The Spindle's Curse: A modern mm romance inspired by Sleeping Beauty (Ever After Book 1)

by TL Gehr

  His gaze drops. “Would I sound like the biggest dickhead ever if I said I was hoping you’d take longer to recover?”

  “This month has been… I don’t even have words. I never imagined anything like it. But I think I need to go home.”

  Philip nods, still looking at the bedding rather than at me. “All right. The driver can take you whenever you’re ready.”

  I can hear the pain in his voice, so it kills me to say, “I mean home to New Paltz.”

  His eyes snap up to mine like I just kicked him and he has no idea why.

  “I thought I was ready to come to the big city, to live alone again. I thought that I was far enough in my recovery that I’d be able to cope with whatever life threw at me. But what happened… we haven’t really spoken about it, about how the craving overwhelmed me, because I don’t want you to blame yourself. It’s not your fault, Philip. Gene always said that the only person I could blame for my failings was me. Well, you saw her notes. ‘Defensive and unwilling to take responsibility for his own choices’. This is me taking responsibility. I think I need to go home. I left Sober Living too soon. I can’t do this alone.”

  I pull in a deep breath, the type that was impossible only a week or two ago and I take Philip’s hand in both of mine. “The thing is, if it was just me, I could maybe risk it. But I can’t… I can’t pull you into that cycle. I can’t drag you down with me. I can’t risk that happening again, you being the one to find me like that.” I shake my head. “And staying in Manhattan… I want to say it won’t happen, but…”

  The emotion swelling in my chest chokes me. This is so hard. I know it’s the right thing, but it’s so hard.

  The furrow between Philip’s brow is a dark, deep gorge as he says, “I can’t pretend to understand. I’ve never been where you are now, but couldn’t you get help here? Couldn’t I help you?”

  Oh Philip… “That’s just the thing. You want to help, it’s in your nature to help, and that’s going to be very bad for you if I stay here.” I shake my head. “I can’t let you get caught up in trying to help me.”

  His voice pitches upwards. “Brian, what are you saying? Are you… are you ending this?” This is the sound of his heart breaking.

  “No!” I throw my arms around his neck and hug him to me. “No… I mean… I guess it’s up to you. New Paltz is only an hour and a half away. If you’re willing to do long distance, we could visit?”

  His shoulders relax under my arms. “Okay, yes, I can do that.” His voice still sounds distant.

  I pull away to see his face. Blank, just like in that Wikipedia photo. Just like in his office. “You’ve got your hands full here with The Spindle and school. You could concentrate more on school if I wasn’t around.”

  He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t have a problem making time for you, Brian. But if this is what you feel you need, then I want you to know you have my support.”

  What I’m doing is right, but the way he’s retreated into himself hurts like an ice pick to my heart. “Philip, I’ve never been with anyone like you before. I never imagined someone like you could really exist, let alone that he’d want me. It’s really important to me that my problems don’t impact you.”

  Philip closes his eyes and drops his head forward against mine. Forehead-to-forehead. “You know, part of being in a relationship is sharing this sort of thing.”

  This sort of thing. “Your lover dying in your arms? I don’t think so.”

  “Rather in my arms than an hour and a half away where I can’t get to you.”

  “I won’t. I’ll go back to Sober Living. It’s this place you go to after rehab, like a halfway house, where everyone else is also recovering and you go to therapy and you check in with each other. It’s a safe environment without any temptation.”

  “How long do you stay there?” he asks.

  “As long as you need.”

  “How do you know how long that is?” He pulls away and looks into my eyes. “I don’t want to tell you what to do and I don’t want to argue about what you think you need. I just want to say this one thing, and then I’ll leave it, okay? When kids learn to walk, they fall down a few times. We don’t strap them in a walker for the rest of their lives. If you say you’re not ready, I believe you. But if this is just about you being able to trust yourself… I believe in you.” He puts his hand over my heart again. “I know you might fall a few times. I want to be here to catch you.”

