Chapter 43 #3
"Seven-year-olds aren't supposed to know what suicide is," I tell her, my voice steady despite the weight of the words.
"But I walked into my granddad's pool fully clothed, just kept walking until my head went under.
Rosa spotted me from the kitchen window.
Everyone kept asking how a kid who'd been swimming since three and surfing since four could suddenly drown.
After that, Granddad found this child psychologist. Three sessions a week, ten years straight.
Can't say if it fixed everything, but...
" I shrug, attempting a smile. "I'm still breathing, so I guess something stuck. "
“Oh, Max,” she says, her eyes shining. “I’m so sorry.”
I hold up a hand. "It's fine. Well, not fine—it's never going to be fine.
Sometimes I think if I could just erase myself from the equation, maybe our family would still be together.
Whole. But that's not exactly how the universe works, is it?
Can't exactly pull a Superman and reverse time by flying around the Earth, so... " I trail off with a shrug.
The corners of her mouth lift, but her eyes remain heavy.
"Looks like we're both members of the same club, then.
The one where we'd give anything to rewrite history or slip sideways into some world where certain things never happened.
" But then she puts her hand on mine. She reaches for my hand across the table.
“But in your fantasy, you erase yourself.
I just want you to know—I wouldn't erase you for anything. "
I shrug. "Well, that's something."
She nods. “And about my mom. There's a new immunotherapy treatment. Promising results in the trials. But her insurance won't touch experimental treatments, so..."
"Fight them," I say. "Appeal their decision."
She laughs, but it's hollow. "Oh, you sweet summer child.
" Her eyes meet mine, tired but somehow still fierce.
"Must be nice living in your tax bracket.
Where medical care is just another luxury purchase.
For the rest of us? It's a full-time job battling insurance companies over basic coverage they're contractually obligated to provide.
My mom spent three hours on hold last week just to get them to approve her regular medication.
This new treatment?" She gestures vaguely toward the ceiling.
"Might as well be asking them to cover a trip to Mars. "
I shake my head, suddenly aware of the invisible safety net I've always had beneath me.
She's right. While her family debates whether they can afford life-saving treatment, I've never once checked a price tag on healthcare.
One phone call from my family would have specialists flying in from Johns Hopkins or UCLA.
Cancer for me wouldn't mean GoFundMe campaigns—it would mean a private suite at Mayo Clinic by morning.
The language of insurance denials and payment plans might as well be Swahili to me.
“Let’s change the subject,” she says, scooping up the last streak of tomato sauce with her garlic bread before popping it into her mouth. "And Max. There's something I've been wondering."
My shoulders tense slightly. "Shoot."
"What's in this for you?" She waves a hand between us, her wedding ring catching the light. "I mean, my reasons are pretty clear. But yours?"
The question lodges itself under my skin.
I stare at the empty wine glass between us, suddenly aware of the ticking clock hanging over our arrangement.
Twelve months. $250,000 for her. For me, just long enough to secure the Dreamscape merger and my position as CEO—a position they can't take away without cause. Once that's done...
I look at her face, the same face I've started searching for first thing every morning, and feel the uncomfortable collision of my growing feelings and my exit strategy. When the year is up, I'll still walk away. This isn't a real marriage.
It can't be.
I take a deep breath. "My grandfather blackmailed me into marrying you," I confess, watching her face carefully.
"He threatened to turn the major shareholders against me—people who control more than half the board votes—if I didn't go through with it.
" I then explain everything in more detail, telling her exactly how it all went down.
Celeste's expression remains neutral as she absorbs my words. No anger flashes across her features, no hurt dims her eyes. She simply nods once, then shrugs.
"Well, that explains it," she says. "Let's tackle these dishes."
Side by side at the sink, we fall into an unexpected rhythm.
I load the dishwasher while she scrubs pans, humming softly to the music from her playlist filling the kitchen.
Rosa won't be back until tomorrow—she's in Temecula visiting a friend, a fact I learned when I texted her earlier about giving Celeste and me some privacy.
The wine glasses gleam under my careful attention with the electric brushes, and I find myself enjoying this simple shared task more than I'd ever imagined possible.
Then first notes of "God Only Knows" drift from Celeste's playlist, and my chest tightens.
This song. The Beach Boys' gentle harmonies that played in the background of every home movie my dad shot of my mom.
The same melody that filled my grandfather's house that summer afternoon when my father walked out during the donor party.
I can still see the French doors swinging shut behind him, the needle skipping on the record player.
The last notes I heard before everything changed—before I knew what it meant to lose someone.
I push back my chair, the legs scraping against the terra cotta tiles, and extend my hand palm-up toward Celeste.
Her eyes meet mine—those damn blue eyes that knocked me sideways the first time I saw them—and a smile spreads across her face as understanding dawns.
She slips her fingers into mine, warm and delicate, and rises from her seat with that grace she doesn't even know she has.
The kitchen fills with our improvised waltz, our sock-clad feet gliding between island and refrigerator.
Her sundress—one of the ones I bought for her—twirls as I spin her beneath the pendant lights, casting honey-gold shadows across her laughing face and making her look like something I don't deserve.
Damn. I could get used to this.
For a full hour, we sway together, moving through Celeste's playlist as it fills the kitchen and dining room.
The music she's chosen tonight wraps around us—all slow tempos and dreamy melodies, perfect for two bodies finding rhythm together.
Tori Amos's haunting piano on "Winter." Taylor Swift's confessional whisper in "Slut.
" The Weeknd's falsetto climbing through "D.D.
" Then I hear the first notes of "Baby I'm Yours," the Arctic Monkeys cover that played during our first dance at that mockery of a wedding.
I catch her eye, silently asking if this was coincidence or choice.
The pink that climbs her cheeks answers before she can. She remembers too.
Celeste clears her throat. "Rosa's not here at all tonight?"
She's changing the subject. I know she caught my reaction to the song, but I decide not to push it.
"Visiting a friend from way back," I tell her, checking my phone. "Got her text earlier." I lift one shoulder in a half-shrug. "Rosa makes her own schedule. She's family first, employee second."
I press my lips to hers, then sweep her into my arms and through the doorway of our bedroom.
Hours pass in a blur of tangled sheets and whispered confessions, and when morning light filters through the curtains, I find myself reaching for her again.
She's becoming my compass, my true north—a revelation that would have terrified me before.
Now, I welcome it.