Page 86 of My Unfinished Heart

Then his eyes drop to my mouth.

The embers in me that still glow for him roar to flame.

It takes every cell in my body working together not to grab him by the neck and kiss him until—until he wants me back. Every moment that passed between us—so few of them—they’re all right here. Everything we said to each other—the parts of myself I lost inside him. He’s still got them. Locked up tight behind new walls he seems to have built just for me.

I shake the memories from my head. They weren’t anything but words—infused with meaning by a desperate heart.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Don’t bother.”

My back teeth grip at each other, and I nod sharply. “Right. Too little, too late, huh?” I start to stand.

“Something like that,” he murmurs. As I take a step away, he speaks again. “Archer?”

I look down at him. At his pretty eyes and his smooth skin, the gold in his hair.

“Do you remember how you said you'd wait for me?” he asks, his words plucked out of the clear blue sky to slap me in the face again.

I try to swallow as he stands up. He looks into my eyes and gives me a small, sad smile with a slight shake of his head. “You didn’t.”

He walks away. I watch him cross the lobby and vanish beyond the sliding doors, not once looking back to see my heart—cracked open and bleeding on the floor.

FIFTEEN

The Monk by the Sea

Jayne has on a red dress. It’s incredible—unreal. It has a slit that goes from the bottom of her nude heels to maybe an inch below her groin. Each step she takes brings her gorgeous tan leg fully out—and almost more than her leg. She calls it cherry red. I call it diabolical. She looks perfect. So perfect I can almost forget what she’s done. She’s been distracting me a long time, and it’s like she keeps getting better at it.

It was my intention to stay the night downtown at my studio so I could get drunk alone, but Jayne lied, like people who claim to care about me tend to do, telling me she locked herself out of the house, and I walked into the surprise party she and West thought would be a great idea.

So, here’s the proof. They don’t know me at all. Maybe no one ever has.

I am in no mood for congratulations. Tristan’s was more than enough this afternoon. It’s easier to pretend this is West’s welcome home party, but he’s determined to make it all about me.

With my house overrun by acquaintances, my anxiety mounts as congratulators violate my personal space over and over again. Touching my arms, giving me hugs, patting my back. I’m going into complete shutdown. I have to. Sometimes I think knowing how to shut down is the only reason I survived this long. I retreat to the screen porch when what I really want to do is get on the next plane leaving the airport. A long overdue flight.

I grab a drink from the open bar they set up on my patio, sit down on the porch swing next to my teaching assistant, a flirty grad student named Gretchen, and let her congratulate me again. West joins us and takes over the task of conversing. At one point he leans toward me and says, “I’m sorry about this. I couldn’t talk her out of it.”

Okay. So I don’t have to hate him, too. That’s good. “It’s fine. Welcome home, brother.” I touch my highball glass to his beer bottle. A party is as good a reason as any to get drunk, and maybe it will help me forget the disastrous reunion with Tristan.

I glance at the flash of red passing the living room window. Inside, Jayne is looking right at me, like she’s waiting for me to notice her, and next to her—next to her is my brother.

I almost choke on my drink. I start to stand, but then stop, blindsided by a realization. If Connor is here…

I scan the crowd for Tristan but don’t see him anywhere, which comes as both a crushing disappointment and a huge relief. My eyes dart back to Connor, standing on the other side of the living room window, talking to Jayne.

West continues his conversation with Gretchen, and I watch, with fascination, my brother, all grown up.

His hair is different, cut into an attractive style that maintains some length and also makes him look cleaned up and older. It’s still black, the emo twink aesthetic still holding strong. The lip piercings are gone, but the eyeliner remains. There is not a trace of his limp which was so pronounced the last time I saw him. I thought of Tristan as occasionally androgynous, but my brother is more feminine. Tonight, he’s wearing knee high boots with a stacked heel over skintight leather pants. In a see through black shirt open halfway down his chest, he’s stunning. But his eyes…they still give me chills. They’ve taken on that glazed look of indifference Marion Brennan perfected so many years ago. Maybe it’s hereditary.

Maybe it’s what I look like, too.

“Hey,” West says, leaning close so only I can hear him. “Is that your brother?”

“Yeah,” I say like I don’t care that he’s here in my house after disappearing from my life like everyone else did three and a half years ago.

“Are you planning to say hi to him? You realize I’ve never met him.”