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John’s in the corner, wrestling with a tangle of wires and cables. “All good?”
“Amazing.”Horrific. I make it to the corridor, and Sarah emerges from the entrance that leads to the spa. I’m momentarily bewildered by the height of her heels, wondering how the fuck she walks on them, especially on the tile floor of the spa.
She slows to a stop, her eyes following me as I pass. “Everything all right?”
“Never better.”Never worse.Although, painfully, I know that’s not true. It can get so much worse.
I take the doorknob and curse when a wave of pain shoots through my hand, inhaling a hissed breath as I shake it and use my other hand to let myself into my office. I slam the door. Lean against it. Let the back of my head hit the wood a few times. My eyes fall to the still well-stocked cabinet, casting across the various bottles. I push away from the door with my shoulder blades and walk slowly over, eyes fixed on an unopened bottle of vodka. I stop. Stare at it for a while, then slowly reach out and take it in my grasp, lifting and lowering it, like a dumbbell, getting accustomed to the foreign object in my hold. It’s been awhile. But it doesn’t take much getting used to. The only difference is the biting pain in my fist.
I turn and rest my arse against the wood, using my spare hand to undo the button on my cuff and roll up my sleeve. Transferring the bottle and repeating, I stare at the couch where Ava sat the day she walked into my office and knocked me on my arse. The couch I bent two other women over and fucked. I drop my eyes to my Grensons, the weight of my guilt becoming too much. Eating me up inside. Making me see things, hear things.
Wiping my brow with the back of my hand, I go to my desk, drop into the chair, and place the bottle on the wood, sinking back into the leather and resting my elbows on the arms, threading my fingers.
Watching it.
There’s numbness in that bottle. Escape.
I pull my phone out. Find my most recent picture of Ava. It’s this morning. She’s asleep in bed, quiet and peaceful. I felt quiet and peaceful too. It was downhill from there. But still, as I stare at the photograph of her, I know I’m looking at freedom. Not escape. Not detachment. I’m looking at feelings. Amazing feelings. I just have to exorcise my demons and release the ghosts. I never imagined how fucking hard that would be. Or what exactly would need to be done to make it happen.
I look up when the door opens. Sarah, her face uncharacteristically soft, holds up a bag of ice.
“Why did you never tell me what a fuck-up I am?” I ask. I admit, I’ve been burying my head in the sand all these years. Avoiding admitting who I really am. An arsehole. A poor excuse for a man.
“Who you are and what you do never mattered before you met Ava.” She shuts the door and comes to me, circling the desk and resting her pert arse down, taking my hand and laying the bag over it. The instant relief is welcome, and I rest my head back, breathing out.
Who I am.
What I do.
Present tense.
Am I incapable of having normality? Unworthy of love? Because Ava just feels like a segue to fucking crazy.
“What’s happened now?” Sarah asks.
I laugh, though not in amusement. “You know what happened. I found Ava at her ex’s and...” I fade off before my mouth runs away with me. Telling Sarah Ava kissed her ex will do their relationship no favors. “My presence went down like a concrete balloon.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Suffice to say, Ava and I have fallen out.” Understatement of the fucking millennium. Sarah looks down at my hand. “I punched the elevator,” I say before she can ask. “And I stopped at the petrol station to fill up on the way here and...” I exhale. “I’m seeing things. Hearing things.”
“Not Lauren again?”
I look at Sarah, hardly wanting to admit it. “I need to find her parents. Just check the situation.”
“Check if the lunatic bitch is still locked up?” she asks, her hatred as real as it was all those years ago. As if naturally, Sarah’s hand reaches up to her head, brushing over the small scar in her hairline. If you didn’t know it was there, you’d miss it, her hair styled just right to conceal it. But I know it’s there. “Jesse, there is no way on this earth any sane psychiatrist would release that woman into society.”
“I know,” I breathe, flexing my hand gently under the ice, it feeling a little less swollen.
“And what are you hearing?”
I peek up, my lips pressing together. “Jake.” I expect her to laugh. She doesn’t. Instead, her shoulders drop, and she gives me eyes full of sympathy. I’ve just confirmed beyond doubt how mixed up I am, while also proving that the whole Lauren thing really is just my eyes playing tricks on me. And I certainly see the irony that I can share this with Sarah but not with Ava.
You’re thinking of asking this woman to marry you, and you don’t think you ought to tell her about your daughter? Your brother? She’ll understand.Not so sure about that. “Don’t look at me like that.” I can’t stand it. It’s exactly how Sarah looked at me for a long time after Lauren tried to rid the world of me. My ex-wife would have been doing the world a favor. I deserved it. She always straddled the line between sanity and insanity. I tipped her.
And now I’m tipping Ava.
The dying anger is resurrected, my fist balling under the ice. “How the fuck did you know Ava was going to her ex’s?” I ask, my voice brittle.
