He nodded as he walked away. “It’ll be here, when you want it.”
Penny slipped her arm through mine, leading the way back to my car.
“Let’s go.”
I let her take the lead, let her talk incessantly all the way back to her apartment. I knew what she was trying to do—she was trying to help. But all I heard was a constant buzz of noise battering around inside my head, fighting with the numbness I clung to with the tips of my fingers. It was all I could do not to let the grief out; the screams of pain built slowly in my chest. Eventually they would spill out, the loss of my only love breaking through the last vestiges of my control.
“Hey, are you listening at all?”
I shook my head. “No.” I didn’t even apologize, but I knew Penny wouldn’t be offended.
She was silent for the rest of the drive, said nothing as we pulled into her apartment parking lot, said nothing as we walked up the stairs and she let us into her apartment.
Penny touched my arm, breaking through the silence. “Bri, do you want to talk?”
I stepped out of my low black heels. “I’m going to shower.”
She let me go, and for the first time that day, I was truly alone. I flicked the water on, slid the dial to the hottest it would go; then I peeled out of my clothes. With each piece of clothing, each small piece of flimsy cardboard armor I’d put between me and the world slipped off my heart.
Hot, burning water sluiced over me as I stepped into the stream.
The tears that fell were hotter than the water, burned me more fiercely than any branding iron. I braced my hands on the wall of the tiled shower, grief mingling with a sudden rage, a fury so hot it rivaled the water.
My body shook and I knew, distantly, I didn’t have the luxury of melting down. Others did, others could find a place where they could unleash their anger. But not me. I couldn’t wreck Penny’s meager apartment, couldn’t go to Celia and Frank’s place and throw lamps, tip tables and let the anger flow out of me in a physical release.
I flicked the water from hot to cold, the icy splash against my super heated skin drawing the first scream out of me.
Penny was in the bathroom in an instant. “Bri?”
“Get out. Just leave me.”
The door clicked shut and I spun the water dial to hot again. I slammed the flats of my hands against the tile, the water burning my skin, drawing another scream out of me, a formless wail of pain that had no meaning in any language, yet anyone who’d been lost to grief would understand it. The anger was no better than the grief, but it was something I could feel, something I could use.
Over and over again, I screamed, the flats of my hands slamming into the tile, grief and anger scorching me surely more than the water.
“How could you, how could you leave me?”
I curled my hand into a fist and punched the tile, felt my knuckles give, something cracking inside, the skin split and blood flowed over the white tile. So I used the other one, slapped and punched the tiled wall, screamed my voice hoarse, until the water ran cold, until my chest heaved with exertion and I slid to my knees, water pouring around me.
“Darwin. How could you do this to me?” How could he steal my heart, make me believe in a love so strong I would have given up everything I’d ever known, and then leave me, leave me to an emptiness I would never have known if I hadn’t loved him?
Hitching sobs rippled out of me; I couldn’t stop them any more than I could have stopped the anger rolling out of me. Curled up in the bottom of the tub, cold water sluiced over me and I cradled my hands, knew that I’d at least cracked the one, the blood from my right hand dripped slowly, stained the swirling water a light pink. I stared at it, mesmerized by the patterns that it created; wondered if Darwin’s blood had swirled like that in the rain on the highway.
The bathroom door creaked open. “That’s enough, Bri.” Penny reached in and turned off the water. She slid back the curtain, gasped when she saw my hand. She put a towel around my shoulders, wrapped me in it as if I were a child.
Again, I let her do what she wanted. She sat me on the edge of the tub, bandaged up my knuckles, combed and braided my hair back into a single thick braid.
“I was thinking, maybe now would be a good time to run away together.” She tugged lightly on my braid.
I glanced over at her, my brain more than a bit slow, fuzzy with grief. “What do you mean?”
“That trip across Europe that we talked about. Maybe now is the right time, finally. You need to be away from this, I think. You need to get some perspective and you can’t do that when everything you see reminds you of him.”
