Chapter 7 Indie
Indie
Zombie - YUNGBLUD
Present day
My eyes squeeze shut, my pulse drumming to a dangerous beat before I open them to stare aimlessly at the TV, each blink battling to force the memory away.
I either dream of that moment in my sleep, or I’m blinded with it as a flashback.
In all honesty, I relive them all, the good and the bad.
Tortured by a life I once knew.
It causes my phone to burn beside me, the familiar itch trickling under my skin.
It’s been six years.
Two thousand, one hundred and ninety-two days since I last heard his voice in person.
Saint is forever etched in my heart.
Weaved so deeply into its threads that to unpick them would be to unravel the last part of me that survived.
I pushed him away when the darkness took over and now have to live with regret for the rest of my life. I often find myself imagining how different life would have been if I’d had stuck to our original plan that night.
If I had been more aware, questioned the things that didn’t seem right.
If Jenna wasn’t so damn wholehearted, we’d all likely be in the same place right now, not living fractured lives.
Hindsight is both a beautiful and disastrous thing.
A broken sigh frees itself from my lungs. I get up from the sofa and head into the kitchen before the moment swallows me whole, absentmindedly rummaging through the refrigerator to make lunch.
The beep of the microwave has my stare shifting from my phone over to Regina, watching her lean against the counter, her eyes narrowing on me.
“I’m taking that app off you,” she deadpans, and I jolt back.
“What do you mean?”
Her sigh fills the kitchen as she pulls the Tupperware out and makes her way over to sit beside me.
“One thing you’re not good at playing is the idiot, Indie. I know what you’ve been using it for; you’re on it more now than ever.”
I flex my jaw. I’ve never been able to lie to her.
We’re bonded through something much deeper than friendship, and we’ve pulled each other out of the same trenches of trauma. We know the deepest parts of each other and can feel when the other is slipping.
“Hope keeps me sane,” I quietly admit, looking up at her through my lashes, water threatening to teeter over my lids.
I don’t let it though; those tears are reserved for when I’m alone.
“Hope is stopping your heart from healing,” she says softly, and like she spoke it into existence, there’s a twinge deep in my chest.
“I miss him sometimes, that’s all.”
The word sometimes tastes potent on my tongue; it’s a dishonest admission.
“Even after all this time? You never speak about him,” she says, and I force down a swallow.
“He was really it for me. I just realised it too late.”
I wish I’d told him those same words.
When we finally caved to our feelings, we’d been together for over a year before everything went to shit. He was the perfect balance of everything.
He was a piece of heaven, infused with a hell-fuelled desire.
Patient and possessive.
There was always something dark inside him, and deep down, I knew he’d burn the world for me, just to ensure the ground was safe for me to walk on alone.
By the time that clarity came to me, I’d already lost him for good. Too consumed by grief and tainted by trauma.
My mind was so polluted that I thought the best thing for us was to have him leave. To not drag him along the spiral I’d flown down. I wanted him to enjoy his life.
I’ve tried to move on, believe me.
When I eventually realised after two years he wasn’t coming back, my heart got a hell of a lot heavier. It took another year after that to bear the thought of someone else other than him touching me, and even then, I couldn’t go through with it.
No one can hold a candle to Saint.
The things we did together, it’s something I’ve only ever felt safe enough with him.
Besides, trying to manage a relationship and keep my job secret and separate?
Recipe for disaster, like cataclysmic.
“Why is it that the men we need the most are the hardest to find?” she asks, and I huff a laugh.
I want to find Saint to be able to live, to have closure, to at least get everything held together in my tattered heart finally out in the open.
And most of all, apologise.
But them?
We both need them to pay a debt.
They ruined our lives; we’ll take theirs as payment.
I sigh. “They’ll show up eventually; they’re not the type of guys to hide in the shadows for long.”
Regina lets out a growl in agreement through her full mouth, and she takes both our tubs to put them in the dishwasher.
“I forgot to tell you this. I saw your sister the other day when I was dropping off the rental car,” she says.
“What? Where?”
Louisa never ventures near the town our office is located; she’s either living in her own, or attending the senate chamber, and that’s back in Harrison.
The complete opposite side of the state. It’s the whole reason we picked our location.
“Yeah, passed her near the rental garage. She was pulled over at a motel.”
I bark a laugh. “I hope it was one of those cheap, suspicious-looking ones. She’d die if she was spotted like that.”
My sister has her fair share of paparazzi moments. She’s married into a well-known multi-million-dollar family. We’re no strangers to a comfortable life; our mom came from wealth, and our dad came from a hard working class family.
Despite Mom’s background, she remained humble, and Dad showed my sister and I how working hard for things made you appreciate them more.
Louisa took the latter too literally though; despite marrying into a name where she’d never need to break a sweat in her life, she’s constantly on the grind.
Regina’s chuckle is all but knowing. “I was tempted to snap her and send it, but she looked real damn pissed when I waved at her.”
No surprise there. Louisa has a permanent resting bitch face.
Spotted somewhere like that? She’s probably internally cringing, waiting for a headline to hit and try to smear her image.
Louisa has crafted that terrifying demeanour she can switch on for a debate.
I was forced into it by the world.
My sister and I are a mirror image. We both have fair skin, share the same blue eyes and dark hair, and often the same mannerisms. She’s six years older than me, but we were as thick as thieves growing up.
