Chapter 30 Cassie
Cassie
Now
Taylor stares back at me, her mouth hanging open. The honeymoon was supposed to last two more days, so of course she wasn’t expecting me so soon. It’ll seem odd, but as long as I stick to my story, I’ll be okay. God, I have to be okay.
“Surprise!” I say, my voice all croaky.
If she notices it, I’ll blame it on the air-conditioning on the plane. It was so damn cold in there. Or maybe I felt frozen inside because of everything that happened.
“You’re here.”
It could be the bad lighting, but Taylor looks like the color has been drained from her, like life has left her body. She still doesn’t move, blocking my way.
I push my suitcase against the wall. “I came back early.”
Captain Obvious over here, but I need to distract her from the fact that my legs are still shaking. They have been since I walked out of that room.
Taylor’s eyes dart behind me, to the front door. “Alone?”
I can’t help but look back, even though I know the answer. I mean, I closed the door behind me, so use your brain, Taylor. But I don’t say that because I need her on my side. She has to believe me.
“Yes, alone. Can we sit down? I’ve had a long trip, but I need to talk to you.”
I walk into the living room, not turning back to check if she’s following me. It’s Taylor—of course she’s following me. She does what I tell her to do. That’s always been our thing.
I take off my sneakers and cross my legs in front of me on the couch, but Taylor remains standing, staring down at me.
“Sit, please.” I can’t keep the irritation out of my voice.
“Where’s your husband?” she says, once again looking toward the entrance.
As if Olivier might be about to walk in.
“I said I needed to talk to you.”
She studies me coolly, and for a moment, I think she’s going to make it harder than it needs to be. But good old Taylor can’t afford to hurt my feelings, especially now she knows I own the house outright.
“So tell me.”
She sits down on the armchair as far away from me as possible, her butt only half on, as if she wants to be ready to escape.
“Yes, well, I was about to. Here’s the thing… Olivier and I broke up. Or what do you call it when you’re married?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“I guess we’re going to get a divorce now. I’m not sure how these things work.”
Taylor looks down at her fists, which are clenched tight. “And he’s okay with that?”
“What does that even mean?” It wasn’t my intention to snap, but the last twenty-four hours have been a lot, to say the least. It’s not every day that someone tries to kill me. “Of course he’s okay with that.”
“I thought he was so in love with you he couldn’t wait any longer to propose.” She’s sitting so still that if she wasn’t talking, I’d wonder if she’d turned into wax, like a lifeless doll.
“He was.” I catch myself. “He is.”
Olivier’s words from last night come back to me. We’re in love. But that was a sick joke, right? Something he said to hurt me. There’s no way. No way…
Suddenly, Taylor gets up. She pats the pocket of her pants and pulls out her phone. “I need to…” she says, already halfway to the other side of the room.
“Not now, please. There’s more…”
She looks from her phone to me, takes a moment to think it through, then comes back to sit down. Taylor has always liked to feel needed. She loves it when it seems like we will all fall apart without her.
“I know I don’t always show it,” I continue, “but I appreciate how you’ve always been there for me in the hard times.
When Mom died…” I trail off, pressing my lips tight.
I want to cry and scream and throw things around.
What happened to me? When I dare a glance at Taylor again, she looks stoic, expressionless.
I move on. “As soon as we got to Paris, Olivier was acting a bit funny.” That’s the nicest way I can put it.
The asshole was planning on murdering me.
I know it. I know it. “He started talking about how much he missed it. He used to live there, you know?”
“How would I know?”
Her tone is sweet and cutting at the same time.
A few days away from her, and it takes me five minutes to remember why I hate her so fucking much.
“So, as I was saying, Olivier started asking if I’d ever see myself living in Paris.
Like, maybe not forever, but for a few years.
” A spark of anger flashes in Taylor’s eyes.
Shit. Wrong thing to say after she never got to go on that trip.
“And, um, I’m not you. Paris is nice. I mean, it’s beautiful and everything, but living there?
Not for me. People don’t even speak English that much.
