by Cara McKenna
“Please, Rob? You can’t leave in the state you are now.”
No, he couldn’t. It’d be a hell of a humbling night, though. Lying there beside this woman, the one he’d come to care for so much, and the one he’d lied to so grievously through the magic of denial.
How could you not have told her?
How could he have pretended they’d shared such a real connection, when he’d hidden half of who he was to her?
“Do you need to talk to someone?” Merry asked quietly. “Like a—”
“No.” No to whomever she might have suggested—a doctor, a rehab person, a psychiatrist. Clean white cells, but Rob preferred the prison of his own making, as wide and wild as the Highlands. “I just need to get home.”
He could read the pain on her face, plain as any other feature. He could read her thoughts, even. Running away won’t fix what’s broken. Again, he wanted to snap at her, tell her not to waste her pity or concern on him, tell her he wasn’t fixable. But he’d let her get so close . . . he couldn’t pretend she hadn’t earned the right to worry for him.
He huffed a sigh, throat still aching. “I’m sorry I let you think I was that person you met, out there.”
She sighed, too, frustrated. “You are him.”
He let it go. She was too close to that other man now. No amount of insistence would convince her of what he knew. Of who he was.
“Will you stay?” Merry asked, plea straining her voice.
He nodded. “I’ll stay.”
“Good.” After a long pause, she seemed to switch gears. “We need some food. It’s been a long day. And a long journey.”
“Okay.”
“I could go across the street and order from the Indian place.”
Another nod.
“What would you like?”
“Anything . . . Lamb would be good.” He tacked on a tardy, “Please.”
“Sure. I’ll get a bunch of things. We can share.” She squeezed his shoulder. “You just sit tight, okay? Watch some TV, if that’s not too triggering. Or take another bath. Or a nap. I’ll be as quick as I can.”
She pulled on her jacket and pocketed a key card and her wallet, offering an encouraging smile as she opened the door. “I’ll be back. We’ll be fine.”
He forced a smile in return, but it died the instant the lock clicked in place. Beyond the door he heard the crinkling and clinking of Merry gathering the bin bag.
Does she not even trust me around the empties?
No, you idiot. She doesn’t even understand why you don’t trust yourself. She trusts you far too much.
No, that sound was far worse.
That was the sound of Merry cleaning up after him. Protecting him.
I protected you, once, he thought, picturing her walking down the carpeted corridor. You needed me, once. And I was capable of the job. He’d cleaned her cut, given her shelter and food, a warm place to sleep. He’d been gentle, if not charming. Why couldn’t he just be that man, solely? Why did he have to have this thing in him, this unfixable flaw?
You’ve never really tried to fix it.
He’d never gone to treatment, not properly. Never been locked up long enough to detox. His wife and brother and Rob’s best mate-turned-business-partner had staged interventions—three of them—but Helen had always caved when drunken, cruel Rob had called her bluff. She’d never left him as she’d promised, never kicked him out, never held fast to any of her leverage.
His brother had been as good as his word, though—cut Rob off, perfect silence save for the day he’d arrived with a van to collect Helen’s things and tell Rob they were together. His partner had made good as well—shut him out of the businesses, conducted all their conversations through a lawyer. He’d even done his best to get Rob’s proceeds tied up so he couldn’t drink it all away, but he’d had no legal way to pull it off. Neither had Helen. Hadn’t mattered, anyway. Once she left him, he’d stuck around, going through the wretched motions of his life for a couple of months, trying and failing to take the coward’s way out on that first trip north, thwarted by the dog. Came home, found the cottage through an agent, bought it, and gave his lawyer, accountant, and broker instructions. Rent the house. Invest the money. Handle my taxes. Have my mail forwarded to your office, keep it for me, for whatever fee makes it worth your while.
And as emotionally bankrupt as he’d become, Rob hadn’t left civilized society a poor man. He still owned his old house, earning income from the tenants who lived in it, overseen by some rental agency.
His wife, for all the pain he’d caused her, had never asked for a quid. His words had beaten even the hate out of her, any thirst for retribution. Or perhaps the idea of having any tie left with Rob made her feel as sick as the guilt did him.
Whatever the reason, back in England there was still a bank balance with Rob’s name attached to it. Probably a healthy number, thanks to interest and investments, so much more than he could ever spend on petrol or supplies or property taxes. It didn’t feel like his, though. He wasn’t that young man anymore, the one who’d opened those bars. He’d left that flattering delusion behind him, with everything and everyone else.
And now he’d be the one left behind. By Merry. He stared at the door.
He couldn’t stand to look into those eyes again—not the ones that had witnessed all those dark things he wanted. She’d been so good to even let him be that way with her, offered so much. He couldn’t ask her for anything more—not to smile kindly and suffer any more of his fucking twisted damage.
He counted out bills, as many as he thought would cover the room and the minibar charges and her wasted celebration Scotch. There was no time for a note, not even a “Sorry.” Every second he lingered was another second in which he might change his mind, and he couldn’t risk that.
This is the merciful thing, he told himself, again and again and again, as he laced his boots. He kept smelling the lotion on his jaw. How could his body feel this fucking clean on the outside, and so rotten just under the skin?