  All I can do is kiss him and kiss him. He doesn’t understand how badly I want to protect him and that this is the only way I can.

  40

  Philip

  I want too much. I always want too much.

  41

  Brian

  I arrive at the station half an hour early. Philip’s supposed to meet me here to see me off, but he’ll only leave work after the lunchtime rush, so I stroll around the terminal and I buy us coffee, like he did when he took me on the High Line. It’s a small thing, but it’s meant to symbolize that we’re still together, we’re still a we.

  Yet, as I cradle his cup between my fingers, my chest aches in a way that has nothing to do with my ribs. This is what they call cold turkey—going from waking up in Philip’s arms every morning to only seeing him on weekends and holidays. He’s been quietly supportive of everything. With an emphasis on the “quietly”. He hasn’t quite come back from that protective place he goes to inside his head to avoid being hurt.

  “Are you angry?” I asked last night as I put the last of my things into my backpack.

  “Of course not,” he responded, but he kept looking at his iPad and didn’t meet my eyes.

  He arranged for a car to take me to the apartment this morning to gather whatever Jones left behind and to hand over to the replacement tenant I found for Alex. She approved him over Skype—a nice theater kid who was delighted to be so near to the theater district.

  Then I had to break the news to Cynthia. At first she thought I was leaving to move in with Philip and she was overjoyed. “He’s such a nice young man.”

  “You’ve changed your tune. What happened to ‘the rich aren’t like us’?”

  She shrugged. “They say you see a person’s true colors in a crisis.”

  She doesn’t elaborate on the scene she must have witnessed, but I can imagine it. Philip, the nurse, was probably cool and collected, tender and gentle. He thought to ask her for the key, he remembered how to do CPR. I imagine he was very good in a crisis.

  When I explained that I’m going home to New Paltz, she gasped dramatically and kept asking me why. Like many city folk, she couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to leave Manhattan. I think there’s more to it than that, though. I think it was her way of saying she’ll miss me. I hugged her goodbye and had her enter her number into my phone. Even though I don’t know what we’d ever talk about, it made it feel like a less permanent farewell.

  Now I’m here at Penn Station, all my loose ends tied up. My New York City adventure is over. I check the time, and then I check it again because I didn’t take note of the numbers properly. Philip’s running a little late. A knot of anxiety twists in my stomach. What if he doesn’t get here in time to say goodbye?

  I check my phone. There’s a message from Dad confirming my time of arrival, but nothing from Philip. I shift my weight from foot to foot. There are a lot of people here. Maybe he walked right past me. I watch the people, my heart jumping at each tall blond figure, but Philip does not appear.

  My train will be here in five minutes. I pull out my phone again (no messages) and flick to that tracking app.

  Philip’s phone does not show up.

  I check the GPS, check the signal. All perfect where I’m standing. My heart starts beating a little faster. What does this mean? Did the tech fail or did he remove me? Was the thought of saying goodbye too much for him so he decided to ghost me?

  My mind flies back to the way he was when we parted this morning. He was in a black turtleneck and he pecked my lips and wishe
d me luck with the handover. I try to recall every detail of his face. There wasn’t any hint that he thought it would be our final goodbye. But then Philip is so good at hiding the truth. What if he wanted a clean break? My heart plummets. What if he never had any intention of seeing me off? What if that was it, if that was all the Philip I get to have? What if that was our last kiss?

  I try to marshal my thoughts. Part of me is screaming that I’m stupid for thinking someone like Philip would want to go to the effort of doing long distance with me, another part is yelling that this is what I deserve for hurting him, that I’ve hurt him so badly he couldn’t wait to be rid of me.

  Stop. Stop jumping to conclusions. Stop projecting your feelings of guilt onto Philip. He isn’t like that, you know he’s not like that.

  My train’s due to arrive in three minutes. I text him, “Running late?”

  It remains unread.

  One minute. I call him. It cuts straight to voicemail.

