Chapter 17
Seventeen
Scarlett
22 Years Old
“Hey!” Kashvi’s voice came over the speakers in Scarlett’s car.
“You’re bringing wine, right? I can’t get through tonight without wine.” Scarlett cut right to the chase, turning on her blinker with an exasperated flick of her hand.
“Yes, I’m bringing wine. What are we trying to forget, exactly, so I know how much to bring?” The best part about having a best friend who worked at a winery was, of course, the freebies. Kashvi was Scarlett’s own personal Jesus, turning everything to wine the second she needed it. The winery was just a stepping stone on Kashvi’s path to art curation, but Mallory Winery had already let her choose all the art hanging up on the walls of their brand-new tasting room, so she was well on her way to building enough connections to land the perfect job.
“Let’s see… you already know that Colin is back.” The deep sigh Scarlett let out was a poor attempt at relaxing. “I also just dumped Braiden, and he looked like a lost puppy when I set him loose, so that was fun.”
“Oh, dear.” Kashvi sighed. “So, out of those two things… I’m going to assume that Braiden isn’t the root cause of your desire to drink.”
“Yes, he is—or, it’s more that he might have mentioned that he found something in my nightstand a while back that I should have gotten rid of forever ago, and he brought it up when I was dumping him.” She was treading very carefully, avoiding what the actual object was.
On cue, Kashvi asked, “And that thing is?”
“I should have burned it or something. I got out a lighter today to do just that, then I started thinking about how I could potentially catch fire to my apartment and the apartments above the studio, and I’d burn that down, too. Then I thought, well, maybe that’s a good thing, and I’ll get introduced to a hot firefighter in suspenders who knows his way around the female body. Then I thought that sounded more like a stripper, and the thought of dating a stripper who would know what they’re doing was intriguing. But then I remembered that Braiden is a firefighter, and what if he was on shift when I burned down my apartment, then that would be mortifying, and?—”
“I’m going to commit a crime if you don’t tell me what was in your nightstand right this second,” Kashvi scolded. Scarlett turned the steering wheel, pointing it left as she turned onto her sister’s street.
“It’s too embarrassing, and you’re going to be mad I kept it.”
“Tell me anyway,” Kashvi demanded.
“I…” Scarlett cringed. “It’s the book Colin lent to me. It has all his handwritten sticky notes in it.”
The audible gasp on the other line wasn’t surprising at all. “Scarlett Eliza Wallace!”
“I know, I know. You don’t have to tell me,” Scarlett groaned.
“Well, I guess it’s good you got rid of it now, at least,” Kashvi said.
The problem with that, however, was that the book was still very much in her nightstand, right beside the first tiny vibrator Colin had ever bought her, which, again, was an insane thing to hold on to, but came in handy after a lackluster lay. The book, however, should have zero use for her now that she had gleaned all the information she could from it, so she wasn’t sure why she hadn’t tossed it and let the past rest solely in the past.
“Um… yeah,” Scarlett said, hoping her hesitation to lie didn’t show.
“You didn’t get rid of it, did you?” Kashvi’s tone made Scarlett curl in on herself as much as she could, her seatbelt smashing against her breasts.
“No,” she admitted. “I didn’t get rid of it.”
“Why? Are you still in love with him?” Kashvi’s voice was calmer now, like she was trying to soothe an irate customer in the winery tasting room. “Do you still not know where to find the clitoris?”
“No! I mean yes, I do know,” Scarlett groaned. “I just… it was a part of my life, and even though it ended really, really badly, the memories are mostly good.” It was only true in part, because she was pretty sure, after trying and failing to love other men, that Colin Hartrick would forever own a piece of her heart. His piece was battered and bruised, but it still beat in her chest. She had always neglected to tell anyone that, including Kashvi or Harper, for fear of looking pathetic. Now, she actually was pathetic. It couldn’t be normal to hold on to a love you had when you were that young and naive. She was old enough now to clearly see what she should be able to do—forget about Colin and move on—but pushing all the pain and love to the back of her mind didn’t mean it didn’t exist, it meant that she could cope. She could even be happy. The world kept on spinning, and she was a part of the land of the living, no matter how damaged she was. She made something of herself without relying on Colin to turn her world on its axis. She didn’t need him to tell her who she was anymore. Maybe the footprints she left behind on the world wouldn’t be as deep as those of someone like her brother, but hers didn’t need to last forever to make change.
All her accomplishments were born after Colin left. All her accomplishments were achieved with a broken heart. Sometimes her own broken heart was the very fuel she needed to keep going out of sheer will and spite.
“I want to keep it because it’s a reminder of how far I’ve come. How different I am now from the person who thought her world began and ended with Colin Hartrick,” Scarlett said. “I don’t need him to feel special anymore.”
