Chapter 35
“Honey, have you been smoking crack?” Viv croaked down the phone. “Why would you go to dinner with him?”
I tossed my keys into the bowl. “Because in a tequila-induced cloud, I’d texted him and asked him.”
“Then you get a new phone, not go on a date with the guy who tossed your shit into the street,” she reprimanded.
I threw myself onto the bed. “Relax, Viv, we’re not in a relationship.”
“Then what are you doing?” she challenged. “You need to be getting yourself together career-wise, not toying with your ex. There’s a journalist out there with your face on her dartboard, Clarissa’s terrorizing the city, and what about Jack? Are you just going to give up on the first guy who challenges you?”
“Fuck the journalist and Clarissa. As for Jack, he hasn’t texted or called since I left his office, so fuck him too.” I unbuttoned my jeans and shimmied out of them. “Maybe I should settle down, consider having a kid.”
“Is Denzel holding a gun to your head?”
“He’s not here.” The jeans missed the washing basket, but I didn’t care. “Look where all my effort got me, Viv. Pointless. I lost everything.”
“That doesn’t mean you give up and turn into the person you never wanted to be. And especially not with him.”
“He’s not that bad,” I said. Aside from not remembering I couldn’t eat any type of seeded bagels without running to the bathroom or my sister’s name. He’d called Hailey Hannah twice before I’d corrected him.
“Yes, he is, Scarlett. He tried to force you to have kids. He made you feel guilty about the choice you made for your own body.” She repeated back words I’d spoken verbatim.
“Look, I’m an adult, and I can make my own decisions,” I snapped.
“I think you’re being an idiot.”
“I think you’re interfering.”
“It’s your life.”
“You’re right. It is.” I hung up, clutched the phone to my chest, and burst into tears.
Viv was right. I had no idea what I was doing. Or what I wanted.
Well, I did. But he didn’t want me.
The next day, I would go to see Hailey. Whether she wanted to see me or not, I needed my sister.
* * *
Hailey’s split-level ranch was painted sage green with a yellow door. It had been white when they’d bought it fifteen years ago, after they got married. We both adored color—our one common trait.
I scanned the quiet tree-lined cul-de-sac. Maybe I should move out of the city and buy something here. Get a husband to build me a rainbow picket fence to stop the banshees—sorry, kids—from running into the street.
My sister raved about the area all the time, and she seemed happy enough. We could drop in for coffee, and I could make it to my nephew’s ball games at the local middle school.
I clanked the bee-shaped door knocker and waited. She’d make me join the PTA. No, that was too far.
As I prepared to knock a second time, Hailey opened the door. “Oh, I thought you were the Amazon delivery.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
When we weren’t fighting, Hailey always pulled me into the house and through to the kitchen to feed me cookies. I could see from her pursed lips that I’d be going home hungry this time. “What are you doing here?”
“Returning your pop-up visit,” I quipped, trying to keep my voice even.
She folded her arms and leaned against the door frame. “Thought you’d be too busy for that.”
“I’m sorry,” I beseeched. “For ignoring you. I’ve been a complete bitch, and I love you, and I can’t lose any more family. I just can’t—” Here it comes. “Please don’t leave.”
“I’m not going to leave you.” Hailey reached for me, hands stroking my hair as we both cried on her doorstep in the suburbs. “What’s going on?”
I buried my face in her cardigan. “Mr. Anderson died.”
She pulled back and looked into my eyes. “Who?”
“Denzel’s neighbor. He was old. We had brunch every Sunday when I was with Denzel, and after we split, I promised I’d arrange one.” I sniffed. “But I never did.”
Hailey pulled me back in. “Because of work?”
“They found him in his apartment—alone. He made me his emergency contact, and I had to turn off his life support, Hails.” My voice wavered. “I don’t want to have a neighbor as an emergency contact.”
“This whole ‘walking away before the other person does’ needs to stop, Scarlett.” She took me by the arm and led me into the country-style kitchen, then placed me at the breakfast bar and opened a fresh Tupperware box of chocolate-chip cookies. “Because if you keep pushing everyone away, that’s what happens. You die alone. Why do you think I lost it with you? We want to be in your life, not on the sidelines. Your nephews are counting on you sneaking beer to them when they turn eighteen.”