  Okay, so his phone is dead. That’s a thing that can happen. I’m pretty sure it was plugged in next to the bed last night, but maybe I was wrong, maybe he used the cable for the iPad. That makes sense, right?

  I scroll to the number for The Spindle. Maxine answers. I push aside my own discomfort at talking to her when she thought I was a thief. “Hey, is Philip there?”

  “Brian? No, he never showed today and we’re swamped.”

  The coffee slips from my hand and splashes to the tiles at my feet. I hardly notice it. I can’t breathe. “Never showed? But he was on his way there hours ago.”

  “Don’t know what to tell you, we haven’t seen him.”

  I end the call with my pulse racing. I’m dashing for the exit, before I’ve even formed a solid thought. Philip might be in danger, something horrible might have happened to him. Images of muggings, car crashes, horrific accidents flash across my vision. I hail a cab and luckily it stops for me. I’m already out of breath. “Maddison and 36th,” I pant to the driver, “as fast as possible, please.”

  As he pulls away, I dial Philip again but I get his cool, calm, “You’ve reached Philip, I’m not available to take your call right now—”

  “Some event on at the library?” The cabby asks.

  “What?”

  “The Morgan Library. That’s where you’re going, yeah?”

  Shit. “No.” Why are all these streets numbered? “What address did I give you?”

  “Maddison and 36th.”

  “Maddison and 63rd? Where is that? Near Central Park?”

  He eyes me in the rearview mirror as if I’m losing my mind. “Yeah. But that’s across town. In this traffic? Will be faster to take the subway.”

  “Okay, thanks.” I pull some notes out of my wallet and hand them to him without counting.

  He screeches to a halt as I open the door and jump out. I hear him calling after me to give me change, but I don’t slow down. This is just like that nightmare where no matter how hard you run you can’t get anywhere. My lungs are burning as I take the stairs down into the 34th Street Station two at a time. I feel the impact of each step in my rib, but I don’t slow down.

  I only stop for breath once the train doors are shut behind me. My hands are shaking as I stare at my phone and try to assess if I’m overreacting. There could be another explanation for this, couldn’t there? Except I can’t think of one.

  I push my way through the crowds at the Lexington Avenue stop. Siri will have to get me the rest of the way. “Take me home.”

  It works because my phone’s still registered to Philip’s account. He hasn’t removed me. It’s his phone that’s been removed. The phone beeps and shows me a straight blue line to Philip’s.

  When I get there, I’m coated in sweat and I struggle to heave in enough air to say to the doorman. “Is Philip here?”

  “Mister Rose, how good to see you again. No, I’m afraid I haven’t seen him since—”

  I don’t wait for the rest. I brush past him into the entrance hall.

  “Emma!” My voice bounces off the walls, echoing all the way up to the top floor. “Emma!” It’s high pitched and raw. I move through the passages, calling desperately like a wounded animal, and the security systems let me pass without complaint until she rushes out of one of the rooms I’ve never been in.

  “Emma!” I gasp as she closes the distance between us, “Philip—” I clutch at her, fighting for the breath, for the words to convey my fears.

  She takes my hands. “Shh, shh, I know.”

  “I think something… I can’t find him…”

  “I know.” Her gray eyes are large and her eyebrows are tilted upwards. She looks just as scared as I feel.

  Her words register. “What’s happened?” I choke out.

  She tilts her head to the room she just came out of and I let her guide me inside.

  It’s an office with dark furniture, heavy curtains and leather-bound books. Three people look up as I enter. Philip’s mom, Philip’s dad and a policeman. There’s another man in a gray suit sitting behind the antique desk who’s writing on a notepad and doesn’t pause.

  “There!” Philip’s father points at me. “You should question him.” He tells the cop. “He will tell you all you need to know.”

  “What’s happened? Where’s Philip?” Everything feels like it’s slowing down, becoming unreal. I should be afraid of the cop, I should be afraid of Philip’s father’s accusations, but what I’m really afraid of is what they’ll say next. Philip’s not here. His absence shoots through me like ice water. If he was here but injured I’d at least know he’s alive.

