Chapter 42
SAGE
“Do you want another mince pie?” Laine asks me.
I’m sitting in the window, well, I’m sitting at the wall that’s made of glass, staring outside at a mound of snow that shifts to brush the white powder off every now and again.
I glance at Laine. “How long has he been out there?”
Laine comes to stand beside me, looking down at Troy’s hunched figure on the bench across the street. “Since dawn. It was the same as yesterday, and the day before.”
“Oh. It’s been two weeks already?”
“Twelve days, actually.” Laine sighs. “Jax started a tally.”
I watch Troy stand, stamp his feet, then sit back down.
Even from up here, I can see he’s not dressed right for the December cold weather; his coat is expensive but not heavy enough, he does have a hat on, but he’s not wearing any gloves.
He hasn’t shaved either, and looks like he hasn’t slept in days.
“He’s going to get hypothermia.”
“I bet that’s his master plan.” Laine hands me a mug of tea I didn’t ask for, but I’m thankful all the same. Tea makes everything better. “Guilt by freezing is very dramatic, wouldn’t you say?”
Troy is far from dramatic, but I say nothing.
I take a sip, still watching the snowman come to life. “So he hasn’t tried to come up?”
“No. Nola asked him yesterday, when she left here, if you needed to get a restraining order. He just said he just needed to know you were safe from your family and that he’d leave if you told him to go.”
My frozen heart melts a little, and I hate that it does. “Shit. Should I tell him to go?”
“No. Fuck him, let him freeze.”
The snow is falling harder now, and Troy pulls his coat tighter, and even from here, I can see him shivering. I got to get up, but then stop.
“I should at least talk to him.”
Laine lets out a sigh again, like I’m even getting the healing part wrong.
With Nola turning up in the middle of the night, covered in bruises and bite marks from her supposed ghost, she’s worried about us both.
“Maybe, you don’t have to forgive him, but if you are going out there, I suppose you should tell him to go home before he dies of exposure in my driveway.
The property prices will tank if there’s another dead body in the school catchment area. ”
I give her a shadow of a smile. It feels strange on my lips, awkward, like I’ve forgotten how. But I need to get used to it, Laine’s ten weeks gone. She’s only told me, Nola, and Jaxon, of course, until the first scan, but I’m so excited for her.
But as the weeks tick by, I’m beginning to think I should move out soon.
It’s been so lovely here. Laine has been amazing.
Jaxon, too, as I’ve got to know him. He’s…
very chivalrous when he wants to be, the kind of man who changes lightbulbs and takes the trash out, without asking, and then immediately wants Laine to acknowledge his heroism.
It’s adorable, really. Even if he does give me the creeps when he looks at me sometimes, like he’s imagining what I look like with my insides turned out.
Laine says to ignore him when he gets like that, but I’m starting to think it’s time to leave.
There will be another person living here soon, and I’m not entirely naive to think Laine and Jaxon will be happy having me here when the baby comes.
I put my tea down and let out a sigh of my own. “But what if I go down there to him and I can’t stay angry?”
She shrugs. “Then maybe you don’t want to be angry anymore.”
“Oh.”
“Cheer up, you still have bargaining, depression, and acceptance left.”
It’s freezing when I step outside. I pull my puffer coat around me, throwing my scarf over my mouth to keep warm. I feel like the Michelin Man. Snow keeps hitting me in the eyes, so it’s hard to see. I nearly trip over a rock hidden under all the white.
But Troy sees me and immediately grabs hold, stopping me from falling at his feet. Puffs of snow tumble off him as he steadies me. “Sage, are you okay?”
This close, he looks awful. His face is pale, his lips nearly blue, his stubble dark against his skin. His eyes are bloodshot, shadowed with exhaustion, but when they look at me, his forest-green eyes drown me where I stand.
How dare he look so bad, yet still make me want him!
“You know you’re going to die out here, right?” But it comes out muffled.
He shakes his head. “Your scarf, I can’t hear you.”
I drag the wool from around my face. “You’re hypothermic!”
“Oh, I’m f-fine.” But he’s not, his teeth chattering on the last word.
“Here.” I shove a box at him, not wanting to touch him. “I’m returning this.”
He takes it from me and opens it. A dark look flickers in his face when he sees what’s inside.
“Mercy,” he says quietly.
He named his razor. Oh God. “It’s yours. I shouldn’t have taken it.”
“Keep it.”
“I don’t want it.”
“It’s always been yours.” He puts the box on the bench. “I’ll never use it anyway. That part of my life... It’s done with.”
“Really? You are? W-why?”
“Because every time I go to kill someone, I see your face.”