He pulled on his jacket, shoved his scattered clothes into his pack and shouldered it, and left the key card on the bed.
You’re a broken man, Robert Rush, not fit for this world.
He flipped off the lights and shut the door quietly at his back.
Don’t let yourself forget that ever again.
Chapter Seventeen
The door to the restaurant jingled shut at Merry’s back. She stopped a moment, eyeing the hotel across the street, trying to guess which window was theirs. And what state Rob might be in, somewhere behind it . . .
Only he wasn’t behind it.
Her mouth dropped open. Rob was pushing through the hotel’s revolving door, in his jacket. She held her breath, waiting for him to look in her direction, to come after her. But instead he turned, striding down the sidewalk with his tan canvas pack on his back.
“Rob!”
His head twitched—a flinch—but didn’t he look her way. Merry started jogging, abandoning the heavy paper takeaway bag as she passed a bench.
“Rob!”
He ignored her, walking fast. Faster. She crossed the street, dodging a cyclist, and shouted again. Still nothing. Running now, she reached him, and he swiveled when she touched his arm, spinning around as though violently yanked. There was fear in his eyes, wild and manic. His old jacket felt so soft, gripped in her fingers. His stare so sharp.
“Rob—”
He jerked his arm away. “Don’t touch me.” The words came out hard and cold, but then he blinked, seeming to catch himself. “Please. Don’t touch me.”
Her fingers went to her own jacket cuffs, aching to hold on to something. “You were just going to run out on me?”
“I can’t be here. Not another minute.”
“Stay, please. Un
til you’re calm.”
“I’ll never be calm. Not here. Not anyplace like this, at night.”
“I’ll be with you. We’ll be okay until the morning.”
The line drawn between his eyebrows softened enough to reveal sadness. Regret. “Just let me go.”
“I can’t. I’m too worried now, about whether you’re okay. If you’ll be okay.”
He didn’t reply, and thinking she’d found a foothold and some momentum, Merry went on.
“I get that you don’t want me to see you like this. There are some versions of me I don’t ever want to have to introduce to anybody . . .”
Rob was shaking his head, looking away, so unmistakably denying the parallel.
“You never wanted me to see you this way—I get it. But now I have, and I’m not afraid of you. I’m worried about you. And I still care, enough that I can’t just let you go, knowing you’re this upset.”
Though his head had stopped shaking, he still didn’t reply.
She huffed a tight breath. “Just stay tonight. Please. Or let me come with you, to wherever it is you need to be, to feel safe . . .” She reached for his shoulder, but he grabbed her upper arms—suddenly, firmly—keeping her at a distance.
“Rob—”
“Don’t.”
She flinched at how his hands felt. Uglier emotions were welling—fear and anger and, above all others, confusion. These hands had always been so gentle. When she spoke, her voice sounded thin and frightened. “We got through this, the other time I shoved my foot in my mouth and sent you running away from me. We can get through thi—”
“Don’t talk to me like you know me.”
“I do know you!” It came out shrill, and with good reason. His grip became tight, too tight. She squirmed and it seemed to startle him. He let her go and stepped back a pace, looking disturbed.
“I do know you,” she echoed, finding her voice. Tears were simmering behind her sinuses, stinging her eyes. “I do.”
His eyes were hard, jaw set. “No, you don’t. That man you met isn’t me. Not anywhere beyond that hill.”
“Yes, he is.” He had to be. If he wasn’t, who had she fallen in love with?
Again, she reached for him, but he was stepping away, retreating, and she didn’t dare follow.
“Just let me be,” he warned, so, so cold.
She shook her head, her entire body vibrating with uncertainty and panic. “You know where I’ll be,” she called as he turned, already twenty paces away. If he heard, he didn’t show it.
He just left, one slow-motion step at a time, going, going, farther, farther, lost in the growing dark between the streetlights toward the river, the bridge, the outskirts of town, toward the hills they’d taken two days to hike.
“Don’t,” Merry said, too faint for anyone to hear. Too faint for her own ears. And she watched the only man she’d ever really loved disappear, terrified he was exactly right.
That she’d never really known him at all.
***
The pub was big. Dark. Short on patrons, so every tinkle of ice and clink of glass and bark of laughter ricocheted off granite tile and old oak beams.
I know this place, Rob thought as he slid onto a stool, eyeing the glimmering bottles beyond the bar, their labels unchanged in his absence. Even the meaty, mustachioed barman seemed familiar, though Rob had never drunk in this pub, nor any pub north of Glasgow, ever in his life. Christ, this all felt so strikingly like a homecoming.
The barman delivered a pair of pints, then turned to Rob. “And for you?”
“Large gin. Something decent. No ice.”
“Right you are.” He grabbed a big emerald bottle. Tanqueray. “Saw your pack there. You coming or going?”
“I’ve been away a long while,” Rob murmured as he watched the pour, mesmerized. “But I’m home now.”
“Welcome back, then.”
As the tumbler was set before him, its clack against the scuffed wood knocked Rob’s heart into gear, a finger flicking a metronome’s arm. Thump, thump, thump, thump . . .