I had no money, what little I’d managed to save all gone to the wedding I’d cancelled. I had my little car that I’d scrimped and saved to buy, which had taken me almost two years to purchase. But now, the car meant nothing to me. Maybe Penny was right, running away sounded, suddenly, like a very good idea.
“I could sell my car.”
She smiled, tucked a strand of my hair she’d missed back behind my ear. “I could sell mine, too, though I won’t get much for it. You could sell that god awful wedding dress your parents bought you.”
Enough for a ticket, maybe only one-way, but what else did I need? There was nothing for me here. No reason to stay, no reason to want to stay.
I thought about my life up to that point. Always doing what others expected, what others wanted. Darwin had urged me to do what I wanted. To not be the doormat my life had woven me into.
I gripped the edges of the towel, stared at myself in the mirror. Haunted eyes stared back at me, a face aged with a grief so deep I doubted I would ever escape it. But maybe, maybe I could outrun the grief. For a little while.
Summoning up all the energy I could, knowing that I would never go back to being that girl, that doormat who’d almost married Victor, I answered her.
“Yes. Let’s go to Europe.”
“So, what do you love about France the most?” Jacques sat across from me, on what was my third date in a week. Penny and I had backpacked across Europe for the last year and a half, taking jobs where we could, sleeping in hostels, meeting people.
I had become what Penny referred to as a serial dater. I had to prove my nana wrong, yet with all the dating, I’d only ever proven her right.
“I love the food. And the people.” I tipped my glass of wine at him, quickly ran through the numbers in my head. He had a good job, nice family, was pleasant to look at.
He’d even brought me roses when he’d come to pick me up, even though the restaurant was only a few blocks from where Penny and I were staying. He had serious potential, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
“Do you want to be a mother? I am looking for a woman to be barefoot and pregnant.” He smiled and for a moment I thought he was joking. He had to be.
Jacques waited for me to answer him and I stalled, taking another sip of wine before I answered.
“Jacques, thank you for dinner. Merci beaucoup. I hope you have a lovely night.” I tossed my napkin on the table and stood up.
“No, no, don’t be like that, Cheri, it is what all men want. A wee wife with wee ones at her feet. You would make beautiful babies, ma chérie.” He reached for my hand, but I stepped quickly to get away from him.
“Again, thank you. Goodbye, Jacques.”
At best, the man had been hovering around Victor’s 65%, but with that little bombshell, he’d dropped well below 50%. Not that it mattered, not really. I’d felt nothing, and as much as I still ran the numbers on every man I dated, I depended more on what Darwin had awakened in me. The need to feel a connection that seemed to be missing with every other man on the planet.
Walking away from the restaurant, I looked down at the stylish blue dress I wore and the high heels that accented my well-toned calves. Backpacking across Europe had done my body a world of good.
If only I could say the same for my heart.
My mind wandered as I walked. From t
ime to time, Penny and I had stayed in various cities for a few weeks, a month at the most. But I was restless. I couldn’t sleep; I didn’t want to stay anywhere too long. Even for Penny, we moved a lot.
When we did stay somewhere, I dated whoever came my way. I never slept with any of the men; hell, none of them had made it past the first date. But I dated as many as I could. Desperate, there was a part of me that thought if I met enough men, if I kissed enough frogs, maybe I could find my prince again.
I didn’t want to believe that Darwin was the only one out there for me. Yet my heart knew differently. My heart knew that no one would ever touch me as deeply, love me as truly, no one but Darwin held the key to my soul, the key to filling that empty spot inside of me.
The door to our apartment creaked as I let myself in. It wasn’t that late, but Penny was working long shifts as a bartender and her shift was set to start in a couple of hours.
“How’d it go?” Came her sleep query from across the partially darkened room.
I snorted. “Really, you need to ask?”
“One can hope,” she mumbled. The sound of blankets shifting, and I knew she’d gone back to sleep.