“Because you are fucking special,” Kashvi declared.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Scarlett laughed and peered out the window as she pulled up to the curb outside her sister’s house. “I’ll see you in a bit? I’m a little early, but I couldn’t stay in my studio anymore. I’m already at Harper’s.” What she should have been doing was finishing her brother’s painting for the gala, but after staring at the still-blank canvas for twenty minutes, she couldn’t stomach the thought of it anymore. There were still several months to work on it, but all her brain wanted to do lately was hyperfixate on the fact that she couldn’t even start it.
“It’ll just be you, me, and Harper on the drunk train tonight. Saanvi’s too busy growing a human in her stomach again,” Kashvi said. “I’ll be there with enough wine to knock out a horse!”
“Blessings upon your family.” Scarlett giggled.
After saying goodbye, Scarlett unbuckled and pulled the carefully plated deviled eggs from the passenger seat before walking them up to Harper’s front door. Harper never minded when she showed up early for girls’ night. It was commonplace for either of them to barge into the other’s home unannounced, so Scarlett didn’t bother knocking before opening the door and slipping inside, wandering to the kitchen to set the deviled eggs in the fridge.
Scarlett only made it one foot into the kitchen before being assaulted by the scene of her sister sitting on her countertop half-naked with her husband’s tongue down her throat and his pants around his ankles.
The screech Scarlett let out before she whipped around to bolt toward the nearest exit must have broken up the canoodling because she didn’t make it all the way to the door before Harper appeared behind her with her dress pulled back over her body. “What the hell , Letti?”
“I’m only an hour early!” Scarlett shouted back over her shoulder, re-covering her eyes with her hands as if that could solve her problem after the fact. She caught a glimpse of her brother-in-law Marcos’ hair through the slit in her fingers and pressed her hand over her eyes harder in case he wasn’t decent.
“That’s too early!’ Harper yelled back.
“Clearly,” Scarlett huffed out sarcastically.
“Stop being dramatic. You can put your hand down. We’re both clothed now. You killed the mood.”
Scarlett obeyed, slowly dropping her hand to her side and squinting open her eyes. Marcos was cringing and pointedly avoiding eye contact, which made two of them. Harper, however, looked pissed. They did not look nearly done when she had walked in on them, so that was probably why. “I can leave? Yep. I’m gonna leave.”
“I think I’m going to leave, actually.” Marcos raised his hand, and his eyes darted to the door.
“Oh, no.” Scarlett shook her head. “You don’t need to?—”
“I was just dropping off dinner for all of you. I’m going to go back to the restaurant to prep some stuff for tomorrow. I just got… distracted.” He winced.
“Both of you need to take a Xanax.” Harper rolled her eyes. “This is payback for the time I walked in on you and Colin in the shower. It’s forever burned into my memory.”
Scarlett’s face turned beet red, and she looked down at her feet like she was an eighteen-year-old being reprimanded by her older sister again. “We weren’t even doing anything,” she whined. “We technically couldn’t do anything because of all the cream!”
“Yep. I’m out. I don’t even kind of want to know what that means.” Marcos marched toward the door and flipped his keys around on his finger. With a small smirk, he looked back over his shoulder at his wife. “First my brother, now your sister? You really need to stop seducing me out in the open where we could get caught.”
“Oh, I seduced you, did I?” Harper cackled. “You’re the one who knew I didn’t want to cook tonight and cooked all this extra food so I didn’t have to. That’s practically begging for it.”
The grin that stretched over Marcos’ face made him look like a twitterpated teenage boy. “I don’t usually do the begging, mi amor.” Scarlett let out a groan of disgust, and his eyes shot over to her with a grimace. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. She should have called me before showing up this early,” Harper said in a mock chipper tone. “We’ll finish this later?”
“So you’re not going to get absolutely plastered with your friends and stay up way too late eating junk food and watching telenovelas?” Marcos’ eyebrows rose. Lucia, Marcos’ mother, had turned their girl group on to telenovelas forever ago. The intense drama had them hooked.
“Tomorrow,” Harper corrected herself. “We’ll finish this tomorrow.”
“I will not be here,” Scarlett nervously stated.
“I’ll make you all breakfast when you inevitably fall asleep on the couch.” Marcos laughed. Harper crossed the distance between them and sidled up to his right, affection written so thoroughly on her face that Scarlett’s heart dropped in her chest a bit—a small pang of sadness and pity for herself. She didn’t enjoy walking in on her sister and brother-in-law, but she loved them both. They were practically made for each other’s own little happy bubble. Marcos grinned down at Harper and pressed a not-quite-chaste kiss against her lips. “Te amo.”
“I love you, too.”
Still clutching her deviled eggs, Scarlett decided to give them a bit of space and darted toward the kitchen. She avoided the stretch of counter that Harper had been indecently sitting on and quickly shoved the eggs into the refrigerator. It wasn’t the first time she had second-guessed the hors d’oeuvres she’d brought. The second her sister was out of her lovey-dovey haze, she would notice why Scarlett had showed up early.
“You brought dressed and depressed eggs,” Harper said from the arched entrance to the kitchen the moment Scarlett shut the fridge.
“You should probably Clorox-wipe the counter, you filthy animal,” Scarlett diverted the conversation.