I bit into a cookie and all was right with the world for a few seconds. “Eighteen? I thought maybe sixteen.”
Hailey poured us both a glass of milk and sat across from me, selecting a bigger cookie. “I was about to forgive you for being an ignorant jerk, but I’ve changed my mind.”
I wiped a crumb from the corner of my lip and gave her the sad eyes. “Please forgive me for being an ignorant jerk. It will never happen again, and as soon as my nephews are almost legal, I will buy them beer and clean up their vomit so that you don’t find out.”
“I hate when you do the eyes.” She screwed her face up, trying not to laugh. “All right, I forgive you, and I’m sorry for what I said.”
We high-fived over the counter, and a little piece of my world went back to normal.
Hailey snapped her cookie in half. “What about the guy you were seeing? From the sounds of it, he could have been emergency contact potential.”
“That’s over.” I choked down another bite.
“Did it have anything to do with that article Viv emailed me?” She smirked. “He believed it?”
I should have known. “You and Viv are no longer allowed to communicate.”
“Pick up your phone then.” Hailey polished off her cookie. “If he thinks that’s the type of person you are, then he can go to hell, Scarlett. Better to be alone than with someone who thinks you have no integrity.”
My head dropped onto the granite counter. “He does though. It’s just a big misunderstanding mixed with my spoiled co-worker who happens to be his ex and wants to snuff me out like a candle. The whole situation is a messy soup of shit.” Every breath I took made me feel like I was a breath away from the last time we were together. I ached in places I never knew I could feel.
She slurped her milk in the way that had driven me nuts when we were kids. “You love him, don’t you?”
A grumble rolled through my stomach—the sign of an impending IBS attack. Hailey didn’t even gag at the smell anymore; she kept a sick bowl for me labeled SCARLETT’S VOMIT under the kitchen sink. “Yes. But he doesn’t love me.”
“Did he tell you that?”
A wave of pain rushed through my bowels. “No, but he saw Denzel leaving my apartment and got the wrong idea, so that combined with the article’s pretty much finished it.”
“I always had a soft spot for Denzel,” she commented, pulling some dead petals from the vase of tulips on the windowsill.
“You’ll be pleased to know I’m seeing him later then,” I admitted.
She stopped plucking. “For a date?”
“Fuck knows.” This time my stomach thunder-clapped, a one-minute warning, and Hailey moved to open the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink. “Between all the work stuff and Jack and organizing a funeral, I can’t pull my brain and my heart together. Can’t you just tell me what to do?”
“Be happy?” Hailey asked, passing me the sick bowl.
* * *
“How is Hannah?” Denzel threw an arm around my shoulder.
“Her name’s Hailey,” I corrected. “And she’s fine. We made up.”
“You don’t look happy about it,” he commented. “Tell you what, I’ll run out and get you a Starbucks. That always puts a smile on your face.”
Yes, it did. Okay, he couldn’t remember my sister’s name, but he was thoughtful. “Thanks, that would be great. How about takeout later?”
“Aw, babe, I can’t. Late practice. But I could come over after?”
“That’s fine. Not like I’m getting up for work at 5 a.m.” God, I missed that early-morning rush. How pathetic would it be to dress for work then sit on the couch and eat more Oreos?
Denzel jumped up. “Be right back.”
I waited until he slammed the door before pounding a cushion. I missed Jack so much that the ache felt never-ending.
To distract myself, I flipped open TikTok, my new obsession since I had nothing else to do but wallow. Watching people ram fifty hotdogs down their throats and lip-sync to Taylor Swift had proved more entertaining than I’d expected.
Swipe, swipe, cute dog barking, swipe, girls applying makeup, girl in bikini in a hotel room, pause. I knew that hotel room. Denzel had taken me there for our six-month anniversary. What was it called again? I looked at her captions to see if she’d mentioned it. Maybe we could go there again, and I could try to reignite the small spark I’d felt with him in the first place.
Then I noticed the backpack on the bed. The initials D.B. were stitched on the front.
