Chapter 20
OPHELIA
Shockingly, and against all the statistical odds, the plane landed. After seven hours—the hardest, most draining seven hours of my life—I find myself in New York.
As a girl who hasn’t ventured outside of rural Scotland much these past few years, I can’t help but find it completelywild.
The buildings are bigger, cars are bigger. The taxis are yellow. The city is a never-ending square grid of fancy looking cafés, hotels, and restaurants. Bustling pizza joints and leafy green parks. Tacky sports bars and luxury boutiques.
As we make our way across a bridge over a glittering river, I stare out at the dense mass of skyscrapers beyond like I’ve somehow landed on the moon.
No wonder Divya finds Sorrowsong boring.
Rocco sent a driver to pick us up from LaGuardia Airport. Now we’re in the back of a huge black SUV, furnished similarly to theprivate jet. There’s a small mini fridge at the back that we’ve left completely untouched.
No one has heard from Alex. Not me, not Vin, not Belladonna. The mood in the car is grim and downcast.
Whatever condition his mom is in right now, I already know what he’ll be doing to himself. Heaping more blame onto his already weary shoulders, overanalyzing everything he could’ve done to prevent this.
We’re stuck in a long slug of traffic ten minutes from the hospital when Vincenzo finally gets through to Fleur.
“Vin?” she asks, crackly through his speaker. She’s holding back tears.
“Fleur, where are you?”
“We’re still waiting at the hospital. I only just charged my phone.”
“Who’s we?”
“Alex and I. He’s just checking to see if there’s any update. He wants me to go home to eat and sleep.”
Alex is okay. He’s with Fleur and he’s okay. The relief that courses through me is overwhelming.
“I’m ten minutes away.”
“You’re in New York?”
“Yeah. Do you want me to drop you home?”
I hear her side of a conversation, hear Alex convince her to go and rest, promise that he’ll call if he finds anything else out.
He sounds strong. Steady and calm.
I doubt that’s how he really feels.
“You can take me home?” she asks, sounding so much younger than seventeen.
“We’ll stay for the night, too,” says Belladonna. “Help the staff with the girls.”
There is so much love in this car. It’s in the way Vincenzo guides Fleur through some steady breaths. It’s in the way Belladonna calls her father to say she won’t be coming home tonight anymore. It’s in the way Jack has spent the entire journey reading up on how best to help Alex and his mom.
I’ve never been struck so hard with it, never had it put in front of me so plainly to see.
Alex is bathed in love, swimming in it. And suddenly I understand his internal battle more than ever. How frustrating it is for him to feel so low with such a support network around him, to have family and friends and still feel lonely.
It must be so exhausting.
The car stops outside a hospital near Central Park. “Call us if you need anything, okay?”
