Chapter 26 #2
“How are things with you?” I push out.
As much as I try not to look at him, I fail and turn my eyes to him.
Regret floods his eyes.
I know that look.
I’ve seen it before when my father decided to propose to Henrietta.
He has his elbows propped on his knees, which only fuels my angst. He’s not the bearer of good news.
“Things have been all over the place lately,” he says with dark humor.
My apprehension soars.
“What brought you here, Damon?” I ask, convinced he’s getting back with Henrietta, or he’s divorcing her a year from now and planning to marry someone else.
My insecurities link hands into a little ritualistic dance in my head as I wait for his answer.
He sighs.
“I’ll, um…go away for a while,” he murmurs, pained to even speak.
He shifts his eyes to me, a sorrowful expression on his face.
“I thought I could ask you to wait for me. I thought things would get back to normal. Unfortunately, that’s not gonna happen.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m going to jail.”
My mouth falls open.
“Why? I thought you were cleared of that triple murder.”
“It’s something else,” he says, moving his stare back down. “It has to do with Henrietta.”
My hands are cold and clammy. I slide my hands into my pockets, waiting for him to continue.
Eventually, he looks at me.
“She’s worked with the feds for a while now to have me locked away.”
“What?”
My voice is quiet like a whisper.
He nods a couple of times, noticing the shift in my expression.
I feel like crying.
“As it turned out, I’d underestimated her. Her jealousy ran deeper than I thought it would.”
“Are you sure about that? She was nice to me over the summer.”
He flicks his eyes to me again.
“She had no reason not to be. She hit me where it mattered the most. Her entire plan was to pull me away from you and snitch on me. She got immunity. I took a plea deal. I need to serve time, though.”
Tears prickle my eyes.
“What about everything else?” I murmur.
He brings his thumb to my face and wipes a tear away.
“There’s nothing else.’
“What about the money that she owes you? Is she truly getting away with it?”
His hand lingers on my face, then slides to my shoulder before moving away.
“There’s nothing I can do to her right now. I have my own legal problems to be concerned with. I’ll deal with her later. She’s no longer a priority for me.”
“But why? I don’t understand. Isn’t that a little extreme for her to do something like that to you?”
I don’t know what else to say.
What am I supposed to say?
He’s not here to ask me to wait for him. Would I wait for him if he’d asked me to?
I wish I knew the answer to that question. But there are so many things I still don’t know.
“Marrying her to get my money was extreme, too.”
“She stole from you.”
“Yes, she did. I could’ve killed her. That would’ve been extreme as well. There’s not a pinch of fairness in this game.”
“Do you think she would have acted differently if we stayed away from each other?”
He shrugs.
“Maybe. She would’ve probably planned out her revenge differently. Once she knew I wouldn’t be with her again, she felt she could do anything to me.”
“So, she’ll get her inheritance.”
He nods.
“And possibly keep the money that she stole from you,” I go on.
He nods again.
“For how long?” I say breathlessly.
He focuses on me again.
“How much time do you need to serve?”
“The exact time will be established at the sentencing hearing. A few years, most likely.”
Something breaks inside me. So many things can happen in a few years.
It’s like I’m witnessing my own funeral, although there’s no corpse in the casket. It’s only our story’s remains.
My tears fall.
“And you’re not asking me to wait for you?”
He studies me, disheartened.
“I can’t, can I? I might get out. Or I might not. A lot of bad shit can happen to someone like me in prison. I can’t tell for sure I won’t kill someone in jail. It’s not wise to ask someone to wait for me under these circumstances. My men will protect you for as long as they need to.”
“What happens with the club?” I ask, holding out hope that some of his world will survive.
“They closed it.”
I search his eyes.
“You knew this would come. You knew it back then when we visited Randal.”
He brings his eyes to me and gives me a soft nod.
“I always thought that there was something about me in that story. Something I didn’t know,” I murmur.
“There was something about you. Unfortunately, I didn’t know exactly what would happen. He routinely takes care of my finances when something like this happens. He was supposed to take care of you if needed. That wasn’t the case.”
A smile tilts his lips, yet the tension in my jaw only fuels my tears.
“Don’t cry, Lila. Please don’t cry. You’re too young for this shitty thing.
So many good things are waiting for you out there in the world.
Stay away from the Frankies of the world and find a decent man who can take care of you, protect you, and let you spread your wings and live life fully.
The life I had was a rollercoaster, and I enjoyed it for as much as it lasted.
Yet at the end of the day, it’s not something you would want to live.
It eats you alive. You have your entire life ahead of you, while I’ve got nothing to offer.
The only thing I had––my freedom––was taken away from me.
My advice to you is, stay away from Henrietta.
Have your lawyers deal with her. She’s bad news.
Once she collects her money, she’ll take off, and no one will miss her. Trust me on that.”
I wish I could stop crying, but my tears keep dripping on my robe.
“Come to me,” he says, and he closes his arms around me while I shrink into something small and quivering in his hug.
He presses his lips to my hair.
“I’m so sorry things didn’t work out,” he says, stroking my hair.
“They didn’t work out?” I repeat after him like a parrot, rejecting his truth.
He pulls away from me slightly so he can see my face and tilt my face up.
“Do you think they did work out?” he asks quietly.
I nod repeatedly, pathetically, I might add. It’s so obvious that things didn’t work out.
And not because we didn’t want them to work out, but because life had a say in this.
When you live the kind of life he lives, these things are unavoidable.
He could’ve been dead by now.
He could’ve not had the chance to take a plea deal.
He’s going away for white collar crimes. It could’ve been worse, way worse than that.
Am I happy that Henrietta had something to do with it? Absolutely not. I hate that woman. The thing is, even if I said no to him to manage her sensibilities, things would’ve been just as bad for the two of us.
I would’ve never gotten to know him better.
I would’ve never met him if it wasn’t for her.
So, in a way, she was instrumental in our story.
Without her, we wouldn’t be here.
She brought us together, and then she pulled us apart.
She’s a snake.
But sometimes even snakes play a role in a story.
I just wish there were a different ending.
“I’m glad I had the chance to meet you,” I finally say, smiling through my tears. “So it’s not all bad.”
He brushes away my tears.
“Yeah. It’s not all bad.”
He muses over something for a second before he lowers his lips to mine.
“You’ll do great,” he says.
I’m not that optimistic about that right now.
If anyone had said something like that to me this afternoon, I would’ve wholeheartedly agreed.
But now? I’m not so sure.
“Can I at least wait for you?” I ask, still in denial.
His eyes hold mine as he slowly shakes his head.
“I can’t let you do that. There are too many variables.
I don’t even know how much time I’ll be serving.
And as I said before, different things will happen over the next few years.
I’ll be a different man. An uglier man. I’ll most likely be vengeful and filled with hatred.
And then there’s the life awaiting me when I get out.
I can’t predict what that life will look like.
You shouldn’t tie your life to mine. It wouldn’t do you any good.
Trust me. I know what I’m talking about. ”
He’s made up his mind, and it happens that he’s right.
“Goodbye, Lila. It was nice meeting you.”
With that, he leaves a kiss on my lips and rises to his feet. I can’t even look at him as his footsteps trail across the room, reach the door, and then ring outside.
I wish I had the strength to go to the window and take one last look at him.
I can’t.
My heart is broken, sobbing.
This is now officially the worst Halloween ever.