Chapter 38
Time doesn't heal your wounds—caring for them does. That's what I realized after two weeks at Lu's, hiding.
Couldn't risk bumping into Ben in our building, allowing him access to me if he wanted it.
Worse, I couldn't risk seeing him with Lisa. With the child she gets to make with him.
The night he told me, I left the house with the precision of a woman setting her own house on fire. I took only my phone, keys, and wallet.
Then, half-blind with tears, I wandered the streets until the city blurred into streaks, and I realized I'd end up as one of those tragic local-news stories if I kept going: Twenty-something woman found in a dumpster without a heart.
So I went to Sea Cliff—melodramatic, I know—but I thought maybe if I went back there, I could rewind time, find a different meaning in everything that happened in between.
To my surprise, I sat there for an hour, and it wasn't working. I kept recalling the moment Ben asked if I wanted him to kiss me and cried about how I am, in fact, the one who messed it all up.
An hour into my disintegration, Lu called me, and I couldn't pretend—I ugly cried, which made her call me a cab and have the driver ring the doorbell because she assumed correctly that I was too low on oxygen to think, and I'd probably just stand in front of her house the whole night.
She opened the door with a wine bottle in her hand, and Lu decided to paint my portrait. Apparently, one day, when life's too good, when happiness feels like it's overflowing, I'll need this captured heartbreak to ground me and keep me grateful.
I hope she's right...
Now it's afternoon, and I'm drinking my first coffee in five years, a jittery revolt buzzing through my veins.
It feels almost sacrilegious, like lighting a cigarette in church. Or saying, look, I can undo even the parts of myself I thought were permanent and tied to him.
Still, his bracelet sits on my wrist as proof I'm lying.
And damn it, I've washed my clothes at least five times and they still smell like him.
Because his scent is not in my clothes, it's in my veins.
I'd have to wash him from my soul.
In two weeks, I rewrote the ending of my book three times. My editor is begging me to stop bleeding on the page, but I can't. It's like pressing your tongue to a sore tooth—compulsion, punishment, comfort.
Sometimes I cry until my throat tastes rusty, and that's Lu's cue to crank up the music so loud it bangs against the door that I keep closed most of the time.
That was our deal. I'll stay here if she lets me deal with this heart infection on my own.
I live mostly horizontal now, in my little sanatorium of heartbreak—my body lethargic on the bed, my mind running on double.
I thought I'd known emotional pain before, but this? This has stripped me of every joy to exist, and whoever's survived it, you deserve a badge and a crown and maybe even a ceremony for being a survivor because holy fuck.
At least Lu's world throws me off my grey rhythm with its unusual vibrancy lately.
Sophia spends most of her days here, and Micah just happens to join them on every occasion. They're a holy trinity of insanity—Sophia the angel, Micah the devil, and Lu the conductor who somehow makes it all work.
Anyway, I need to get out of the room.
Clutching my empty mug, I shuffle into the kitchen and stop dead.
Micah is naked on the sofa. Not half naked, not tastefully towel-wrapped. Fully naked.
One leg draped over the edge, glass of wine in hand, eyes half-lost like he's the personification of Adonis.
Across from him, Sophia perches on the armchair, sketchbook propped on her knee, pencil moving as she sketches him.
"Okay," I say, voice flat as a dead line. "Sure. Just another completely normal morning in the house of artists and exhibitionists. Hey, guys."
I quickly move to the sink, trying to avoid Micah mid-exposé.
Micah glances over and smiles. "Morning, sunshine. Coffee? Or just here to admire the view?"
"I was, actually," I say, pouring water into my mug. "That sofa under the window used to be my favorite spot."
"Still could be," he says, tapping the cushion next to him. "Plenty of room."
I make a sour face. "No, thanks. It's been permanently contaminated."
Sophia doesn't look up from her sketch but snorts a laugh. "He's been like this for an hour. I told him to put on pants before you walk in."
"And I told her," Micah says, gesturing vaguely with his glass, "art requires vulnerability."
"Uh-huh." I give him an unimpressed look. "And apparently zero shame."
He winks. "Comes with the muse, sweetheart. Lu never paints me with clothes on."
I roll my eyes, but my lips twitch despite myself. "Tell your girlfriend I said thanks for the free peep show."
"She knows." He shrugs. "She told me to hold the pose till you walked in. Something to make you feel better."
I tip my head, raising a brow. "I bet she didn't. And you're disgusting, you know that?"
Micah shrugs, lounging deeper, adjusting the only thing that exists in his world—yeah, his balls.
