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If I imagined my perfect home, it wasn’t this. I wanted to be living in the big city. I wanted to hear music from the venue down the street when I stepped out on my patio. I wanted to wave to my neighbor. I wanted to be near the beating heart of it all. I loved Dallas, and I loved living in the city. Lace Elm was wonderful, but it just wasn’t me.
I didn’t want to stay here.
The realization hit me like a freight train, and between one breath and the next, I began to feel like a stranger in my own home. What of this place was even really mine, anyway? A designer had put it together, Trevor picked out the property, the entire place was monitored by cameras, and there were areas I’d never even stepped foot in.
I was shaking as I tipped the wine bottle back for the last time, the Texas sun hot on my upturned face as I swallowed again and again, a single drop of it escaping my lips and running down my throat to my chest. I lowered the empty bottle and dragged the back of my hand over my wine-red lips.
I had to make a decision right then and there. I could either let the mysteries of Trevor’s life and why he had tried to trap me here like a butterfly under glass fade away with his death and remember him as the man I loved. Or I could burst open that chest inside me, let all those questions, worries, and misgivings flood out, and find out what he was hiding once and for all.
It didn’t mean I hadn’t loved him, or even that I didn’t still love him. Because I did. I’d do almost anything to go back to yesterday afternoon and refuse to let him leave. We could have worked through it all together, and I would have forced the truth out no matter how painful it was, but I couldn’t.
I thought no more tears were left in me, but I was wrong. They were running down my cheeks as I struggled with the decision. I could let it go, move back to the city, and live with Trevor’s memory being something beautiful but bittersweet.
But I’m not that kind of woman. Behind a door in my own home were all the truths my fiancé hid from me, and I was going to find them, even if it ruined his memory forever.
Standing, I left the bottle on the concrete, hearing it roll across the balcony as I made my way inside, heart pounding and head spinning from the alcohol. I should have waited until I was sobered up, but something inside me was goading me forward as if I had to do this thing right now or I would lose my nerve.
Had I not been tipsy, I would have known it wouldn’t work. I reached Trevor’s office door, chest rising and falling as I sucked in nervous breaths, looking over the antique wooden door and the enormity of what I was about to do.
I grabbed the handle, turned, and pushed. It was locked, which didn’t surprise me, but what did was the metallic thud that rang out when I kicked it. The door was lined with steel, and no matter how in shape I was, I wouldn’t be able to knock it down on my own.
I tried everything; a credit card to undo the lock and then a butter knife, throwing my shoulder against it as I did so to get the angle right. When nothing worked, I raged, kicking the damned door and cursing Trevor’s name between gulping sobs. It was a catharsis of grief, anger, shame, and the aching hollow feeling of uselessness threatening to pull me under. The door was a symbol of how Trevor had shut me out of the most private parts of his soul, and even in death, he was keeping me out.
I didn’t give in until I picked up a dining chair, smashing it against the office door until it shattered into splinters, screaming as I did so. It fell to pieces around me, defeated and exhausted, and I fell with it.
There was a single window in the office, but every damned window in this house was linked to the alarm system, and while I had all the codes for it, the account was in Trevor’s name. I could get away with it, but the idea of dealing with the security company when I was at my most raw was awful, and knowing Trevor, the glass would be too thick to break, anyway.
This wasn’t over. With Trevor gone, everything in that office belonged to me, and I would claim it no matter what it took. And once that was over, I’d sell the Lace Elm house, move back to Dallas, and pick up the pieces of my life.
I held that thought like a talisman as I lifted myself out of the broken remains of my rage, walking to the shower to wash away all the traces of this day. I stripped, picking splinters out of my hair, and turned the water on near to scalding.
Before the mirror fogged up, I looked at my reflection and ran my hands up my body. I touched my skin the way Trevor did, traced his favorite paths over my ribs, hips, and under my breasts, and dragged my fingers over the lines of my neck where he would press his lips while he moved within me.
Thumbs down my collarbones, palms over my belly, and the back of my hands over my thighs. When I stepped beneath that water, I would wash away the last traces of him from me and never get them back.
I still wanted him back home. I did, I swear I did, but underneath the howling storm of the pain of his death, the smallest bloom of relief broke through. It was tiny, pale, but it stretched toward the sun. I could be free again.
I only hesitated for a moment more on the precipice of the shower, closed my eyes, and stepped beneath the cascade of water.
When I emerged, I was born anew.
Chapter Seven
I spent the entire weekend by myself at home, ordering in, watching movies, sleeping late, and, yes, grieving.
I cleaned the house, top to bottom, and began gradually changing it from a couple’s house to one that belonged to a single woman. Some might say it was cold of me, but I needed a clean slate if I wanted to rise from the ashes of all of this. I wasn't erasing Trevor, not by any means, but I was giving myself the gift of a jumping-off point for the time I remained in this house and the slow rediscovery of who I was without Trevor by my side.
I threw away his body wash, shampoo, razors, and everything else. Curtains that had been closed for weeks due to Trevor’s paranoia were thrown open, and I let the light stream in, guiding my hands and steps through it all. I ripped sheets from the bed, throwing them in the pile of Trevor’s dirty laundry, emptied the drawer on his bedside table, and, with tears in my eyes, dropped the book in said drawer into the garbage, but not before flipping through it and imagining on what pages his eyes and fingertips had lingered.
It was a copy of Dune, dog-eared a little over halfway through, the way a child might do to mark a place. He’d never finish it, but he’d also quit reading months ago as his mental illness had grown. Maybe he wouldn’t have ever gotten through it, anyway.
It took longer than I would have thought, but I bagged up all of his clothing into thick black plastic bags: Gucci, Dior, and every other designer under the sun. It was probably thousands of dollars worth of suits, ties, and casual clothes.
I threw them in the back seat of the Tesla and drove to the nearest Goodwill store, leaving them on the doorstep before I could think twice about it.
The last thing to do was discard the dirty laundry, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I dumped it all out onto the shining wood floor, plucking a white-collared shirt from the pile, held it to my nose, and inhaled. It still smelled like Trevor, that combination of his cologne and the warmth of his skin. I gripped it with tight fingers, wetting it with my tears as I cursed the unfairness of it all.
In a moment of weakness, I folded the shirt carefully, as if it would disintegrate in my hands if I was too rough, and tucked it under my pillow.
