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I think about him until I know how fucking stupid I am that I climb from my bed, pull on my boots at the front door, and head for the city.
I’m almost there, the rain lashing down on my windscreen, when my car engine light comes on, and it judders to a stop.
Lance
The clock reads two forty. I should be asleep after two days of travel with no sleep. Seems impossible after I left the only two people I give a shit about in a house over an hour away.
They feel too far.
If this is it, if this is how it has to be, I’ll sell the house. I’ll move closer to the estate so that I can see Waverley.
I can’t do odd evenings and weekends. I need to see her every day.
Scrubbing at my face, I sit up in the stupidly large bed as I look around the room.
Everything about Elliot’s house is over the top. From the chandelier when you walk through the front door to the sofa and chairs in this main bedroom. It’s cold and unnecessary, and nothing like home.
Home is where they are. A house down a little lane, covered in ivy and filled with our memories.
I can be here, live here, but it won’t ever be my home.
Pulling back the covers, I stand, wincing when my leg jars. I reach for the TV remote, angry and pissed off at the world as I launch it across the room. “Fuck.”
I run my hands through my hair, my mind a carousel of thoughts—all of Scarlet.
I hate myself for being angry at her. That I told myself, and her, that it was enough, when it isn’t.
My whole life I watched my mum fall at the feet of my sisters whilst I fought for her love. If I didn’t have my dad, his love, who knows the man I’d be today. Regardless of him, it wasn’t enough. It’s never been enough, and I resent my mum for it even to this day. For the days I needed her so badly, and she wasn’t there. When I’d need advice or just a hug, and she couldn’t give it to me—fuck, she could barely even see me most of the time.
I gave her everything she could possibly want and need because I didn’t know what else would satisfy her, and even then, it was thrown back in my face.
Somehow, I found a group of people who abolished all the bullshit. Who, from the second I left college to today, took me as I was and am, Scarlet more than any of them.
Not one of them ever asked for a thing in return.
Scarlet loved me, but I lost her. No matter my intention or need in that moment seven years ago, I took her away from myself.
I finally found it—love, and I fumbled it.
I shouldn’t be angry. But I am.
At her.
And at myself.
Because I’m pretty sure Scarlet does love me, even if she doesn’t want to, and I can’t just be here and take that.
I won’t.
I walk to the entrance of the house with little thought, swiping my keys from the sideboard.
THIRTY-ONE
Lance
The rain is pouring on my windshield in heavy beats, the road ahead barely visible in the dark. I take the roads slow despite how quiet they are. It was only weeks ago I was taken out on this very road.
No one is stupid enough to be out here tonight.