I’d have known that bag anywhere because I bought it for Denzel as a birthday present. He’d complained he needed new travel luggage, and I’d seized the opportunity.
Why was his bag behind a rhythmless girl shaking it to Shakira in a hotel room? “When he treats you real good,” the text overlay read at the top of the video. I clicked on her account and scrolled until I found the video. It had been posted three months ago.
We’d been together three months ago. That motherfucker. I typed a comment on the video and prayed she’d respond before he got back. “Cool bag. Where can I get it?”
I stomped over to the window so I could watch for his return, my eyes flicking between the sidewalk and my phone. A red dot showed a reply from her. “My BF’s ex bought him it; I can ask if you want?”
Fucking fucker.
The whole time he’d bitched about having kids with me he’d been creeping off to bang someone else. Maybe she wasn’t the first. All those nights he’d complained about me not coming over, had he just been saying that?
Oh my God, imagine if I’d listened to him and gotten pregnant. I grabbed a throw pillow and squeezed it, picturing Denzel’s neck. In that moment, I didn’t feel devastated or even a tiny bit sad. Blind rage spread to every nerve ending at the boldness of him, the audacity to push me on something I didn’t want when he was fucking somebody else. My instinct to walk away from him the first time had been right, and just like then, Denzel Leonard didn’t deserve a drop of H?O from my eyes.
Through the window, I saw him walking back, and I made for the hall closet where I’d stored his stuff. He’d forgotten to take it that night he’d come round to pick it up. He’d been too busy playing the concerned ex to worry about his suits.
Which worked out. For me.
I hauled the bag upstairs to the patio and waited for him to shout that he was back.
“Up here,” I yelled down. “Let’s sit outside since it’s so nice.”
He appeared with a cup holder containing two Grande coffees. “Hey, babe, what are you doing?”
I held a Hugo Boss suit jacket over the edge. “Who’s Sheree?”
The cup holder wavered in his hand. “I dunno. Who is she?”
“The girl you took to the same hotel you took me to for our anniversary. Three months ago. I checked the dates. You told me you were doing an out-of-town training camp.” I dropped the jacket.
“Scar, what the fuck? I told you I don’t know any Sheree. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but it’s not true.” He put the cup holder down and edged toward me. Unlike me, Denzel cared about his designer clothes. And his looks. A vain, rich asshole who clicked at waiters.
The matching trousers were next. “Your girlfriend gave it away on her TikTok, you piece of shit.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend, Scar. I love you,” he cajoled.
I threw the trousers over, and he winced. “Goddammit, Scar, that suit cost two thousand bucks.”
“Well go and collect your clothes the same way I had to,” I sneered, pulling out my phone and showing him the screen. “Now at least be a man and admit it.”
His lips parted. “Babe, that’s a… a… It’s not?—”
I pocketed my phone, lifted the trash bag, and dumped out the contents: two Tom Ford suits, an Armani, and a Hugo Boss. Someone on the sidewalk was going to get a pleasant surprise.
“Scar.” He tried to move closer again. “We can get pa?—”
My jaw set. “I hate the name Scar, my sister’s name is Hailey, and I can’t eat mayonnaise or seeded bagels. Now get the fuck out of my apartment and don’t come back.”
Tail between his legs, he skulked off downstairs and slammed the front door. I pulled my coffee from the holder and sat down in the seat Jack had always chosen when he’d been here.
Thank God for TikTok. Otherwise, I could have ended up saddled with a cheating narcissist for the rest of my life. All because I didn’t want to be alone.
I thought about the brownstone, the promotion, and the commission. A whole hamster wheel of issues. I’d pursued all the things that were meant to make me feel successful, and they’d done nothing but make me miserable.
Except for Jack. The single good thing to come out of all this. A guy who’d held up a mirror and shown me it was okay to be me. In his eyes, I knew I would always have been enough.
But my ambition had ruined everything. That need to be the best. To prove something to a mother I hadn’t seen in over thirty years.
If I’d been honest from the start, maybe none of this would have happened. Or maybe it would have, but at least I’d know I tried.
Except I hadn’t tried everything. Yet.