Chapter Thirty-Seven
Prince Arthur
Phoebe blinks, once, twice—three times—and then I see the first tear roll down her cheek.
“What?” Her voice is broken, quiet and all I want is to fix it.
Her eyes dart upwards, I follow her and see everyone hanging over the edge of the stone wall, Digby included. Fuck. He just proposed, didn’t he?
Or did he?
Did she run to me before he asked?
“Arthur,” she cries. My eyes go back to her. She’s sobbing. “I always—always—said I’d forgive you for anything but,” she sniffs, shakes her head. “I never thought I’d have to mean it.”
What the fuck has just happened?
Digby was about to get down on one knee and then seconds later, I’ve got Phoebe running towards me like I was her oxygen tank and then I tell her I killed someone?
Shit. I actually told her.
I don’t know—it hasn’t sunk in. I never thought I would actually tell her, you know?
Thought I’d just go about, watching her with Digby.
Never thought I’d actually tell her and we’d be here.
I built up the fantasy in my head, sure.
But I didn’t plan for it to become reality.
What now? She runs a mile to the police station and that’s my lot?
I take a deep breath, reach for her hand but she snatches it away. “Phoebe, listen to me—”
“I need to go, I think.”
Before I can say anything else, she’s legging it back up the beach and the stone stairs and into the house. I watch as Digby runs after her, tries to pull her back but she fucks him off and carries on inside.
She didn’t really want to marry him, did she? She wouldn’t have come to me if she had. Says it all really—about us. Of course something like this was going to happen. I mean, you’ve been following our story for how many years now? When have things ever been the fairytale we were promised as kids?
We’re the one flame that keeps the room alight while everyone else bathes in the darkness because they’re too scared to light their own.
My heart is beating so fucking fast and all I can smell is the salt coming off the sea everytime a big wave crashes up onto the rocks.
Before, I would’ve dreamed of them taking me clean out, carrying me away with them to wherever they’re off to next but not now, not after all this.
I don’t think I can afford to be carried off anywhere anymore.
That string tying mine and hers hearts pangs, drags me all the way over to her. The others try to stop me, get me to talk but I’m not interested in talking to them. Like usual, when it comes to Phoebs, it’s tunnel vision and she is once again, the promised light at the end of the tunnel.
I knock twice on her bedroom door, she says nothing, no sounds come from inside so I start panicking—what if she’s done something to herself? I barge in, see her sitting on her bed, her back to me.
“Phoebe.”
Lifts her head, looks over at me. Most beautiful face in the world.
I know they gave that title to me but it was misplaced, should’ve been her.
Look into her eyes and something dips in my stomach.
She’s always been mine, always loved me—even if she loves Digby now, she loved me first and she would never love him the same way.
“Arthur,” she clears her throat, licks her top lip. “I really don’t know what to say.”
“I know,” I nod, kneeling on the bed.
I know I probably shouldn’t but I put my arms around her waist and pull her into me, shuffle us both up to the headboard and let her curl up in my lap.
“Did you really?” She whispers after a minute.
“It was an accident.”
“Mansalughter?”
“I guess so, maybe. The stroke killed him, but had he not been there that night, he’d still be alive so—”
“No,” she cuts in, wipes her face, looks up at me. “That’s different, Arthur. If he didn’t have the stroke, he’d still be here.”
“Yeah, but, it was my fault he was in hospital in the first place. He was in a fucking coma for months, Phoebs, all because of me.”
“When did it happen?”
“That night at your party, when I broke my wrist.”
“Oh,” she says softly and then goes quiet.
Maybe she’s right, maybe it wasn’t my fault but it’s also not not my fault?
Like I said, had it not been for Jude and I being complete big headed wankers, he would’ve never been in hospital.
It’s a chain of events that starts and ends with me.
I think people will view this differently.
Some will say it is all my fault, others will blame it on the fact I was high, and a few will think that I played a major part but it isn’t all entirely down to me.
For as long as I live, though, I will always blame myself for taking an innocent life.
The young boy wasn’t like us. He was normal.
On the way back from his girlfriend's before her parents woke up or something—I can’t remember it in full detail but he was coming back from his girlfriends and that’s why he was driving down there.
If he had stayed, taken the hit from her parents, he would’ve been in shit for a couple days, maybe, but alive.
He would have been alive.
His parents couldn’t afford top notch lawyers or to keep him on life support forever. I’ve wanted to give them something but I don’t know what. Money seems superficial. I just want them to know what really happened but I can’t do that without the whole world knowing.
I doubt they’d want to know, anyway. It’d be like Theo’s killers rocking up on our doorstep, offering a half arsed apology. Like, fuck, would we want it, you know?
I think that’s what hurts the most. The fact that I’ve already seen death rip through a family like a tornado.
I know what the sister is going through and what his parents are going through—I’ve witnessed it all first hand.
Only this time, I’m the reason behind it.
I’m the fucking reason why they’re going through the hell I watched my family go through—and still are going through because grief doesn’t have a sell by date—for so many years.
Hates the world for my brother dying but goes out and kills someone. I mean, you couldn’t make it up, could you? Hypocrite of the century, I reckon.
Phoebe stirs on my lap, straddles me, holds my face between her hands. “Who else knows?”
“My dad, Grandad, twins, Sullivan—and Connie, told him last night. Had to.”
She nods. “Now me and no one else.”
I frown, all a bit confused with how she’s taking this. “Do you mean it?”
“Mean what?”
“What you’ve said for so many years—do you actually mean it because Phoebs, that’s—”
Her smile is shaky but it’s there and she nods. “Yeah, Arthur. I mean it. Every word. Always have.”
“Don’t go hating yourself for not hating me though, yeah?”
Her smile stretches, reaches her eyes and she lets out a little laugh. “Arthur, I ran to you because I love you and all I’ve wanted is you. You and the truth, Arthur. That’s it and that’s what I’ve got.”
I hide my smile behind my hand, tilt my head, eyes locked on hers.
“You still want me after that?” I ask her.
She shrugs. “You still want me after finding out all the mental things wrong with me, so?”
“What mental things?”
She smiles again, leans down and presses her lips to mine because this is our dance, isn’t it? Always has been. The steps are familiar, the music is the same and the crowd is non-existent.
And I know, there’s more things that I need to tell her.
The letters, the ring that’s in the pocket of my pants that are now on the floor, the relapse in Scotland but one thing at a time, yeah?
I’m sure there’s things that she hasn’t told me but as of right now, as I come down on top of her, I’m not sure I want to hear them.
There’s a weird atmosphere afterwards. She lays on my chest for only a few minutes before she jumps up, puts her dress back on and touches up her makeup in the mirror.
I sit up, she turns around. “I love you, Arthur.”
“I love you, too—always have, always you.”
She comes over, bends down, kisses my lips.
“But I have to go.”
I grab her wrist as she goes to leave. “You can leave him right now, Phoebs.”
She shakes her head, swallows. “It’s not that easy for me. Maybe for you but not for me.”
And then she walks out, closes the door behind her and I’m left in her bed feeling like this is over—not completely. Never completely. But maybe, I think, this chapter has ended and we’ve turned over the page to start a new one.