  Emma shuts the door behind us and then says softly, at my shoulder, “He’s been kidnapped.”

  A small sound escapes my throat and I have to grab her to steady myself.

  “Don’t act so shocked,” his father says. “This was your plan all along, wasn’t it? Why settle for what you can steal out of a register when you can ask for millions?” He strides towards me. “Who are you working with?” His spittle flies into my face.

  I hardly hear him through the rushing in my ears. Philip’s really in danger. This is really happening. It’s not me jumping to conclusions, it’s not me getting caught up in negative thoughts, it’s not one of my nightmares. It’s real. If I had gone with him to work, would this have happened? Where did they get him? Did they hurt him? Is he even still alive? I bend double, nausea threatening to overwhelm me.

  A phone rings on the desk. The man in gray nods for Mrs. Arrigo to answer. She puts the call on speaker as she does.

  “Have you had time to think about our offer?” A computerized voice says.

  She locks eyes with the gray man as she says, “The answer is as it was before. We will not negotiate with kidnappers.”

  I jerk in shock. They won’t negotiate for their only child?

  “You will if you wish to see your son alive again.”

  The man in gray nods and Mrs. Arrigo continues, “Surely you can understand… If I pay you, then I am putting a target on every member of my family.”

  All three of them.

  “If I pay you,” she adds, “then what’s to stop you from taking my son again? Making a career of threatening his life? We do not negotiate with kidnappers. Set my son free.”

  “You don’t seem to understand the situation,” says the voice.

  “Oh, I understand perfectly. Philip is only valuable to you so long as you can extort money for his safe return. I am telling you, you cannot. Release him.”

  “If he has no value, then we may as well kill him.”

  “No!” I lurch forward. Emma snags my arm.

  “Brian?” I hear Philip’s voice on the other end of the phone, distant, alive.

  “Philip!” I pull against Emma, as if getting close to the phone will mean getting close to him.

  Philip’s father grabs me by the scruff of my neck and yells towards the phone. “Yes, we have the little accomplice here. He’s going to lead us right to you.” I choke, the fabric
cutting into my neck. He shakes me, “Who are you working with, hmm? Who has my son?”

  I scratch at his hands, my vision going spotty.

  “Please, sir, it is best we all remain calm,” says the gray man.

  Philip’s father throws me to the ground and I gasp oxygen into my lungs.

  “Who is that?” the kidnapper demands. “We said no outsiders. You’re not taking this seriously. Should we start removing fingers?”

  “No!” I shriek. I see Philip’s hands, his big strong hands. I see his face contorted in pain. “Just give them the money!” I shout from my place on the floor, tears pricking my eyes. “You can afford it! Why won’t you pay?”

  Emma crouches beside me and takes my hands again. “You have to trust them. This isn’t the first time.”

  Philip has been kidnapped before? He never said anything about it. The man in gray introduces himself to the kidnapper as a hostage negotiator.

  “When?” I ask Emma while the gray man and the kidnappers engage in rapid fire questioning.

  “Long ago, before I worked here, when he was still at school. They managed to get him back unharmed. It’s going to be okay.”

  I’m aching all over. The fear is like a tangible thing, a blanket smothering me.

  “I’d like to speak to my son,” I hear Mrs. Arrigo say.

  “You just heard him.” There’s a low thwack sound and Philip cries out. I bite down on my lip hard enough to draw blood.

  The gray man says, calmly, “How do we know that voice belongs to Philip Arrigo? Let him talk to his family. Proof that he is alive and unharmed is essential if we are to proceed with these negotiations.”

  “Fine.” There’s a grunt and then Philip’s voice, closer to the phone, asks, “Brian?”

  My heart leaps. His whole family’s here and it’s my name he says. I crawl forward. “Philip! Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

  “Brian, I thought you were going home.”

  “You weren’t there, I—”