by Ivy Fox
“As Holland said, Mrs. West, she’ll be more than fine in our care.”
“Well, I guess that’s settled then. I’ll stay until you get discharged from the hospital. If you don’t mind, Oliver, I’ll make sure my granddaughter has everything she needs back at your house. Only then can I get back to my work in the U.K. with an easy mind.”
“Whatever you need, Mrs. West.”
“None of that, Oliver. If we are to be family, then it’s about time you start calling me Nana. If my Holland has opened her heart for you, then I will, too.”
My heart thumps loudly when I feel Ollie’s grip to my hand begin to quiver.
“I’d be honored, Nana,” he replies, genuine emotion tainting the endearment. Knowing that the one maternal figure I’ve ever had, gives her blessing and accepts our love, has me a little teary-eyed, too.
My grandmother gets out of her seat, her loving smile plastered on to her face. She leans in and presses a kiss to my temple, and holding my face in her hands, she says, “I’m overjoyed the surgery went well, but knowing you are loved, is the best gift I could have ever hoped for.”
“Thank you, Nana.” I hiccup, my own emotions coming into play.
She then presses her hand over Ollie’s cheek and gazes into his eyes with the same love and affection she’s bestowed on me all my life.
“You take care of each other. Love isn’t always easy. It’s filled with little bumps that you didn’t expect to cross. But if you listen to your heart and let it lead the way, then you will always make it to the other side. Together.”
Ollie nods, his Adam’s apple bobbing away at my grandmother’s wise counsel.
“I’ll leave you two alone and check what’s taking so long with that damned water. I swear, you youngsters these days get sidetracked by any shiny thing in your path and forget everything else,” she huffs out humorously, and leaves in pursuit of some water.
I lean back in my bed and tilt my head over to Ollie, and ask, “What now?”
I’m still feeling overwhelmed with everything that’s happened in the last few weeks—Claire revealing she had an affair with my father, and Addison being the result of that affair, but more astonishingly, Addison giving me a kidney without demanding Rome in return. I feel like I’m stuck in a crazy-ass daytime soap opera, where the next day can bring as many surprises and jaw-dropping moments like the current one.
Ollie bends down once more and presses his warm lips to mine, knowing his simple kiss will erase my troubled thoughts. His love is one of the constants I have in my life and something I will never have to doubt or fear to lose.
“Now? Now we go home, Snow. We go home.”
It’s been three weeks since my surgery, yet everyone in this house still treats me as if I were a doll made of priceless china, easy to break with the smallest tumble.
Neither Ollie, nor Ash told me one goddamned thing about Rome’s trial, and it’s eating me alive. Even Elle goes mute every time I bring up the subject.
I know the prosecution had made their case when I was in the hospital, so now it’s up to the Coen brothers to have their whack at it. But it’s been almost a month now, and no one gave me even a small inkling of what’s going on.
The only things I still get are Rome’s letters. Those are hand-delivered to me every day. Since I’m not yet fit to visit him in prison, his words are what keep me from losing my mind completely.
Restless, I grab his latest letter from my drawer and sit on my bed while I get lost in his loving prose.
Hey, little liar,
Ash just left and told me you’re suffering from a little cabin fever. I have to say that I can relate. I wish I could be there to entertain you.
By now, you should be fit enough to go along with all the dirty little plans I have for you. And trust me, there are plenty.
When you’re as confined as I am, and every hour is accounted for, the only thing that gets me through it is to spend every second thinking of you, fantasizing about what I’ll do when we’re together again.
How I’ll kiss you with such mad passion and leave you breathless, moaning out my name. How I’ll throw you against the wall, fuck you hard and fast while getting lost in those silver eyes of yours. And how, after you’ve cum, screaming loud enough to make the walls shake, I’ll throw you on the bed and make sweet, gentle love to you. Kiss every inch, caress every curve, and brand you mine for all eternity.
These are the things that I hold onto—the moments we have shared and the ones that are still in our future to embrace and enjoy.
But unlike me, you don’t have to waste your time preoccupied with tomorrow. You have today, little liar. Don’t let it pass without love and joy in your life.
There is so much passion in you, little liar. So much potential being kept under lock and key. And since you refuse to see it, I think it’s time I took matters into my own hands.
You need a little reminder of how extraordinary you are, not to mention how much of a disservice you’re doing to yourself by not letting the real you shine, the way you were always meant to.
So, I asked Ash to leave you a little something from me in the music room. Since I can’t physically drag you there to find out what it is, I hope this letter piques your curiosity enough that you have no choice but to find out.
See? In the can, and still bossing you around. Some things never change, just like my love for you, little liar.
Actually, maybe I’m the one that’s lying now. My love for you changes every day. It grows, Snow. Fuck, does it grow. Sometimes the love I have feels so big I think my heart might burst with it.
Saying I love you doesn’t even feel like enough to describe what you mean to me. But that’s exactly how I feel.
I love you, my perfect little liar. So much.
Take care of my soul, sweet Snow, since it’s yours and always will be.
