keeping Alfie away. I could survive it. Hell, I could even thrive without him. I could laugh and dance and work and travel and do everything I had ever wanted to do. But I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t sleep without him.
Yes, she’d tell me to forgive, to be kind but above all to be brave, whichever way I chose to fall. Could I try?