Chapter 42
Yes. Nellie is quite lovely. Stunning, actually.
“You’re a hairdresser.”
I smile at Nellie’s reflection in the vanity mirror of the en suite bathroom. “No.”
She feathers her hand along her ginger hair that falls just below her shoulders.
I’ve brushed it and added some soft curls to it, then I fixed her makeup, opting for nothing on her lips until we can go shopping for some new makeup.
Whomever let her buy ten shades of orange-red lipstick should be beheaded.
“I forgot to tell you how much I like your shorter hair.”
My eyes shift to my own reflection. After Daniel left for London, I decided to cut my hair short, opting for a pixie cut with the top a chaos of curls and a few rebel spikes. The hairdresser said I looked like Halle Berry. I took it as a compliment.
“Thank you.” I smile. “Lower maintenance. Straightening my hair every day was too much work, and long curls with this southern humidity is not the best combination.”
“Humidity? You should visit southern Florida.”
“Oh yeah?”
Nellie’s brow draws tight as her eyes flit around like she’s trying to figure something out. “Uh … yes.” Her lips pull into a tight smile. “I think … I don’t really know why I said that.”
“Have you been to southern Florida?”
She looks up at my reflection. “I … I’m not sure. Have you?”
“No. Maybe we can go on a road trip sometime. What do you think?”
Nellie nods slowly, her smile working its way to one of genuine excitement.
“Nel?” Harold bangs on the bedroom door several times before he lets himself inside. He does an immediate double take.
“What do you think?” Nellie stands. Her confidence brightening the whole room.
Harold gives me a hard look. “Ms. Stone, a word in private please.”
I throw back my shoulders and start toward the door, refusing to let the Moore men shame me for being kind to Nellie.
“You can have your words right here, Harold.” Nellie walks past me. “I’m going down for coffee and breakfast. See you soon, Scarlet.”
Harold shuts the door behind her.
“You look utterly ridiculous and I can safely say that because I know you have an expensive wool tailored suit and silk tie waiting for you at work or at the brothel where you get your rocks off.”
“Watch it,” he warns. His beady eyes attempt to intimidate me.
“Nel likes you. That’s great. It means I don’t have to spend as much time here, but I can’t—I won’t have you trying to change her.
She’s sick. She needs routine and familiarity to keep from …
” He blows out a breath and clenches his teeth for few seconds.
“Remembering.”
He takes a step toward me.
I go into humming bird mode. “You don’t want her to remember what happened.”
Another step.
I hold my own.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about or who you’re messing with.”
“She’s going to remember, it’s only a—” All the air leaves my lungs as my face slams against the wall and my arm twists around my back to the point that tears sting my eyes. I squeeze them shut.
“I won’t warn you again,” Harold grits through his teeth, holding me to the wall.
The pain in my arm subsides and two seconds later the door to the room opens and clicks shut again.
I open my eyes, slowly peeling my face from the wall.
There’s a red streak on the emerald wallpaper.
I touch my fingers to the corner of my eyebrow.
Blood. I’m not scared. I’m angry. Even now, I have no self-preservation.
After the blood clots, I clean the small blood streak on the wall and go down to the dining room. Nellie glances up, taking a sip from her teacup fit for a queen.
“Scarlet! What happened to your head?”
Before I can answer, Harold walks out of the kitchen holding a briefcase and wearing a firm look of don’t-fuck-with-me.
“I took the corner at the top of the stairs a little too sharp. Wasn’t watching where I was going. I’m fine.”
With his eyes on me, Harold bends down and kisses Nellie on the top of her head. “Have a good day, sweetheart.”
I swallow back my vomit, disguising my utter disgust with a smile as fake as the erections I’m sure he gets in the form of a pill.
Cancer. You’re still battling cancer. My voice of reason knows I need to calm down and let this go. The Moores’ business is not mine. But every cell in my body wants to bring the Moore men to their knees for what they’re doing to Nellie.
*
Limited funds and a crippled bike keep me from going to Tybee when I get home after taking Nellie to an afternoon matinee with subtitles and lunch at the same café where Theo took me.
It was my idea. Unfortunately, Karma had a nap this afternoon; otherwise, I’m certain she would have arranged Harold Moore being there too, with his tart of the week.
The good news? I have a landline phone. The bad news? I don’t know Theo’s mobile number. I should have lifted Harold’s wallet and taken enough cash for taxi fare to Tybee. We could have called it payment for injury. Fucking wanker!
I don’t recall a time in my life when I had to live on such a tight budget.
Daniel didn’t offer to give me any money, even though I deposited close to fifty thousand pounds in his account before I left London.
I’m sure it was an oversight on his part, but I didn’t have the nerve to ask for any of it back after having destroyed his life.
I live a few streets from a library. A library with computers and internet.
I’ve walked by it several times like an alcoholic walking past an off license.
But I can’t do it. Hackers can play God with a computer.
A simple internet search turns into a handful of crimes within a matter of minutes.
My desire to destroy the man who shoved my face into a wall is too great to give me internet access. It would be a loaded gun in my hand.
I collapse in my ten-dollar picnic chair in the middle of an otherwise empty room. “Bugger!” I wince, having forgotten that I need to avoid any sort of plopping.
There’s a knock at my door.
“Unless you’re a murderer, let yourself in.”
The door eases open.
“Hey.” I punch as much enthusiasm into my greeting as I can.