That’s not at all flattering. “Oh.”
“No, I mean…fuck, that came out wrong.” He rubs his hand over his face. “I’m done killing. You’ve made me realize it’s not what I want anymore, so I destroyed them.” His voice is flat, void of emotion. “I melted my razors down, all six of them. Mercy’s the only one left, and she’s yours.”
I stare at him. I didn’t even know he had a collection or that he sees them as girls. “I think… that’s for the best.”
He gives a stiff nod. “Me too.”
Snow falls between us like a veil. I’m suddenly drained, that’s probably why I’m so crabby.
“Why are you doing this?” My voice echoes my tiredness. “Sitting out here watching me like a creeper, gifting me your razor. What do you want from me?”
You left me at the altar.
I wait for Nell to chip in, but she’s silent. Has been for weeks.
Troy’s quiet too, for a long moment, snowflakes catch in his hair and stick to his eyelashes. One lands on his cheekbone. The urge to lick it off comes out of nowhere.
Urgh, I hate myself.
When he finally speaks, his voice sounds raw in my ears. “Nothing. I want nothing from you except to know you’re safe. I left you alone last time, and look what happened.”
“Bullshit.”
He frowns deeply. “What do you want me to say? Do you want me to leave?”
“Yes, no…fuck it.”
His lips curve. “You’re cute when you curse.”
I shoot him a look. “I want you to tell me the truth, if you’re even capable of that.”
“I want…” He stops. Swallows hard. “I want you not to hate me, but I don’t deserve to ask that or expect that. I’ll settle for knowing you’re alive and safe from your family, even if you never want to see me again.”
“That’s kind of hard when you’re outside my house 24/7.”
I shiver, but not because of that, but because the cold snow has managed to get down my collar. I should go back inside. This is exactly the kind of thing that made me fall for him in the first place…his brutal honesty wrapped in shades of gray.
There’s no black and white with Troy. There’s no good and evil; like me, he’s a bit of both. I don’t feel like I’m tainted when he looks at me, nor am I pure as driven snow.
And he gets that.
“Fuck, you’re getting cold. Wait, let me.” He whips out his phone and starts tapping and swiping until a car appears on the road next to us, moving slowly, until it glides to a stop.
Troy just remotely drove his Tesla closer to us.
He ushers me over to it and opens the door. Heat blasts from inside as I climb into the passenger seat. Dog Mode blinks at me on the dash before I hear his soft whine behind me, and a wet nose nudges my hand.
“Ben!” I rub his ears. “Such a good boy.”
Troy gets in the driver’s seat, dragging off his cap. “Gah, it’s like ice out there.” He fiddles with the spaceship-looking buttons on the central touchscreen, cranking up the warm air around us.
Then he looks at me. “Right, where were we?”
“You left me at the altar. In front of everyone. You made me look like a fool.”
“I’m so so sorry I did that to you.”
“You spent weeks pushing me away, making me feel like I was crazy for wanting you, like our connection was all in my head...”
“I know.”
“…and then when I finally believed you wanted me too, when I put on that dress and stood up in front of everyone and made myself vulnerable, you didn’t turn up.” I sound hysterical now, like I am crazy.
“I’m a complete bastard, but I was protecting you.”
“From what?”
“Me.” He looks at me with those exhausted, bloodshot eyes. “The darkness, the rage. I’ve done godawful things, Sage. And I didn’t…I didn’t want to drag you down into hell with me.”
“I’ve killed for you, too.”
He flinches as if I’ve struck him. “I never wanted you to do that. Not you.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not made of glass. Your darkness or whatever isn’t what I’m upset about, Troy.
I knew what you were when I fell in love with you.
When I was Nell, I loved Sweeney Todd, a masked killer with blood on his hands.
” I stare out the windscreen; everything is white now as the snow starts to bury us.
“I’m not fragile, and I don’t need protecting from you. I can look after myself.”
I glare at him, and he nods. “Of course, you can. And you should be angry.”
“I’m angry because you didn’t trust me to make a choice. You decided for me, then you pushed me away, and then left me when I needed you.”
“Y-you’re right. You’re absolutely fucking right.”
I know I am. “You left me standing alone, as if I meant nothing.”
“You mean everything, that’s why I couldn’t go through with it, because you deserve someone to put you first, for once, and I can’t.”
“So, what you’re saying is that you’re scared?” When he doesn’t argue, I carry on. “That if you actually let yourself have me, you’d lose me. You lost your family. You lost Nell. So you pushed me away first, before I could leave you. Did I get that right?”
“Fuck, how much therapy have you had?”
“Enough for two of us, it seems.”