Plus they have stairs and dog poop everywhere. ” My face twists in disgust.
I expect Taylor to argue on that point, to grumble about how I married a French guy and now I don’t appreciate what I have.
And why do I always want more? Because that’s what people do, Taylor.
We. Want. More. Not everyone can be content with scraps.
And most of us don’t have to. Instead she just nods, her head bobbing up and down.
She glances at her phone again, then presses it against her thigh, facedown.
What is up with that? Taylor doesn’t have any friends. She doesn’t have a life. Does she?
My mouth feels so dry, but I can’t stop now.
“It was a big surprise at first, but then I remembered that when we met, he was talking about moving back to France. So I told him if he really wanted to be there, I shouldn’t be the one to stop him.
I could have seen that coming, but we fell in love and—” I stop there, because there’s only so much bullshit one person can make up, even when that person is me.
“Oh right,” Taylor says like something has clicked in her mind. “So, after you met, he stayed in the States for you. He never wanted to be here.”
I shouldn’t have talked to her as soon as I got home. I waited for hours in the airport; there were no seats available for most of the day. And then I still had the whole flight to think about it, but I haven’t ironed out my story enough yet. Ironed. Bad choice of word.
“Anyway,” I say, ignoring her comment. “Last night, he told me he was unhappy.”
A sick smile forms on Taylor’s lips. “With you?”
Bitch. But point taken. I shouldn’t say that Olivier was unhappy with me. That won’t work. “Not with me, with his life in general. We talked for hours.”
“I thought he was out with his friends. Didn’t you have a night to yourself in your honeymoon suite? That bath looked amazing. At least that’s what you posted on Instagram.”
A burst of satisfaction courses through me, but it doesn’t last. Taylor was watching, and carefully.
Maybe too carefully. “We didn’t literally talk for hours.
It was more like snippets of conversation we had since we landed in Paris.
But in the end, it was very amicable. A super healthy breakup, in fact. And then I figured I should go home.”
“Why?” Her tone is cool, but I can see how tightly her hand is gripping her phone. “You were having soooo much fun.”
Can’t she let anything slide? I shouldn’t have to justify myself to her.
“Excuse me if I care too much about doing the right thing, but if we’re getting a divorce, then it felt weird to stay on my honeymoon.
Even if Olivier wanted the breakup, too.
I mean, ‘wants’ the breakup. It was mutual, is what I’m saying. ”
I try to shake the image away, but it pops into my mind anyway: Olivier lunging at me, grabbing the iron from the board just as I was trying to. The raw scream that escaped my mouth. How I managed to wrangle it out of his hands, and then…
“So where’s your husband now?”
Who does she think she is, interrogating me like this? Leave it to the police, Taylor. Wait, no. Not the police.
“Why do you care?” The question slips out of my lips, and Taylor recoils.
I force a smile. Fuck I’m so tired. “We still had the room booked for two nights and I didn’t want to leave him in the lurch.
I told him he should stay there, and then he’ll find somewhere else.
He has friends in Paris, obviously. I’m sure he’ll be fine. ”
We’re silent for a long while. The old wooden clock Mom liked so much ticks on, making a more excruciating sound with every passing second. Taylor stares off into the distance.
When she still doesn’t say anything, I get up and head to my room.
There, I take a long, hot shower—I won’t be getting in a bath anytime soon—and change into pajamas.
Of course I don’t sleep that night. Olivier’s face haunts me as soon as I try to close my eyes, and then he stays while I stare at the ceiling, studying every crack and bit of chipped paint, hoping he will leave me alone.
Olivier was going to ruin my life, but I think I ended up doing that all on my own.
***
Daylight peaks through the curtains, the sun rising into the sky and pushing its way into the room from behind the velvet fabric.
Seconds, minutes, hours pass, and I still haven’t looked at my phone.
I just want to lie there, away from everything, where the outside world can’t get to me.
My mind is in shambles as I turn over to face the wall, my back to the window.
I’m aching all over, my eyes are paper dry, and I can’t bring myself to move.
Suddenly, the doorbell rings. And rings, and rings. There’s no ignoring it.