“Marcos already did. He wants to be a chef. You think he’s not anal about the kitchen being clean?” Harper asked. “What’s wrong, Letti? Is it Colin?”
The fact that everyone immediately assumed her temperament had to do with Colin was almost a slap in the face. “Does my mood have to be caused by a man?” Scarlett grumbled.
“Not any man,” Harper corrected. “Just Colin. I doubt Braiden could evoke this kind of emotion. He can’t even make you come.”
They held each other’s gaze for a few long seconds before Scarlett finally gave up. “I broke up with Braiden.” Harper gave no indication she was going to speak and just waited for Scarlett to continue. “And I think it’s because he never made me feel the same way Colin did.” She hadn’t admitted this to herself or even to Kashvi, but now that she was saying it aloud, it sounded like the truest thing she had said all day.
“Which was what? Heartbroken?”
“Can you hold your judgment for two seconds? I didn’t say I wanted him back.” Her sister was never going to understand. There was nothing like the unique way she and Colin had been. No one had made her heart race the way he did since, but there had to be someone out there she could love who would make her feel all the things he had. There had to be someone who could do all that and follow it up by not dumping her and leaving her in ruin.
“I’m not judging you for breaking up with Braiden. He was not right for you. But I don’t think it’s healthy to compare everyone to your ex.” Harper sat down at the island, and Scarlett followed, taking the stool beside her.
“Why not? Why is it wrong to want someone who notices me? Who cares about what I’m thinking? Who is intentional and honest when they talk to me?” Scarlett heaved out a long breath. “I just want to be myself and for someone to want the chaotic stories I tell, and dear God, I want someone to be good in bed because they asked me what I wanted.”
“You can want all those things as long as you know that if Colin really did all those things, then he wouldn’t have hurt you the way he did,” Harper said.
“Sure. Maybe it was all one big lie to him considering how he left, but on my side, it wasn’t. I felt everything.” It was punctuated with a pointer finger against the island countertop, the cold granite seeping its way under Scarlett’s skin. “I don’t know when or how it changed for him—or if he ever really felt the same, but maybe I can find someone who actually loves me the way I thought he did. I don’t want mediocre. Colin is my only frame of reference for that, so yes, it’s maybe not healthy to compare everything to him, but I don’t know how to separate the two, okay? It’s not something I can turn off, so I’m just going to use it to my advantage.”
“Hey,” Harper reached her hand up and wiped at a tear, and Scarlett blinked back her confusion, only then realizing that she had started crying. “Anyone would be lucky to have all of those things with you. I want for you what I have.”
“You seemed really happy banging on the counter and scarring me for life.” A sniff and a small laugh reeled her back from her breakdown a bit.
“I am. On the counter and otherwise. But it’s not just happiness, it’s… safety.” Harper smiled softly and wiped at Scarlett’s face again before Scarlett waved her off.
“I’ll find someone who makes me feel safe.” The unspoken thought in her mind was that safety was yet another thing that Colin had redefined and then destroyed before she got a real chance to grasp it. “Someone who won’t leave like Dad.”
“At least Dad still sends you flowers on Tucker’s birthday. How’s it feel to be the chosen one?” Harper teased.
“I really don’t know why he only sends them to me. Maybe he thinks I’ll split them up between you and Mom or something because he’s too cheap to get three bouquets? Or he feels the most guilty about leaving me because I was younger? I don’t know. It’s not like he’s dying to speak to me, or he would.” Every year since Scarlett graduated high school, it was always the same: white roses in a glass vase from Sophia’s Flower Shop on Main, delivered by the shop, not her dad. She kept wanting to reject them on behalf of Harper and her mom, but it was also the only nice thing her father had done for her in forever, so she always complained to Harper and then guiltily kept them. The only reason she knew who they were from was because the first year he sent them, the card he had attached to it was Tucker’s old catchphrase that was an old quote their dad often said: ‘a great soul never dies . ’ She thought Tucker had clung to that statement to relieve himself of the fear of dying. Now the statement felt like her dad’s best excuse for leaving, and it was a piss-poor one. He must have decided against the quote in later years because from the first bouquet on, he never left a card that said anything other than For Tucker. It took her a while to notice that the number of white roses always equaled the age Tucker would be if he were still alive. Her brother was the only person she had forgiven for leaving her. “Anyway, if a man could just actually love me, not leave, and?—”
“Not suggest the use of lidocaine cream?” Harper said with a laugh.
“To be fair, I think Colin has permanently crossed that off his list. Or maybe he tried it again with someone competent enough to use it.” The end of the sentence soured in her mouth, but she tried to school her features so her sister wouldn’t notice her distaste for that idea. Surely Colin had had other women by now and it shouldn’t be such a shock to her senses to think about, but the thought made her inconceivably pissed off. The same guy who had promised her forever was probably promising the same thing to every other girl he had dated. Life was just one giant experiment for him, and it didn’t matter how many people he hurt while he hypothesized.