by Corri Lee
“Do you have a constantly running inner monologue?” His head cocked to one side. “I don’t mean in a crazy way. I mean a soundless voice in your head that runs through all your thoughts and helps you make sense of everything.”
“Sure.” Nodding, Blaze pushed his bowl aside and folded his hands in front of him. “Do you?”
“I used to. I’m trying to figure out what happened to it.” Honestly, I didn’t know when I’d last heard it. I may not have died that week before but it definitely felt like a part of me had, or that a little piece of my soul had been taken away for killing Natasha.
“Do I need to call Dr. Downes?”
“Oh...” Of course, that had sounded sort of depressive and I supposed it was. But the last thing I needed was a counselling session where I couldn’t admit what was wrong with me even if I’d wanted to. “No, I guess I’m just nervous about this meeting tomorrow.”
“You needn’t be. You’re prolific, cupcake—just as Henry knew you would be. Only you could have picked up on all those anomalies.”
Not just me. I never would have had the basis to cry embezzlement without Blaze’s help. For years, Henry had subsidised him and his mother’s up-keeping until Blaze had the means to support them himself. Student loans, tuition fees, the house Connie Valentine lived in, medical expenses... He might not have been getting that money anymore but someone was.
“Something still baffles me about all those payments.”
Blaze stood to clear away his bowl and cutlery, nudging mine a little closer. “Go on.”
“Well... Why did my dad invest so much in you? You and your mother seem to have gotten the same treatment as Tallulah and me—he spoiled you like family. But you’re not, right? Because I’m pretty sure he’d dissuade incest.”
“We’re not related.” His response was a little hollow and didn’t fill me with faith. “Not by blood. By misfortune, maybe. He was my father’s best friend.”
“Oh...” My stomach churned at the coldness in his voice. Another secret it seemed, except this was one I didn’t think I was ready to hear. The infamous Mr. Lundy had been stabbed to death in the left side when Blaze was just four years old. Conversations about him reminded me of my own self-harm scars on my left side I’d always worried might be an uncomfortable reminder of the tragedy, then of the scars Blaze had inflicted on himself during my trip to New York. Honestly, I was so bad for him...
“You’ve gone very pale.”
I looked down despondently into the cooling contents of my bowl and inched away from it. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I can stomach this right now.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
No, there was no denying that I was far from okay. There was an emptiness inside me that was growing rapidly by the second. Even with so much to be grateful for—my life, Blaze, my family and friends, the upcoming wedding—I felt nothing but an all-consuming sadness enveloping me from the inside out. If it got any bigger, I felt like I’d implode.
“No.” My eyes filled with unprovoked tears I made no effort to contain. “I’m not okay.”
Instead of freaking out like I’d expected, Blaze leaned down to kiss my forehead and told me to sit tight for five minutes. I’d known the phone call to Dr. Downes was coming when I heard it happening and if she carted me off to Wales to be strapped down and heavily medicated, I didn’t think I’d mind. Feeling empty and thoughtless because I was drugged up to the eyeballs had to be better than feeling that way sober, and maybe without me around, Blaze would get over his insane idea that he needed to be with me.
Not that I wouldn’t miss him. I wanted to believe that had he not taken me to Natasha’s house, we might not have planning a rushed wedding but we’d still be blissfully happy. We’d both been in a good place spiritually and we weren’t weighed down with secretism. I wanted that back.
“Okay, my destitute rich girl.” Helping me to my feet, Blaze dipped to pick me up and carried me through to the master bathroom-cum-wet room. It was filled with the roar of running water and hypnotising smell of jasmine that rose from the bubbles filling the floor-level tub.
“You going to drown me and put me out of my misery? You could have done that in plain, cold water.”
“Bloody hell, you are feeling shitty. Putting you out of your misery is exactly what I had in mind but not in that sense.” Cautiously peeling my flannel shirt over my wrists, Blaze unclipped my collar and started stripping off. Depressed or not, my lips curled up into a lecherous grin. I wasn’t too low to appreciate that he was seriously gorgeous and had the body of a god.
