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But my safety doesn’t matter anymore. Not when I’m stuck in this purgatory.
“I have spoken to him,” Art answers quietly.
“And?”
“And you already know the answer, Isabella. He isn’t going to meet with you. He doesn’t speak to anybody. He doesn’t even leave his home.”
“He speaks to you,” I argue.
“Through email,” he sighs. “Hell, Isa, I’ve never even met the guy. The only one that I know who has is your father.”
“But you know where he lives, right? Take me to him. Just let me ask for myself. Please…”
“You know I can’t do that,” he tells me.
I can no longer hide my frustration or the sharpness of my voice.
“Why?”
“Because. I don’t know where he lives. Nobody does.”
“Except for my father,” I finish for him.
Again, I don’t believe that.
Before I even heard the news about my father, someone came into our house and took everything from his office. His files. His computer. Everything.
They have to know something. And I know Javi is the answer. He’s the only lead I have to go on. But not if I can’t get to him.
“I’m sorry, Isabella,” Art says. “I promise I’ll call you if I hear anything. Anything at all.”
“Okay.”
My voice is numb.
I don’t even know if he says goodbye.
The phone is still plastered against my ear long after the call ends. Until I fall back on the bed and stare up at the ceiling and think back on everything my father ever told me about the mysterious Javi.
The recluse who lives away from the rest of society. The child that he used to spend more time with than his own daughter.
I grew up hating him. Resenting him. Wondering what was so special about him that called my father away so often.
I asked him once if I could meet him. And I’d never seen my father so serious as when he looked at me and shook his head.
Never, Isabella. You must never meet him.
He made it sound as though the boy was dangerous. As though he were a monster. But yet, he was always there with him.
Always.
The door to my room opens, and I curl into myself.
It’s Luke.
And he’s drunk.
That never bodes well for me.
He shuts the door behind him and comes to sit beside me on the bed, his fingers trailing over the naked skin of my ankle.
I pull away from him.
“What do you need, Luke?”
“Is that how you talk to me, baby?” he asks. “After everything I’ve done for you?”
Everything he’s done for me.
He claims to care for me, but it’s not the way I want or need. He’s supposed to be my guiding light as an artist, but lately, it feels like he’s driving me further and further into the darkness.
I’m locked into a contract I can’t get out of, and he exploits that at every possible opportunity.
“You’ve had too much to drink, Luke,” I tell him. “I think you should go to bed.”
“I think you don’t tell me what to do,” he says.
The room is quiet, and my body is rigid. I hate when he’s like this. I hate him more with every passing day.
“I care about you, Isa.” He reaches out to touch me again. “I just want what’s best for you. Let me comfort you. Let me be there for you.”
He wants to comfort me alright.
With his cock.
I shrug him off again, and he gets pissed. He grabs my arm and squeezes.
“Don’t be a tease.”
“Leave me the hell alone,” I tell him. “You don’t get to talk to me like that.”
He tries to climb on top of me. And this time, he’s taking it too far.
I knee him in the balls, and he doubles over, coughing in pain when I shove him off of me. I bolt from the bed and out the door while he screams after me.
But he’s too drunk to follow.
I make it down to the lobby and manage to flag down a cab.
I don’t know where I’m going. I’m supposed to attend a party tomorrow. I’m supposed to do a lot of things that I really just don’t give a fuck about anymore.
The cabbie asks me where I want to go.
“The bus station,” I tell him. “Just take me to the bus station.”
CHAPTER THREE
THE HOUSE that once seemed quaint and homey now sits stagnant. Brown patches of grass stain the formerly pristine green of our lawn. Dirt gathers in corners and crevices, and dust visibly lines the window sills from the outside.
But on the front stairs, a flurry of crimson rose petals blows in with the breeze, settling against the door frame.
Always the withered roses.
I don’t know where they come from. I only know when they arrived. The day of my father’s disappearance, these rose petals greeted me at the door.
There is solace in the dead beauty of the dark crimson. I collect them and keep them in a box above my closet.
I don’t know why.
I only know that somehow, they share in the pain of my grief. I hope they never stop coming. And I always wish they would.
I check the mail.
Three more letters wait for me there too. Always from a different city. Always anonymous.
The first is a charcoal drawing of a raven perched on a windowsill. The moon is eclipsed in the photo, and dark, ominous thunderheads line the sky above. A sliver of lightning pierces the center of the image, so real it looks as though it’s split the paper in two.
The eery scene sends a chill up the back of my neck.
The photos are always somewhat abstract. A message that often leaves me bogged down in the onslaught of disordered emotions they evoke. The lines are exacted so precisely. The artistry is pleasing to my eye in a way I can’t explain, except to say that I am drawn to the darkness of these photos.
I am drawn to everything he sends me, and I don’t know why.
I open the next letter, and I am confronted with a recurring sense of déjà vu. It is the same beautiful scrawl, only this time, it is words.
The same words he always sends me- this stalker of mine.
Sing me
a song, beauty.
With words only I can hear.
MY FINGERS MAP over the lines while I try to understand. I haven’t told Luke of these letters. I haven’t told anyone.
I’m not entirely sure why.
Only that it feels private. And I have not yet decided whether they are dangerous or simply innocent flattery.
The third and final letter contains the lyrics of my first song.
I try to imagine the man behind these creations. The lost soul who wanders and listens to my music. He tells me to go back to my roots. He asks if my fingers miss the piano, or do I really prefer being a pop princess instead?
I know what he prefers.
His letters all surround my early works. Before Luke got his claws into me and decided it was better for me to appeal to a younger demographic with an ‘edgier’ sound.
The ink had barely dried on my contract when he started changing the rules of the game.
I was caught. Hook, line, and sinker. The only choice I had left was to adapt. It’s on constant replay inside my head.
I’m a fraud.
A phony.
Everything about me is fake, right down to my smile and the new lyrics I sing.
They aren’t my own. Those are private now. For my eyes only.
And this man doesn’t need to remind me of the things I already know.
I fold up the letters and put them out of sight.
My phone won’t stop ringing.
When I draw a bath and climb inside, I imagine a current sweeping me away. One that could pull me backward- when life was still real and possible.
Luke texts me incessantly. Threatening to drop me in one message while apologizing in the next. When that doesn’t work, he reminds me that I’m under contract. He reminds me of the fines he knows I can’t pay if I decide to stop being his puppet.
Inside of my chest, there is a gaping cavity where my heart used to be. And in the place of my lungs is lead.
I have to go back.
I know I have to go back.
And I will.
On Monday.
CHAPTER FOUR
SHE HAS COME HOME.
