Chapter 83
Davian
Bucket List
Neptune
Sleeping At Least
Leaning against the sand-colored mantelpiece in my study, I turned the paper crane in my hands.
After Tony and Monica had left, I had retreated here and written thirteen pages.
I didn’t want to give the child a name, but I was slowly but surely realizing that what I’d been piecing together for the past few days was the sequel to Batteries of Ink.
It wasn’t until my jaw started to ache that I realized how tense I was.
Taking a deep breath, I tried to think of something that might bring me peace, and the first things that appeared in my mind’s eye were freckles, petal lips, and crystal eyes.
Until a few minutes ago, I had been watching Quill sleep, and the image of her snuggling up to the navy plush bunny I had given her brought a soft smile to my face.
Two rooms away lay the only soul who had ever managed to reach mine. And here I sat, the fool that I was, living off the ink she poured into my broken battery with every smile, every kiss, every word, and every tear, and yet I resisted making her a permanent part of my life.
I should stop writing, let all these lines turn into ashes in my fireplace, for they were the first step toward chaos. Another step toward her.
I rose to my feet and set the paper crane down on the desk. One of three. The other ten pages had actually made it into the folder containing the first draft.
My keychain charm caught my eye as I sat down, and I reached for it instinctively.
She had actually driven me back to writing. And I didn’t want to stop.
Was I on the verge of losing my mind? Would I explode before I even managed to complete that addictive breath?
Unfortunately, it didn’t help to shift my gaze instead to the letter I had found in the mailbox this morning. It was from a law firm in Seattle.
That very evening, the same day I had left Arnold at the professors’ lounge, I had contacted numerous law firms on the East Coast. D.C.
, Boston, Philadelphia, New York… I hadn’t intended to come across an ad from a former fellow student who had opened his own firm in Washington.
A rising one, which seemed to be very well-known on the West Coast.
In my delirium, I had called him, too.
This was the first response I had received at all.
I would actually be leaving Maplecrest.
There should be fear in my chest. Fear of leaving behind something I had built up over the years, and trading this stable life for something new and unknown, perhaps even moving far away from here. To the damn West Coast…
No. I couldn’t leave Lara here alone.
Panic overcame me and I tore up the letter before throwing it in the trash.
This was ridiculous. What had I been thinking?
I still hadn’t spoken to her, didn’t know what to say to her.
She knew from Quill what I had planned to do with that damn gun. What must she be thinking…
I raked my hands through my hair, ran both hands over my face, not sure what my next steps would be.
I didn’t want to stay in Maplecrest. Quill had been right from the start. I had to get out of here. Because here, I wouldn’t be able to take a deep breath without my past and the people here continuing to choke the life out of me.
But Monica, Tony, Lara… Quill.
I would love to take her with me, wherever I would go. But that wasn’t possible. And she seemed to know it, too.
We couldn’t maintain a secret relationship in isolation from everyone else and pretend to my daughter and her brother.
But the longer I thought about it, the more pathetic I felt.
What if that was exactly the solution? What if they never had to find out?
The thought of having to hide her from the people who meant something to me, of leaving her alone on holidays just to maintain a facade, of hiding personal belongings, photos, and wedding rings, made my face contort.
Despair gnawed at every pore of my being.
Wedding rings…
God, what was I even thinking?
Quill deserved someone who could give her what young women her age dreamed of. A wedding in a snow-white princess dress – in which she would undoubtedly look breathtaking – with the whole family present, a big house, baby showers with her best friends, children…
I didn’t want to bring another child into such a world, didn’t want to bear responsibility for another fragile paper soul who would depend on my reason and my protection, didn’t want a family house anymore, because it was a hell of a lot of work to maintain and robbed me of my flexibility…
I wouldn’t be limiting just Quill. If Lara ever found out what I had done, that I had betrayed her like that, Quill would lose her only friend. A person who had kept her going when I hadn’t yet had the chance to be there for her.
There was no question that Tony would want to kill me, that he wouldn’t understand, that I would be ruining a long-standing friendship.
But Lara? She was my baby girl. If I lost her, what had I lived for the past two decades? She would hate me until the end of my days…
Moment
Sean Biopcik
My vision went blurry, and I leaned back in my chair, taking a deep breath.
Every last living, desperate part of me wanted Quill.
Damn it, how was I even supposed to keep breathing if she moved away? How did you breathe when the only lifeboat in an endless ocean sailed away and you had to let it go, slipping back into the water, knowing your arms were too weak to keep swimming?
I didn’t want to swim anymore. I couldn’t anymore.
I needed her. The refuge of my exhausted heart.
Like every night before bed, I pulled the bound and annotated edition of Batteries of Ink out of the drawer, opened the first page, where the bucket list Quill had made for me stared back at me.
Only now did I realize that she had managed to get me to subconsciously start doing origami again.
With a quiet snort, I stared at the paper crane.
The power this woman had over me…
This bucket list was supposed to scare me. But there was only one thing. Eagerness. I wanted to make her proud, wanted to show her in ten years that I had worked through this bucket list for her.
Ten years.
The tears came unexpectedly quickly, making their way down my cheeks, and I rubbed my face with a racing heart.
“I can’t…”
Shaking my head, I slammed the book shut.
This was crazy, but I couldn’t let her go.
Without Quill, I would have neither Tony nor Lara. I would have nothing left. I wouldn’t even be here anymore. All the obstacles that stood between me and her? A goddamn privilege, because all of that was better than nothing. Better than the life I had lived before I had finally found her.
Frantically, I opened my PC’s browser, went to the Maplecrest Reader Forum, and, with trembling fingers, created a new profile before I typed my first message under a new username.
My fingers hovered over the Enter key, and it felt as though time had stopped as I read over and over what I had typed.
My nervousness erupted in every cell of my body, as if someone had filled my entire body with explosives.
This was crazy. Quill was driving me insane.
I had never lived more than I did with her.
Before reason could take over, I let my finger dart down.
Sent.
Atrianima: There will be a second book.
For every paper crane I fold,
there’s a story to be told.
But who am I to tell a word?
Just a boy with a paper bird.
– Leaking Batteries Diary