“Ah, my nefarious plan to cheer you up is working.”
“Don’t read too much into my smile, Blaze. It’s magnetic.”
He scoffed and held out a hand to help me down into the pool of bubbles without giving me too much time to leer. “I know I’ve been sort of gung-ho about all the wedding planning over the past few days and I haven’t paid you enough attention. But I’m going to fix that right now.”
“You’re going to pamper me to soften the blow of being carted off to the nut house in a minute?”
“What? Hell no.”
I took his hand and dipped my toes into the steaming water. At first the heat was too extreme, an overpowering burn that made me want to retreat. But as I adjusted to the temperature, my stresses started to melt out of me and take with them every care I had. I might have fallen asleep from the relaxation if Blaze hadn’t climbed in behind me and started scooping water up over me to wet my hair.
“I’d never send you to the unit, Emmeline. It would be like punishing you for being unwell.”
“I guess...” It did feel like a prison there. The food was terrible, the staff largely impersonal and time to sit with friends rationed. Admission to the unit usually came with a minimum stay and the amenities were basic to say the least. It would have been nothing less than I deserved to be locked up. Getting off scot-free like I was didn’t seem right. “What if punishment is what I want, though?”
Blaze pulled my hair back into a loose ponytail in his hand and gave it a gentle, chastising tug. “That’s why I’m responsible for your decision-making right now, to ensure you don’t commit to stupid ideas like that. You don’t need to be locked away. You just need me.”
That might have sounded self-righteous or even ludicrous if it hadn’t been so true. For the rest of my life, my days would be spent fearing that he’d find out what I’d done and stop loving me. That was what had made the past week so hard—thinking that he might secretly love someone else more than me. As long as there was only us in a room, it would be extremely difficult for him to do that.
Between my guilt, growing aches, desperation and the warmth of the bath, I was exhausted. Blaze exacerbated that fatigue when he conscientiously washed every inch of me, taking special care around the bruises that had blossomed from my descent to the floor, then moved up to massage my neck in firm but pacifying circles. It almost hurt, but in a way that felt cleansing. Therapeutic almost.
“Why did you call Dr. Downes?”
His hands paused for a moment, only long enough to reposition on my shoulders. “I’ve noticed you scratching your wrists. That’s good because itching means they’re healing but it’s got to be getting you down. She’s sending a nurse to come and remove the stitches later.”
“Oh.” I looked down at my damp bandages and thought of how I’d been standing in that same bathroom contemplating them just hours earlier. “I haven’t seen the damage yet.”
“It’s probably better that you don’t, cupcake.”
“That bad?”
“You played with a big knife in the dark. No, it’s not pretty.”
I supposed there was some validity in that. My suicide at seventeen had been nervous and methodical. This had been reckless and destructive with no thought. I’d sliced open my arteries, for Christ’s sake—of course it would be ugly. Regardless, I didn’t want to confront it in front of a stranger. “I want to see before she comes
, Blaze. I think I need to.”
“Okay.” Without argument, Blaze reached for a hand towel next to the tub and dried off his hands. The lack of a battle might have worried me if I wasn’t so preoccupied with the sudden apprehension of being immediately faced with something I knew would be hard to look at.
Still seated behind me, Blaze reached around my waist with his chin on my shoulder and started to unwind the bandage around my right wrist. He’d been taking such meticulous care of my wounds that they didn’t stick or snag, just unravelled softly and soaked up the water before sinking down to the bottom of the bath.
“Take a deep breath, my love.”
He didn’t make that suggestion to be sweet. I didn’t pale easily, but the first glimpse of open flesh sent my head spinning. It looked as though my inner arms had been mangled in machinery, held together unprettily with surgical staples and a thousand sutures struggling to reconstruct dying skin that was grey, torn and jagged.