It would be easier to fall on a sword than look at the pain etched into the face of the beautiful man before me: Theo in his tattered, loose jeans, old, black T-shirt with a tear near the neck, and black boots.
I can’t see any life in him and it makes me, once again, question my existence.
Slow goodbyes offer nothing but drawn-out pain.
I did it with Daniel, and now I’m doing it with Theo.
I could cry just watching him stand here, not saying a word. My heart bangs against its cage, wanting to break out and hold on to him. I can’t follow my heart, but oh, how I want to.
I didn’t try to love you.
He lets the door shut behind him and walks to me, kneeling on the floor between my feet. My nose tingles. My eyes burn.
Are you my salvation or my damnation?
I open my mouth, but I can’t speak. My throat swells. Breathing is its own feat. Theo lays his head on my lap and wraps his arms around my waist, but he says nothing.
Drawing in a slow breath and holding it, I roll my eyes toward the ceiling and try not to blink.
Give me back the death sentence. Let me die because this kind of suffering is too unbearable.
Threading my fingers through his hair, I blink and succumb to the tears that don’t just fall—they come like an enormous wave, shaking my whole body.
He holds me tighter.
My name is Scarlet Stone, and my nana told me I won’t know I’m in love until my heart is broken. Love doesn’t sound so great.
“Don’t go,” I whisper around the emotions choking me. “I-I know you have to go, but I … I have to say the words.” I fight the sobs. “I’m s-sorry … I had to s-say it.” Leaning forward, I rest my head on his, and we stay like this until the pain becomes a numbing reality that we can no longer deny.
When my tears dry and I wonder if he’s even awake, I kiss his ear.
“I stole a heart. Daniel needed a heart transplant and so I … stole one. When I take things that aren’t mine, I don’t leave a trail.
But emotions made me sloppy. I messed up.
Daniel had no idea. My dad confessed, turned himself in with the guarantee that Daniel would never know what he did.
But he did nothing. I did it. My dad is in prison for a crime I committed.
He wanted a happily ever after for his daughter. I hated him for it.”
I laugh. “Isn’t that crazy? How can I hate him for wearing communal underwear that could have been mine? How can I hate him for giving me freedom, a future, a life? He said someday I’d have a child of my own and understand that there is nothing a parent won’t do to give them the world.”
“And your mom?” He is awake.
“She died—of cancer—before I turned two. My best friend died of cancer too.”
“But you didn’t.”
I kiss his ear again, memorizing the feel of every point where our bodies connect, memorizing the smell of ocean in his hair, the rare vulnerability in his voice. “No. Not yet.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“Why do you swim in the ocean?”
His long lashes flutter with a few blinks. “It feels natural and … freeing. It’s where I let go of everything and it’s …”
I sit up and press my hand to his cheek. He sits back on his heels like I’ve seen him do while working a million times before.
“It’s what?”
His lips twist. “It’s the only time that nothing has to make sense. It’s just me, my breaths, my heartbeat, and the rest of the world could cease to exist in that moment and I wouldn’t care.” He slips off my shoes and socks and rests my feet on his legs, pressing his palms to them.
I curl my toes into the denim, never wanting to lose our touch.
“That’s why I left. There was never any moment of grand hope that I would beat cancer.
Anyone who beats terminal cancer by any means possible is a bloody miracle.
I’m many things, but I never thought I’d be a miracle.
I needed for once to find my breath, feel my heartbeat, and let the rest of the world …
fade away. I wanted to die without fear or regret.
I wanted to find a shred of meaning to my life. ”
I shake my head as his hands ghost along my bare feet. “I think so many things in my life fed the disease, and when I truly let go of all of it … it had nothing left to feed on.”
Theo looks up and I don’t feel crazy or judged. I wish Daniel could have looked at me like this. Just once.
“I needed out, and I couldn’t really explain it. I had to leave.”
He nods slowly.
“That’s why I won’t hold on to you. If you still have to leave, knowing how desperately I want you to stay, then I won’t stand in the way.”
His chin dips down and his throat bobs. “I’ll try to come back,” he mumbles.
I don’t want even a thread of a promise, a possibility that will leave me constantly holding my breath—waiting, hoping, dying a little each day he doesn’t return.
“I won’t wait for you.”
I detect a hint of a nod. Is it as painful for him to think about me not being here if he does return as it is for me thinking about him not returning? If so, then Karma is back on her game today.
Leaning forward, I playfully tug his beard until he looks up at me. I don’t imagine Theodore Reed has shed a tear since his parents died, but right now, I swear I see tears in his bloodshot eyes.
“If there’s another life after this one, we should make a date.”
The corner of his mouth curls a bit.
“Food. Small talk. Maybe I say something that makes you grin. Maybe you say something that makes me giggle. Maybe the food is crap so we drink too much wine. Maybe the full moon beckons us to the beach where we walk in the shadows of the night. Maybe you tell me something about yourself. But maybe … just maybe it’s something so honest I can’t help but fall in love with you.
And maybe you build me a house and fill it with hundreds of plants and even a dog. I’ve never had a dog.”
He cradles my face in his hands as I do his in mine, and we just … breathe in … and breathe out …
One.
Two.
Three.
“It’s a date.” He smiles and I cry.
Fuck it. Life is too short to hold in a single tear, a single laugh, a single breath. Biology is how we exist. Emotions are how we live.