A year and a half and I still cried myself to sleep most nights, silent hot tears that would soak my pillow and leave my eyes puffy in the morning. I didn’t try to drown the pain in alcohol, drugs, or any other temporary fix. This was my penance for sending him to his death; I deserved nothing more than to suffer, to feel the pain of his death every day, to let it bleed me dry until there was nothing left of me. To know that he had been coming for me, that we had been so close, only to have it snatched away by a cruel hand of fate.
The next morning, I was up early, way early. Before dawn, in order to get to the farm I’d been working at for almost two months—the longest we’d stayed anywhere thus far. Domrémy-la-Pucelle was a very small town, and the farm I’d been lucky enough to get a job at sat on the outskirts of it. The area reminded me of home, with the open fields and the horses grazing here and there.
Jean raced Arabians, and he greeted me as I stepped into the barn. His long grey hair was tied back in a ponytail, accenting his sharply pointed face. He was kind, and at times reminded me of Dr. Winston with his gruff mannerisms. His wife, Marie, was short and plump and wielded a mean wooden spoon, but she had a heart of gold.
He pointed at the far end of the barn to the horse in the last stall.
“Today, I want you to take out Petite Chat; wind sprints in between the markers along the fence.”
I nodded and went to the tack room, gathered up the tack I would need. Chat was fiery, and I would need to be on top of things to keep from getting an unexpected dismount. No thinking about Darwin, my home, or the people I’d left behind. Just me and the horse.
Chat nickered to me as I drew close to her. “Hello, beautiful.” I stroked a hand down her face, then scratched her under the chin. In a matter of minutes, I had her brushed down and tacked up. I led her out to the mounting block, her legs flashing as she pranced beside me.
“Watch her today, Brielle,” Jean called to me as I swung a leg into the saddle.
I gave him a wave, then double-checked my girth, tightening it once more. Chat was dancing underneath me, vibrating with energy. With a light cluck of my tongue, I urged her forward, and she sprang into an animated trot. Around the property was a well groomed ‘track’ that, if you used the whole thing, was a mile on each side. Using the trees for markers, I reined Chat in. “Easy, just, easy,” I whispered, her energy flowing through me, giving me the escape that I found nowhere else.
Leaning over her neck, I gave a bare kiss of my mouth to her and she sprang forward. The wind whipped through her and through me, the world tightening to just that moment, the pounding of her hooves into the turf, my hands tight on the reins, the past behind me and growing more distant with each step.
Except that the past was never that far, never far enough. Ahead, the first marker was coming up fast. I asked her to slow, and with a snort and a toss of her head she obliged.
As she walked, cooling between that sprint and the next, I couldn’t stop my mind from wandering, and I found myself speaking out loud to Chat.
“Darwin would have like it here. It’s quiet and peaceful. Almost feels like home.”
She snorted, and I took that for agreement. With a pat on her neck, and the next marker just ahead, I tightened my reins. “Come on, let’s go.”
Again, we raced along the fence line, and in my mind I could see Darwin and me racing along the back roads, the horses running along beside us. Tears leaked from my eyes and were whipped back into my hair, the pain of losing him no less now than it was the day he died.
A streak of red shot out from along the fence, the fox startled out of its hiding spot. Chat hit the brakes, her body sliding to a stop that brought her haunches too far under her body in the damp turf.
Limbs.
Blue sky.
Fences.
A tree.
Everything blurred as Chat flipped backwards, slamming us both into the ground. The wind we’d been chasing rushed out of me, Chat’s body held my right leg to the ground. With a grunt, she scrambled back to her feet, taking me with her. I struggled to breathe as I slid from the saddle, stroking her neck. She trembled, her eyes rolling as she eyed up the fox, who’d stopped to watch the catastrophe he’d caused.
I smoothed a hand along her neck and then checked her over for any injuries. Nothing, she was fine, but maybe if I’d not been distracted, I could have avoided this. Damn, this was my fault.