And the left was worse. I’d been warned that the sensation and movement may never be perfect but didn’t give it much credence until I was staring at the reason why. It was no small wonder that I’d nearly bled to death—really no shock that I’d needed transfusions. I’d caused maybe irreparable harm to my self and definitely to another.
It terrified me to know that I was capable of it.
I must have sat there speechless for a long time before the tears came. Blaze, Daniel, and who knew who else, had seen those injuries when they were fresh and bloody, not cleaned and cared for like they were now. The miracle wasn’t that I’d survived. It was that I’d survived with these people still able to look me in the eye.
Even though I hadn’t earned the right, I leaned back against Blaze for comfort. “I’m so sorry I did this.”
“I’m sorry I gave you a reason to.”
I quickly sat back up and turned to face him. “Blaze, no.” He pulled me around to sit on his lap and cupped my face between his hands, running a rough thumb over my lips. His eyes shone with love and sadness that was almost too much to bear. He couldn’t seriously still be blaming himself.
“You’re here and that’s all that matters. But if you’d have died, I’d have blamed Natasha for eternity.” Okay, no. He didn’t blame himself. He was telling me he blamed a woman who couldn’t possibly be responsible. They called it self-harm for a reason.
“What if she was already dead before me? Would you blame her them?”
“Emmeline, some witches leave their curses behind even after you’ve drowned them in a well and burned their bodies at the stake. Dead or alive, I’d have held it over her head.”
“Witches? Is that why she’s being cremated?” His deadpan stare answered better than words could have. “Oh... But it wasn’t her fault. I did this to myself and admitting that is the first step to getting past it.”
“Emmeline!” I fought against the urge to keep debating the point and held my tongue because I knew the conversations where I heard my name repeatedly were the ones that would go on forever until Blaze made the point he wanted and it stuck. “I either blame her or I blame myself and you were absolutely fine until you met her so I have to believe it wasn’t me.”
“Okay.” Accepting that, I shrugged and let myself relax a little. If he’d found another way to deal with it all by pointing the finger at Natasha, that was okay. She was sort of the reason I’d played Iron Chef with my veins, after all. “But you’re allowed to admit that you miss her, you know.”
“Miss her?” Blaze sat bolt upright so quickly it almost plunged me down into the bathwater. “The only way I’m missing her is if I’m standing at her feet in the Chapel of Rest trying to catapult jelly beans up her nose with an elastic band.”
“Blaze!” I tried to admonish him with a glare but couldn’t stifle the laughter provoked by that vulgar metaphor. “So you’re still at the anger stage of grieving and that’s fine. She took a lot from you and you think she tried to take more. But don’t think you’re not allowed to mourn a friend.”
“I’m not mourning,” he argued. “I’m glad she’s gone. I don’t understand why you think otherwise.”
His denial was starting to grate. Folding my arms, I sighed and lifted my chin in pre-emptive defensiveness. “You called out her name the night you rolled me out of bed. Begged whoever not to take her away.”
“I didn’t—” Blaze froze and gaped at me. “Oh my God. That nightmare was about you, Emmeline! I was begging her not to take you away. My nightmares are about thinking I’ve found her body but finding you instead.”
“Oh.” Recoiling, I slid back off into his lap to seek refuge in the fading bubbles. Talk about getting the wrong end of the stick—I’d completely misjudged and it was more than a little embarrassing. It all could have been remedied if I’d grown a pair and asked him but no, I’d let myself believe he’d been feeling like the wrong bride had died that night.
“Jeez, Emmeline. Has this been eating at you all this time?”
“Maybe.”
“Damn it.” Blaze quickly scrambled out of the tub and towelled himself off with purposeful strokes. “I shouldn’t have given you a reason to think like that. I’m sorry I’ve screwed up so much this week.”
“You haven’t.”
He shot me a look rife with disbelief. “You’re depressed and I’ve contributed to that with my distance.”
“I’m not depressed!”
“You tried to kill yourself last week.” For fuck’s sake, he just wouldn’t be told. “I keep giving you the ammunition for that loaded gun you’re holding, and it’s already gone off once. On your wrists.”