Rome
I press the letter to my heart and kiss my love in the solitude corners of my mind. I look to my side, a blissfully sleeping Oliver lies next to me, while I wipe the small tears his brother always seems capable of coaxing out of me.
Poor Ollie. He’s been stuck to my side since I came home from the hospital. He doesn’t even go to his brother’s trial, only leaving me in Elle’s company for a few hours in the afternoon every other day to visit Rome in prison.
Ash, however, is not in bed. Like me, he’s been more agitated of late. I’ve seen him tense and scowling more than ever, but he never confides what’s troubling him so. The only thing he says is that soon everything will be as it should. I wish he wouldn’t be so vague and just fess up what the hell is going on.
My eyes land on the piece of paper in my hands and fix on Rome’s words.
I asked Ash to leave you a little something from me in the music room.
With my frustrations taking hold of me, I spring out of bed, picking up my phone in case Ash calls, and head along to the room I dread most. Without waking Ollie up, I put on my robe and go downstairs. I stop in the middle of the hall, stuck at the crossroad between heaven and hell; to the left is the room that still holds fear; and to the right, down the long corridor, is the kitchen where Rome used to wait every night for my arrival—the place where we started falling in love.
How can something that brought me so much joy feels like it took place ages ago, but the thing that broke me feels as if it was done to me just yesterday?
Straightening my spine and gripping my phone in my hand, I take the necessary steps to the left and stop when I reach the music room’s threshold. It’s early March, but the Christmas tree Rome and I decorated together still stands at its center. Summoned by love and not by dread, I walk in, touching the homemade ornaments and tinsel on its branches. The glow of its festive lights brings a different kind of feel to the room, while a peculiar, folded, yellow piece of paper hangs on one of its branches. Carefully, I remove it from its place, and I tear up yet again with the words written inside.<
br />
Music is as much a part of you as we are.
Don’t abandon your dreams because of one nightmare.
Don’t let him win.
Reclaim your power. One key at a time.
My tears begin to stain the words that are meant to empower me. Malcolm might have tried to ruin me here, but in this very place, I also found love. Rome gave me his heart the day we decorated this tree, and I gave him mine without even realizing it.
This room doesn’t represent hate. How could it ever? If I allow the hate inflicted on me in this room, overpower the love given, then Rome’s right—I had let him win.
With my resolve intact, I cross the lavish area to the abandoned piano waiting for me. I sit down on the bench and lift the hard lid, revealing the ivory keys that I’ve missed so much.
How could I have almost let him rob me of this?
My fingers press each key, and the sound that springs forth brings tears to my eyes while childish laughter rips through my throat.
He didn’t win, Rome. He’ll never win. I promise. I promise.
The hope and faith—that all things will be rectified—fill my heart as I cry and play each key, mimicking all the feelings flowing inside me. If anyone should come in here now, they’d think I lost my mind. But I’ve never felt more alive than this very minute.
The glorious melody envelops me in its warm embrace, whispering to me that I’m home. Rome, Ollie, and Ash have all given me so much love that there is no slash or cut to the soul they can’t mend.
That I can’t repair.
I’ve been so blessed. So blessed. Through all the cruelty and ill luck, my life has been one blessing after another.
Yes, I have lupus.
Yes, my father killed himself.
Yes, my mother despises the very sight of me.
Yes, my stepfather tried to rape me in this very room.
Yes, the love of my life is facing a jail sentence because of me.
YES! YES! YES!
All of that happened!
All of this is true.
But so is the fact I grew up in a home where I had one maternal figure that taught me how to be strong and fearless.
I grew up with one friend that would drop everything just to be by my side.
I fell in love with two boys with stars in their eyes and love in their hearts only for me.
I gained a devoted sister when the one I have by blood couldn’t care less of my existence.
And a broken man found his soul, just by loving me.
The gifts I have been given in this life far outweigh any of my sorrows.
And with this overwhelming sense of gratitude and love, my fingers play on the baby grand piano as they’ve never done before. I play and play, laugh and cry, feeling the ugly burden of guilt and sadness lift off my shoulders and evaporate into thin air. My wet tears fall to the keys, making my intended strokes slip off them, and yet it’s the most beautiful song I’ve been able to create.
Frantically—and perhaps even a little madly—I stop to grab my phone to record this epiphany, this cathartic experience. My fingers fumble with my phone, but when I click on the recording app, my breath hitches, and my heart stops. The last recording was done on that god-awful night. Its length—ninety-eight minutes.
With my heart suddenly threatening to jump out of my throat, I remember Rome’s words, the ones that kept me from shattering into a million pieces, ‘Breathe, Snow. Breathe.’
With all the courage I can summon, I press play. For the first half-hour, I listen to the song that resulted from the feeling of my humiliation and heartbreak over Ash and Ollie the night I went to the Manning’s party. But then the music stops, and the nightmare begins.
On my phone, the voice of Malcolm Grayson rises as if he were in the room with me this very minute. A cold shiver runs down my spine as I hear his voice explain all the ways he’s going to ruin me.
Ugly words.
Vile words.
Monstrous.
And then the struggle.