Leading Chat, we headed back to the barn. The past was going to get me killed if I wasn’t careful. A part of me worried that maybe I was hoping for that outcome. No, Darwin would have wanted me to live, to take charge of my life—which I’d done, to an extent. But how did I deal with the past when I’d run so far away from it?
Jean was understanding and sent me home early. “But you come early next week. I will work you twice as hard.”
“Thank you, Jean.” I smiled, knowing that he would do no such thing. But he had to keep up his appearances.
I picked up the mail on the way home, surprised at the one letter. Back home in our little apartment, I was even more surprised to see Penny up.
“Hey, chickie. I was thinking maybe you want to go home soon. See how the homeland is doing,” Penny called out to me from the grungy bathroom we shared with three other rooms, all connected with their own doors. Like playing Russian Roulette if you had to pee in the middle of the night.
I stripped out of my dirty clothes and lay on my bed, staring out the window, thinking about Darwin, not really hearing Penny. Well, maybe not wanting to hear her.
“Bri, did you hear me?”
“Yeah. I’m thinking.” I clutched my pillow tighter, wrapped my body around it. Penny stepped back into our room, shutting the bathroom door just as one of the other renters stepped in.
“What are you thinking?”
“That if we go back the pain will start all over again. That it will be like ripping a scab off and the hurt will be as sharp as it was before.”
She tipped her head, nodding slowly. “Or maybe you need to rip the scab off, to face the fact that he won’t be there when you get back. Maybe you need to purge this once and for all. Much as I love this, running around Europe, even I can see that you are running away, even I know you can’t run forever.”
I snorted and tossed my pillow at her, ignored the truth her words tapped into. “You were the one to talk me into this, remember?”
“Yeah.” Her eyes darkened a little. “But I thought we were going for a few months, not two years.”
“Not two years. Eighteen months, there’s a difference.” I rolled onto my back, looked up at the ceiling. “I got a letter from my mom today.”
“Yeah, what did she have to say?”
A smile, not a big one, but a real one, tripped across my lips. “Other than the usual praise of Fiona and how well she’s doing, how
strong and wonderful she is? How my mom thinks she’s the most wonderful girl in the world, moving on as she has?”
Laughing, Penny tossed the pillow in the air. “Yeah, other than the usual.”
It had become a running joke that Celia and Frank had somehow adopted Fiona in my absence; no doubt they would be happier with her as a daughter than me.
“Victor is getting married. Apparently, he knocked up his girlfriend.”
Leaning back, Penny tossed the pillow back to me. “Holy shit! How do you feel about that?”
“Oh, it doesn’t bother me in the least. I hope he’s happy. I’m sure he’ll be a great dad.” I let out a sigh, truly feeling no regret about calling off my wedding to Victor. Better to be alone than to be with the wrong guy for the rest of my life.
The rest of the letter wasn’t so easy to swallow though. “Fiona is getting remarried in a month.”
Penny’s eyes widened. “Seriously? Shit, does that seem fast to you, or is it just me?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, but I don’t think Fiona can really survive on her own. She needs someone to look after her.”
That wasn’t the whole of the story though. Fiona wanted me to come to the wedding.
And I was considering it.
Since Darwin had died, I’d done my best to live my life, not just as I wanted, but what my heart told me was right. Which was hard when my heart was so damn messed up. But Fiona had loved Darwin, in her own way, and for that I felt I owed it to him to be there, to support her in her new marriage.
“Penny, will you be my date to Fiona’s wedding?” I lifted an eyebrow at her.
“Bet your sweet ass I will!” She grabbed my hands and yanked me to my feet. “But before we go home, we need to shop!”
13
WALKING INTO CELIA and Frank’s home was, to say the least, surreal. Nothing had changed, the floors, walls, placement of the furniture was all the same.
Ninety-Eight (Contemporary Romance) Page 13