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Chapter Fourteen
Emerson
Daphne steps out of the world and into her painting.
She’s chosen a canvas at the very limit of her easel. After her initial burst of work, I can see the scope of the project. It will take hours, if not all day.
She doesn’t resurface.
I tear myself away from her to bring her clothes. Daphne lets me dress her while her mind is still at work. She lets me tie her hair back from her face. She eats, but only if I bring food in small bites and put it in her left hand.
At noon I go downstairs and cut strawberries for her. Sin has texted me twice. I respond to both. He doesn’t need to rush here again thinking I’m dead. Not when Daphne’s working like this.
When that’s done, I put my phone on speaker and call Will.
He waits three rings to answer. “What’s up?”
“I need to talk to you.”
A door closes in the background. He must be in his office. It’s belatedly occurring to me that he didn’t leave to go to work while I was at his apartment. He had two meetings in the evening. That was all.
“What the fuck were you thinking, Em?”
“I wasn’t thinking. I was going home. I should have left you a note.”
A heavy pause.
“Not that kind of note. I should have texted. Something. I’m sorry.”
“Let me make a note of this. You, apologizing for the first time in your life.”
“Fuck off.” He doesn’t. “Sin said you were out all night. Want to tell me what that was about?”
“No, because you ruined it. I got home and you were missing. I didn’t have your driver’s number, and it takes fucking forever to get to your house, so I had to send Sin while I looked for you.”
“Where would I have gone, except for the house?”
“Fuck if I knew. I thought—” Something slaps against something else. Will’s hand against a desk. “I didn’t know where to look, you prick. I didn’t know if the Morellis found you and killed you or if you had a total break with reality and tried to—”
“Will.”
“Yeah?”
“I didn’t. I went home.”
“And they were there waiting for you.”
“One of the Morellis was here waiting for me, yes.”
“Sin told me. Why didn’t you?” The hurt in his voice takes me aback. I’m not used to it. Daphne’s done more than pull us all together again. She’s beaten down some of the walls between us. Some of the closed closet doors. Made stronger bridges than I thought. “I would have gone with you, you know. You could have told me.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t. I narrowly avoided being murdered. Sin’s lucky I woke up to tell him about it at all.”
A pen scratches on paper. “You crashed that hard?”
“Yeah.”
“And Daphne’s still with you?”