“Taylor!” I cry out. “You going to get that?”
But I hear no footsteps, only the shrieking tone, which won’t stop. I drag myself out of bed and have to push off the mattress with both hands to stand.
“Cassie? Cassie!”
Darren’s voice filters through the door before I’ve even opened it. When I do, the first thing I notice is his face contorted in worry, his crinkling eyebrows.
He bursts into the foyer. “Cassie, oh my god! I thought something had happened to you. What the hell?” There’s no harshness to it. Only fear deep inside his eyes.
And then he’s hugging me, wrapping his arms so tight around my body it hurts. I drop my phone onto the console in the entrance so I can hold on to him better.
But then he pulls back. “What happened? I was worried sick!”
I take a deep breath. Wordlessly, I start leading him to my bedroom, but catch myself. If anyone sees us together in there, it won’t look good. We go in the living room instead, where I sit down. I feel restless and unable to carry myself at the same time.
“I must have texted you a hundred times!” he says, towering over me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t respond. I was…embarrassed.” The words barely come out of my mouth. “Can you sit? You’re making me nervous.”
He does but his knee bounces up and down so much I feel seasick. “You said he was violent—”
Shit.
“No, I said… I didn’t… It wasn’t like that.” The iron. Olivier grabbed it first. I would never have done it. “I was annoyed with him. That’s all.”
Darren comes to kneel beside me and hangs on to both of my elbows, making sure I’m paying attention. “Cassie, you don’t have to lie to me. If he did anything, I’m here to protect you. And if he ever shows his face here again… I mean, he better not show his face here again.”
I want to laugh, it’s so pathetic. I really thought Darren and I were going to work out this time. We’d learned our lessons; all the mistakes had been made. I couldn’t imagine that the worst ones were yet to come.
Darren leans over, close enough that I can feel the warmth of his leg through his slacks.
“I went to work this morning but I couldn’t focus.
You weren’t responding to me! So I gave my boss an excuse and rushed over here.
I thought… You said he was trying to kill you, Cassie.
That’s more than a little joke. Even for you. ”
Fuck. He’s not going to let this go. When I needed him that night, he wouldn’t take me seriously and now… Darren has always been so straight and narrow. I don’t fit in his world.
“You know me. I get a bit dramatic sometimes. Olivier and I broke up. He decided he wanted to stay in Paris because he doesn’t like it here.
” I make a sweeping motion around us, my hand grazing his cheek in the process.
That part of the story won’t be hard to believe, because it’s true.
“So we’re over. I didn’t react so well at first.”
It was all going to work out perfectly, but then Olivier had to come back into the room before I had time to leave.
He had to see his passport ripped to shreds.
He should have known it was all over for him, but he had to try again.
The poor guy was so desperate. He couldn’t let me go. So I had to make him.
I can’t explain any of that to Darren. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep or the adrenaline I’ve run on since I left the hotel, but there’s no happy ending here.
“This doesn’t make sense, Cassie. You told me your husband was out to murder you.”
“It was a horrible joke, okay? You of all people should get me.”
Darren exhales slowly as he stares at a dent in the walnut coffee table. “Everything’s a joke to you, isn’t it? You came back with this stranger and then went and married him three months later, and then you tell me—”
I cut him off. “I think we misunderstood each other.”
“So what happens now? You’re here; you’re safe. Without him.” He crosses his arms against his chest as he lets out another sigh.
“What happens now is that you leave,” I say at last, looking at the doorway. “I’m sorry about what I said. I can’t do this right now. I need to get through my divorce first.” I swallow hard, needing to catch my breath. “I want to be alone for a while.”
The words feel itchy against the insides of my throat.
Because of course it’s a lie. What I want is to erase the last few months of my life.
I want to go back to when Darren and I were together, and I want to fight for him.
For us. Because that means I would have never met Olivier.
I would never have gotten myself into this fucked-up mess.
And, maybe for the first time in my life, no one can help me out of it.
I have to do this alone.
I can’t do this alone.
What I did… There’s no coming back from it.