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“Scar,” he says, halting me. I turn halfway up the steps, waiting. “I won’t give up.”
I sink to the step, watching as he leaves… listening as the gentle roar of his engine coasts down the lane.
As I sit on the step with tears rolling over my cheeks, I wonder how he got both cars back here. Had he walked to his car and come back?
I sit for a while in the same spot, the silence something I’m used to in the house, and yet it feels so different now.
After a while, I make my way down the few steps I’d climbed, knowing everyone will be back soon. I’m surprised they left me on my own at all.
But maybe it’s what I need.
I walk into the front room, finding it cleared of the mess that was left behind by the paramedics and doctors.
It feels empty.
Cold and surreal.
My feet carry me to my dad’s armchair, and I stand staring at it. “Why didn’t you tell me on the phone? I could have been here.”
My chin wobbles, and I know I’m close to losing it completely. I turn to leave, considering a walk on the meadow, but something under the armchair catches my gaze. I move for it, wondering if it’s a piece of discarded packaging left behind.
My breath hitches and I drop to my knees as I pick up the paper.
On the carpet, lying discarded as if it fell with him, is a handwritten note. I recognise my dad’s penmanship immediately, despite the clear struggle he had when writing it.
It couldn’t have been any better.
It couldn’t have been any better.
A sob escapes me.
“Why, Dad.” I weep. “Why?” I bend forward, my head brushing on the carpet as my body is racked with my cries. “I can’t do this without you. I don’t want to.” I claw at the rug. “I can’t.”
“Scarlet.” Elliot appears at my side, his knee locked at my side as he tries to pick me up.
“No,” I howl. “No. No. No.”
“Scar, please.”
“I should have been here.”
His arms band around me. “Come here.”
“I wasn’t here, Ell. All those years, and I wasn’t here.”
“Shhh. It’s okay.” He drops to the floor with me, giving in as he holds me in his arms while I sob.
“I wasn’t here.”
He rocks me. “It’s okay.”
“I wasn’t here.”
TWENTY-THREE
Scarlet
Three weeks later