“Maybe I just don’t understand how you can still love me after this.”
His breath snagged on an irritated sigh he didn’t want to release. My low self-esteem could be chronic at times my life seemed otherwise awesome and while I hated it, sometimes I needed reassurance that I was still thin, pretty, interesting and what he wanted. Anyone looking at him had to wonder why he was with a scruff like me—hell, I wondered it every time I saw my own reflection. My appearance had been the least of my concerns during my period of convalescence, my sense of humour all but dried up. If I didn’t have beauty and wit anymore, what did I have to keep him?
“And you’re telling me you’re not depressed.” Like he’d read my mind, Blaze crouched beside me and hugged his knees. “Cupcake, you always knew my love is unconditional.”
“Just because you say that doesn’t mean I believe it. Wheelchairs and heart attacks are beyond the pale for a normal relationship.”
“Our relationship isn’t normal.” Another good point. No doubt he had a drove of them to whip out and use to make me feel foolish for my completely justifiable insecurity. “And the only thing beyond the pale is the amount of concessions you have had to make on my behaviour to be with me.” Blaze shook his head and reached out to cup my face. The underside of the ring I’d given him felt cool and smooth against my cheek. Valentine’s Day seemed so long ago... “It should be me doubting how you can still love me and keep coming back in spite of everything.”
“I promised.”
“You did.” He nodded and cracked a lack-lustre smile. “We keep our promises to each other, don’t we?”
“Always.”
“Okay. Wait here.”
I was confused when he stood up and paced out of the bathroom, leaving me submerged in cloudy waters I could have easily laid down in and refused to surface. The only things that stopped me trying it were intrigue and Dr. Downes’ warning that the more I tried to end my life, the more people would try to protect it. Blaze might have been able to overlook one suicide attempt, but I’d be lucky to be forgiven for a fast second under his watch.
I wouldn’t have had time anyway. He was back moments later, carrying a box so stuffed full of paper the lid wouldn’t stay on.
“What’s in the box?”
“The first promise I ever made to you.”
Scouring my mind, I found the steps
out of the bath and held out my hands in askance for a towel. Temporarily abandoning the box, Blaze helped to dry me off and covered me up in a thick fleece robe he’d hung up on the back of the door without me noticing.
“I don’t think I remember your first promise.”
“You will.” He ushered me out of the bathroom into the lounge area, still very distractingly naked, and urged me down onto a couch where a fruit and cheese selection was waiting with my next dose of medication and a glass of water. How the hell did he do everything so quickly and efficiently? “If I remind you, do you vow to never question my love for you again?”
“No.” There was no way I could promise that. I’d question it every damn day. “You’ll get no vows from me until our wedding day and that won’t be one of them.”
“At least you’re honest.” Tutting, Blaze set the box down in my lap and pulled off the lid.
My love notes. Hundreds of them. Some I’d seen before and still had as email attachments I’d never delete, others so new and written so hurriedly the ink was smudged and the penmanship barely legible.
“You’re still writing these?” My eyes stung. When he’d emailed them to me while I was in New York, Esme had told me that me reading them wasn’t what mattered. It was the writing and sending that was important to Blaze. But never in a million years had I expected him to carry on after I returned. What was the point when he could tell me?
A lot of the notes were written on napkins; two in particular were from restaurants in Liverpool and Tokyo. Others were torn off larger pieces of paper, shorter notes on the back of receipts or cash point mini-statements. Everywhere he’d been in the days since we’d met, he’d written a love note to me—purposely carved time out of his day to document his affections.
“Here.” He passed me a sheet of paper topped with the letterhead for the hospital I’d been in. On it was written less of a note and more of an essay. “I wrote this one while you were in surgery last week. The P.S. was written after they thought you—”
“No! God...” I shoved it back at him and held my face in my hands. I couldn’t read that, not knowing that it would undoubtedly be his plea and farewell. “It’s too personal.”