I roll my eyes with a loud sigh.
Not a bad guy, really. A world-class slut, absolutely—his body count is in the hundreds. But then again, most of Lu's friends are a bit "Aquarian," as she puts it.
The other night, we all got drunk and I finally understood why Lu keeps him orbiting her life after all these years, when he's been breaking her heart.
They met in art school—two prodigies with too much talent—and when her ex, Michael, who turned out to be a bona fide psycho, cornered her outside the studio, Micah broke his nose, right there on the pavement, didn't even blink.
After that, he kept saving her in ways no one asked him to. Showing up when she didn't call. Fixing things no one else noticed were broken. The kind of loyalty you can't explain because it doesn't make sense—especially between people who pretend not to believe in it.
She never told me all of it and I think it's because she doesn't want to admit she loves him and secretly cries for him a lot, but after hearing it, I got it. I glanced at him across the table, shirt half-open, those smug eyes, and I thought, Okay, maybe he isn't so bad.
Sophia looks at me beneath her glasses and her expression softens. She's a great opposite to Micah—sweet, down to earth. Literally the nicest person I've ever met.
"How are you feeling today, Emma?" she asks.
I do a side-to-side headshake. "Getting there."
"You don't have to say you're getting there if you're not." She gives me an understanding smile. "But I think you should get out of the room more often, sit with us more. Even if he's being excessively nude."
Micah opens his mouth to say something, but she silences him with a flick of her hand, then turns back at me. "Do you want me to make tea? Or braid your hair? I plucked new daisies from our garden. You'd look beautiful."
I give her the most broken smile in the history of mankind. "No, Sophia, but thank you."
Micah glances between us, the teasing gone for a flicker. "For what it's worth, whoever made you feel this shit should be publicly flogged. Or smacked with my dick."
I clutch my head and shake it. "Oh god, no, Micah. That would definitely not end well for you."
His brows flick up, intrigued. "Oh, is he feisty?"
I roll my eyes, but for some stupid reason answer. "Yeah. Very. The kind of feisty that argues in complete sentences while pinning you against a wall."
Micah whistles and puts away his wine. "Shit, no wonder you're ruined."
I shoot him a glare. "Mm. Thanks for reminding me."
He shrugs. "I'm just saying—had that type. Tough to forget. Wait..." His brows lift. "It's the guy from the exhibition?"
I sigh to the point my soul nearly evaporates. "Yes. That's Ben."
"He's a hottie. The way he was holding you was making me wet."
"Micah!" Sophia throws her pencil on him, glaring. "Stop it. You're not helping, you idiot. You think joking makes everything easier, but sometimes it just hurts."
Micah rolls his eyes, hands up, but then softens with mock grace. "Alright. Alright. He's still an idiot if he hurt someone like you. Don't waste sadness on some guy. Your smile's too nice for that. Like..." He smirks, almost smiles. "Really nice."
It catches me off guard, that one. Too kind to be his usual flirtation, too practiced to be pure empathy. I huff a shaky breath and half-smile. "Thanks."
"Did she eat anything?" Lu's voice cuts through the air as she appears in the doorway, dragging in a table that's seen better centuries.
"No," Micah answers before I can blink, far too eager to rat me out. "She's still on that starving artist kick. Three glasses of water and a headache pill."
"Hey!" I shoot at him, scowling. "Thought we had a deal that you won't tell on me. Seriously?!"
"Seriously," Lu says, thrusting a spoonful of peanut butter into my hand because she thinks it fixes everything. "When's the last time you actually ate?"
"When I still wanted to live," I say flatly and put the spoon back on the counter.
She rolls her eyes, unconcerned with my morbidity. "Come cut my hair."
I blink. "What? I'm not cutting your gorgeous, long hair! Why?"
"Because I'm becoming famous, and the world needs to remember me."
Before I know it, she drags me into the bathroom. Mirror. Scissors.
"Lu, you know I'm terrible at this. You really want my shaky fingers anywhere near your ears?"
"Wouldn't be the first maimed artist," she says boldly and hacks off the first lock herself.
Ten inches of black silk slither to the floor.
"I'll donate it so make sure you cut close to my head.
Otherwise you're allowed to unleash your rage on me.
Go brutal. Cropped. Then we bleach it and drown it purple.
I want to look like a troubled '90s kid. "
"You are a troubled '90s kid," I remind her and she grins like it's a compliment.
Snip, snip, her gorgeous hair drifts down like wasted years.
I'm almost tempted to turn the scissors on me—already did it once—but I'm not there yet. Give it another week.