Page 58 of Ex Somnis

Paul’s fist clenches hard enough for his knuckles to pale, and inside me, something hot and vicious unfurls.

Every message sounds like effort physically pains him.

He was going to drive up here. Maybe. If the car cooperated. If it wasn’t too inconvenient. If she came back on her own first and saved him the trouble.

Lennon said she didn’t want him back.

Good.

Good.

Because if it were me, if I were the one she’d left, the one she was driving three thousand miles away from, I wouldn’t text. I wouldn’t send twelve messages into a silence she was clearly maintaining on purpose and then complain that she wasn’t being mature about it.

I’d drive without stopping.

I’d walk if I had to.

Crawl.

And I will ask Jasper to read me twenty books. I will make Ridge explain it again from the beginning, slower, and I will sit in Paul Bennett’s house and listen to whatever they need to tell me, for however long it takes, because she is somewhere I can’t reach her yet.

Yet is the only part of that sentence that matters.

I’ll get to you, Lemon.

“What the fuck is he talking about?” Ridge wheels sharply toward me, and his footrest catches my shin.

“Ow.”

“Do you know anything about that voicemail?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Check the voicemails,” Paul says immediately.

Ridge glances at him. “Oh, look at that. Privacy is having a rough night, huh?” he mutters, already opening the voicemail tab.

There’s only one recent voice message from Spencer, and I watch as Ridge presses play, then we listen to three straight minutes of pure fucking torture.

Voices fill the room, talking about Lennon like she isn’t soft, bright, and kind in a way that makes people feel safer, standing next to her.

Halfway through, I realize they’re at her mother’s funeral, and something inside me goes cold. These people had the opportunity to be there for Lennon in her darkest hour. Instead, they made fun of her behind her back.

Too emotional.

Too much.

Not fun anymore.

Beside me, Ridge goes frighteningly motionless, one hand tightening slowly around the phone until his knuckles whiten. Paul has taken his glasses off again, but this time he isn’t rubbing his eyes.

He’s standing there holding them.

“You know I was never with her because of looks,” I hear Spencer say, and something in my chest snaps so hard I physically feel it. My eyes fly instinctively toward Lennon in the bed.

At her blonde waves spread across the pillow.

Her long lashes.