Guilt weaves a slow route through my stomach as I recall telling my father we’d get a cab when he insisted he’d collect us. I purposefully neglected to text him our flight number so that he couldn’t show up at JFK.
I want to be alone for a while before I’m thrown back into my life.
MyNew York Citylife. I wince at the memory of Slade’s voice when he called me that nickname. Whether it was said with fire, amusement, or desire, I would get the same spark of energy every time I heard it.
Now I’ll never hear it again.
I rub at my burning throat, recalling that night. Mel was in our bungalow when I’d rushed back to it, inconsolable with body-wracking sobs. It all came tumbling out—how we’d fought, how he was really Slade, how the world thought he was dead. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell her he claimed to have killed his mom. For whatever reason, those words never left my lips. It was less than seventy-two hours ago, but somehow it feels like a lifetime.
A lifetime that’s chewed me up and spat me out again.
I’ve cursed him, cried for him, missed him.
But most of all, I’ve loved him. Despite what he told me, and how he yelled at me, my heart can’t just switch off like that.
I can’t believe what he told me. Because if I do, then it means everything we did together, the way he healed me, was all a lie. And instead of it being something beautiful and magical, it was cruel and twisted. And it means I really did fall in love with a murderer.
As I pull out the T-shirt from my bag, his scent hits me and my eyes sting with the threat of tears. It’s the one I was wearing that night I ran from him. Even after what he told me, I didn’t fear him. He’s not violent. He saved me that day I jumped from the cliff and winded myself so badly I almost drowned. I’d shouted at him, and we’d fought at the top of the rocks. He was angry and if he’d wanted to hurt me, he could have. I was in no state to defend myself.
But he didn’t.
He saved my life, then took care of me in the way he knew I needed. And in doing so, something changed between us that day. And I cannot allow myself to believe for one second that what we had afterward wasn’t real and beautiful. Because it was.
It wassobeautiful.
I didn’t run from him that night because I was scared. I ran because I couldn’t understand it.
When Slade needed to think, he closed himself off, screwing his eyes shut and losing himself between my thighs. When I needed to think, I ran away from him to get space. To be alone.
I thought I’d get the chance to see him again to ask the questions I needed to. To make sense of it all.
But the next morning, he was gone.
His boat was cleared out when I went to get my things, the small selection of his possessions gone. And his workshop had been wiped clean of all signs of him.
Except one.
I unroll the soft fabric and stare at the contents.
One letter.
One driftwood carving.
Two items left on his workbench for me to find.
Because he knew I’d go looking for him. And if he knew I would, then it shows he also believed what we had was something. It wasn’t aget on a plane and never think of each other againthing.
It wassomething.
I stare at the letter. It might contain the words, but it’s the carving that tells me the most. Sometimes it’s the things that don’t say anything that speak the loudest.
Slade hated goodbyes. Declan didn’t seem surprised. He said he’d been saving for a fake passport. A new identity. Another fake one. Another lie. I even spoke to hotel management, desperate for something to cling onto. A clue that would explain it all. But they only had a fake name for him too. And no way to reach him.
He really is a ghost, a shadow, just like he said.
A tear courses down my cheek, landing on the folded paper in my hand.
I hope wherever he is, he’ll be happy. But in my heart, I know he won’t. He can keep running, but all it’ll do is make him out of breath and leave him in a new place to be alone.