My voice begging him to stop while he laughs at my resistance.
Laughing at my pain.
Laughing at my agony.
Until the moment I silence his laughter forever.
My cold hands grip the device, my heart threatening to explode out of my chest at how fast it’s beating. Then, twenty-five minutes into the recording, I hear the words that I engraved to my heart, ‘Breathe, Snow. Breathe.’ The recording ending on that one hopeful spot.
“Viam inveniam aut faciam,” I whisper into the darkness. “I found our way, Rome. I found our way.”
Without a second to lose, I run out of the room, rushing out of the manor just in my PJs and robe. Outside on the curb, the Grayson chauffer is lighting a cigarette as if lady luck put him in my path, knowing I’d need him tonight.
“I need you to take me to the 46th Precinct. Now!” I order, as he takes in my disheveled appearance as a few screws missing inside my head.
“Don’t you want to get dressed first, miss?” he asks, waving his hand at my attire.
“I don’t have time for that! Are you going to take me or not?!”
He nods, scared, his eyes wide at my frantic, unhinged state, opening the car door to let me in. I don’t care if he does think I’m losing my marbles. Right now, his opinion of me is the last thing on my mind.
I clutch my phone against my bosom, holding it as a prized possession, one that will set free the man I love.
Thankfully, the driver hauls ass and gets me to the precinct in record time. I look at my phone to check the time, and being just past eleven in the evening may be too late to find Detective Gomez inside. But I don’t care. There must be someone I can talk to—a supervisor, the head of the police force, anyone.
And in this frantic state of mind, I storm into the precinct demanding justice to be served.
“I need to speak to Detective Michelle Gomez immediately,” I shout in the face of an unsuspecting cop at the reception desk.
“Detective Gomez is occupied at the moment,” he mumbles, eyeing me up and down as if I had just escaped from the loony bin.
I tighten my robe because, to be fair, he’s right to assume as much, but what I do next doesn’t make me look any saner.
“Well, unoccupy her!” I yell, slamming my fist on the counter. “Now!”
“Just wait a minute, miss—”
“Detective Gomez! Detective Gomez! DETECTIVE GOMEZ!” I shout out at the top of my lungs.
“Miss! Calm yourself down!”
“DETECTIVE GOMEZ!”
I holler with all my might, my lungs burning with every shout I make as officers begin to grab me, trying to keep me from running through their precinct in search of the detective.
But as I scream out her name for the twentieth time, she finally surfaces, worry for my sanity blatantly apparent on her face.
“Miss West, I’m here. I’m here. Holland, I’m here!”
My chest heaves up and down, trying to catch a breath, but my hands grip at the detective, unwilling to let her out of my sight until I do what I came for.
“I have proof! I have proof!” I exclaim with so much fervor that my whole body begins to shake.
“Shh. It’s okay. It’s okay. Come with me, Holland,” she says, placing her arm over my shoulder to tranquilize me. “Someone get me a bottle of water, please,” she orders as she opens the door to an empty room with only a table in the middle, probably used for interrogation purposes. But there will be no need to try and tear the truth out of me. I’m more than willing to reveal it all.
I take a seat and drink the water handed to me by a younger officer, while Detective Gomez scrutinizes my every move.
“I’m okay. I’m calmer now,” I advise, knowing that’s what she needs to hear before I start to explain why I was acting insane a minute ago.
“Are you sure? You don’t look well. Do you need me to call Oliver?”
she questions, and I bite my inner cheek from laying claim to her crush.
Not the time, Holland. You need her to hear you out and clear Rome’s name.
“Last time I was here, I told you that I was the one who unintentionally killed Judge Grayson when he attacked me and tried to rape me. You didn’t believe me then, but if you hear this, I’m sure you’ll believe me now.”
“Holland—”
“No. Please, Michelle. Just give me a few minutes of your time. You need to hear this!” I beg her.
Her brown eyes turn soft as she gives me a conceding nod to do what I need to.
With trembling hands, I pull up the recording for the second time and play the horror that took place last August, back at the Grayson Manor. I fast forward to the final note played before Malcolm Grayson entered the music room and forever changed my life.
I attentively watch Detective Gomez’s suspicious brow turn into almighty dread with each word the judge utters to me. She throws a sorrowful gaze my way with every horrifying word, and I watch as shame begins to coat her expression for not believing me when Elle and I came to her with the truth.
When the intense struggle subsides and all that’s left are my tormented wails, she picks up my phone and stops it from playing any further. The stilled silence in the air is heavy and drained, but my soul soars above it all. Now that the truth has finally come to light, Rome must be released. This proves that my actions were in self-defense, so even if I’m arrested in his place, I’m confident that no jury will condemn me for fighting for my life and my virtue.
“I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” she says at last.
“So am I.”
She looks over at the phone again, picks it up, and asks, “May I keep this?” I feel my forehead wrinkle with confusion.
“Of course. You’ll need it as evidence, so the charges against Rome can be dropped.” My confusion only intensifies when I see the same perplexed look rise on her pretty face with my reply.
“The charges have already been dropped, Holland. Didn’t you hear?”