He stared at it, hard. Like a diamond, he thought, pure and clear, low light glinting off the faceted glass. Perfect. A perfect mistake. A perfect surrender. The perfect, inevitable end to two years’ sad charade.
He stared at it, too long.
The barman raised a brow. “That all right?”
It’s not. It’s not right at all, is it? Rob thought, eyeing the glass. But when he opened his mouth, all he heard was—
“It’s perfect. Cheers.”
Chapter Eighteen
Merry didn’t tell a soul about Rob.
Though her dad would surely have believed her, he was a no-nonsense sort of guy. Merry’s romantic misadventure would’ve sounded insane to him, and he’d probably have only worried about her, going abroad on her own, taking up with some crazy alcoholic liar—that was surely how he’d interpret the situation, run through protective, fatherly filters.
She’d have told her mother, though.
She’d have told her over dinner the same night she’d gotten home, and they’d have stayed up until dawn drinking wine and listening to Blue and cursing men, crying and laughing and sighing and eating popcorn.
Instead Merry had done those things on her own, and her throat had turned achy and dry each time the album repeated and “All I Want” came on again, again, again. Each time she’d tried to sing along, to squeeze all his hurt out through her mouth, but she’d wound up with hitching shoulders and a phantom knife between her ribs.
She couldn’t talk to Lauren about it . . . or had chosen not to. And none of her other friends were right for the job. They’d never been on that confidante level, not as Lauren had been until recently.
Why did you have to go, Mom? Why did you have to go and leave me to figure all this shit out on my own?
But even trapped inside her, the pain had eased in time, smoothed over by the routines, fading from a fresh and weeping cut to a bruise—dark and tender, but manageable.
She’d flown to Seattle that first weekend back. She’d cried happy tears for her dad and Phil, wallowed in their long-awaited official union. She’d managed to forget her own horrible, bizarre breakup for seconds at a time, then flew back on Sunday and resumed her old life, in her new body. With her new heartache.
She’d licked her wounds through the fall, bingeing on tea and insomnia and Adele. Occasionally on food, but only rarely, and only enough to gain ten pounds, which was less weight than she’d expected to return once her arduous vacation was in the rearview. She hadn’t tumbled back into her old habits, muffling all the hurt with sugar or salt. She drowned herself in the feelings instead, a long, writhing orgy of emotions that swung wildly between anger and guilt, regret and resentment and, worst of all, longing. The most awful, choking longing. And that was what remained once the fury and humiliation were burned away.
For a while, she hated that man who’d turned his back and left her behind. Just the latest in a long line to do that—to be one way with her in private, another when the world was suddenly watching. Was she only lovable in a vacuum? Was that it? Fine for a secret fling-with-a-fat-girl, fine for as long as she indulged a man’s kinks in the safety of his carefully constructed little prison, but dropped the moment the charade fell to pieces?
But that wasn’t what hurt her the worst. It wasn’t even the secrets he’d kept from her.
It was the fact that he’d not thought her capable of hearing them.
In the space between the mood swings, life went on.
She returned to her routines, but not her obsessive number-tracking. She stepped on the scale most mornings, made sure she exercised five or six days a week, and kept up with her new and improved eating habits. But she didn’t police her calories the way she used to, didn’t wa
tch the green digits tick up on the elliptical, waiting to be told when she’d suffered adequately. She ate when she was hungry, and occasionally for pleasure. She exercised until she felt spent. She saw Lauren every week or two, and though they didn’t feel as close as they once had, they still had a good time. They were friends, if not best friends.
Merry found her spine and demanded a meeting with her bosses, and within six weeks she was promoted to a production manager role. It was an empty sort of coup—she made more money and got moved from the big communal studio floor to an actual office, but it left her in an even less creative role with the designs than she’d enjoyed as a lowly pattern drafter.
It’d do, for now. Until she figured out what the next step was. But one thing was undeniable. For all its colors, sounds, energy, culture . . . San Francisco had paled. Set against that cruel palette of the Highlands—steel-gray and sage and the deepest, blackest blues—the riotous rainbow of urban color had fallen unmistakably flat.
That cold, unforgiving landscape, the one her mother had fled like a death sentence . . .
She missed it. She missed it with a hollow yearning, like hunger. Like she’d never expected or imagined she might.
But there was no going back, not the way she’d been seen off. And so she settled into a sensation she knew well—living with the hunger.
***
The letter was waiting when Merry got home from work, lugging groceries. It was May, a balmy Thursday, the air ripe with spring. She checked her mailbox inside the front door, and her pulse spiked from nothing more than the blue and red stripes on the airmail envelope. Perfectly typical day swept away in a breath.
She stared at the thing with alternating fear and curiosity as she walked down the hall and up the stairs, as though regarding a scorpion through an aquarium wall. Tap the glass. No, don’t. Go on, it can’t hurt you.
Oh, but it could. She took a mental step back from it, detaching, telling herself it was just an object. Just any old letter.
The lie didn’t take. She’d waited too long for this. Eight months, nearly.