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“I don’t care about winning or losing,” he says. I can tell he has lost his patience. “I care about you. I want you to be happy. That’s why I made the booking in the first place, which I now wish to god that I hadn’t, because it’s unleashed this shitstorm.”
“I can’t be with you,” I say, surprising both of us.
Alistair blinks at me. “What?”
Damn it. Three more nights wouldn’t be enough, and now I’ve ruined those, too. I lower my voice. “We can’t be together. We’re completely at odds.”
“We are not,” he insists. “We’re perfect for each other. You know that. You’re just scared to admit it.”
I scoff. “Scared? Of what?”
“Scared of what could be in our future, Ivy. Scared because you know we’re meant to be together.”
I shake my head.
He’s wrong.
He’s delusional.
My heart is splintering; I don’t know how I’m still standing.
His voice softens. “Will you be here when I get back?
I look into his eyes and see the worry there. I hug him, and tears sting my eyes. “Of course I will.”
Alistair goes to work, his regret still clear.
I feel more than regret. My heart aches with my previously-denied knowledge that we can’t be together. Becks and I had agreed this adventure would end in tears, but I wasn’t expecting a broken heart. A messy end, yes. Discomfort, embarrassment. But not this. It feels like the ground has fallen away.
I lie down on the carpet and the floodgates open. I weep for the love that Alistair and I will never see grow and mature. I weep over the death of the new Ivy I had glimpsed—the grown-up, generous, empowered, joyous woman I could see myself becoming beside the man I so admired.
My grief doesn’t stop there. My hot tears remind me of the other traumas, the ones I had buried so deep that not even I remember them clearly.
The pre-school teacher who used to hit me for not bringing something in for Show & Tell, and for not eating the strawberry jam sandwiches.
Jamie’s health scares growing up. Visiting him in the pediatric hospital and not understanding why the adults were covering their mouths and blinking back tears while he smiled and waved at me from his cot.
The creepy lecturer at university who shoved his hand up my skirt.
Jeff. The litany of Jeff’s abuses is too long to list, but flashbacks of his cruelty flicker in my mind. When he bent my wrist so hard he almost broke it. When he held a flame to my palm. When he bit me so hard it left a scar. When he didn’t accept the end of our relationship and used to show up everywhere so that I never felt safe.
How I never felt safe until Alistair Ravenscroft turned up.
I cry so hard for so long that my throat hurts. My eyes are swollen. When I finally get up off the floor, I head to the shower in an attempt to wash the episode away. Of course it doesn’t work, because the streaming water is so comforting I cry again. It’s like when you’re just holding it together and a friend offers sympathy, making you dissolve into tears. It’s made worse by knowing this will be the last time I shower here.
When I finally get out, there are no more tears left to cry. I am a husk. I dry myself and get dressed, and chug a double espresso. I gaze out at the view and eat a plateful of pecan chocolate chip cookies to try to fill the emptiness I feel.
When my phone pings with a message, I’m sure it must be Alistair, but it’s Becks, which snatches me out of my reverie.
REBECCA BRADLEY
Holy shit, Ives. I need to see you.
Good morning to you too, sunshine.
Not kidding. Can you meet me for coffee ASAP?
My alarm bells start ringing.