Then when she met Barry at high school, we drifted apart. She was obviously at an age where it wasn’t cool to have your nine-year-old sister acting like your shadow.
Even though she can be an asshole, she’s fought for causes close to her heart, an advocate for women’s rights, always standing up and supporting any bills.
It’s the reason why she isn’t aware of what happened to me; I wanted it that way.
If she did?
Hell help anyone that was part of that university society.
I’ve seen when the red mist’s over Louisa; it’s like she takes a different form. She’s eaten people up and spat them back out during press conferences. You don’t want to cross her path when she gets mad.
Despite her temper coming in handy, and telling her being the morally right thing to do, it wouldn’t provide the same comfort for my way of dealing with it.
Our method of vengeance is the only answer.
The only one that not only avenges us all, but stops them doing it to anyone else.
It’s not worth telling her now anyway; what’s done is done. She can’t change anything, and to bring it to her attention could potentially put a target on our families’ backs.
We’re too far in and it could ruin Regina and I’s plans. We don’t want them to go to jail; we want them six feet beneath the dirt.
We can’t risk it not happening, and if the police looked into it—it would be us occupying a cell, not the real problem.
Regina pats my shoulder. “I’m gonna head out. Don’t wait up for me, princess.”
Frowning, I glance at the clock on the wall.
“Where are you going at this time?” I ask, then my eyes widen.
She wiggles her finger at me. “Aht aht. No. I’m not seeing anyone, as sad as that is. I’m going to do a drive-by of the apartment Elenna is at. Enough time has passed.”
My shoulders slump. Regina hasn’t really been on the dating scene either.
Or ever.
She’s married to her systematic carnage, always at the store or lurking in the dark web for events tailored to learning the best techniques.
“Take a gun, just in case,” I say to her, and she turns, holding open the lapels of her jacket.
I almost double over from the laughter.
“Jesus Christ, I hope you don’t get pulled over.”
She’s got two Glocks strapped to the inside.
“I’ve always wanted to try that shit from the movies.” She closes her jacket, trying to tug the guns out with her arms crossed, dipping into the jacket.
One gets caught in the material, and tears of laughter fall from my eyes at her struggles.
“Maybe practise that in the mirror before applying it in real life.” I chuckle, watching the other get stuck whilst she shoves it back in.
She hums. “Yeah, that went smoother in my head. Anyways, I’ll be back soon.”
“Stay safe,” I call over the back of the sofa, and she turns back to wink at me.
When the door clicks shut, the rattle of metal confirming she’s locked it, I mindlessly walk over to the sofa, picking up my phone, the need burning from it like a beacon.
The earlier lightness fades; Regina’s right.
Hope’s holding me back.
I’m slowly self-sabotaging with this belief that he’ll come back one day.
I did all this, breaking my own heart in the process.
He whispered a promise to me on a broken breath, but too much time has passed. I doubt his feelings are still there.
It’s completely selfish of me to even have this kind of hope, to even think that he’s as tortured by holding on as I am.
He can’t be, otherwise he wouldn’t have left the country without a word.
My shaky hands grip around my phone, and I open the app. The security cameras at Saint’s dad’s house are the same as they always are. Showing no signs of anyone being home.
The same image I could draw by hand closing my eyes, it’s burned behind my retinas for the last six years.
His father, Malcolm, is still travelling for his company, as far as I know. I don’t know much about Saint’s mom; she passed away when he was young.
Saint’s father moved his business headquarters over to the states shortly after, wanting a fresh start. He never spoke about her, and I believe her death’s the reason a darkness finds itself at home with him.
Malcolm was good friends with my dad when we were growing up, and he even said Saint’s father was hard to track down at times.
It seems his son has adopted those same qualities.
The love I have for him, along with the house still being there, fuels my delusion that one day they’ll return, it’s just a matter of when.
But at which point do you stop torturing yourself?
The ten-year mark?
The fifteenth?
Can love even survive that long, before it drags someone completely under with it?
Even Saint’s old apartment has new people living in it now. I’ve still never stepped foot inside it; the only evidence of me being there was a tear-streaked cheek pressing to the door.
Two years after he left was also the last day I stopped knocking and running away, just to see who answered the door.
The memory still leaves a drop in my stomach every time the strange face would peer down the corridor.
I absentmindedly switch through the perimeter cameras. The grounds are always well maintained, a gardener coming to clean up the area. A part of me desperately wants to get over there whenever I see them, ask them if they can put me in touch. But I always stop.
Maybe Saint doesn’t want me to find him.
He’s twenty-nine now, and the likelihood that he’s probably met someone else is high. He could even have a wife and a family from the time we’ve spent apart.
The images of what could be have my chest constricting, my lungs struggling to take in the thick air at the thought, and a lone tear rolls down my cheek. I swiftly slap it away, dragging in a shaky breath which feels like a blade spearing my heart.
Regina is right.
I can’t keep doing this; this isn’t healthy for me.
I need to really let him go now.
Minutes go by, eventually turning into hours. The house is entirely soundless, all apart from my hollow breathing and struggling sobs I can’t contain anymore.
Each fragment of love and heartbreak I keep bolted down flows through my eyes, every drop laced with regrets.
I stare at my screen one last time. The livestream of a home that holds so many of my precious memories begins to blur through the wave of tears.
My thumb trembles as I close down the app and delete it for good.