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She goes to say something but snaps her mouth closed before she can utter the words. She’s mad. Eyes wild. I frown as I watch her. I can’t help but think about the last time I was here. The way I held her in my arms as we said goodbye. The way she begged me not to leave. The way I felt at that moment…
“Closure.” Her voice cracks, and I flinch, that emotion I kept at bay flaring with my sharp inhale. “You think we need…”
Her unforgiving stare doesn’t leave me, and I resist looking away to escape it.
“I know I never called—”
She shakes her head. “You should leave.”
“Scar—”
“No!” She covers her mouth and takes two steps back before changing her mind and marching forward, taking the steps until she’s a foot from reach.
My light, one step away.
“Nothing you say to me…” She pauses, and I freeze, trying to steady my breathing. My body. My fucking heart. She’s so close I could touch her. “There is nothing you could say to me that will ever give me closure.”
There is nothing you could say to me that will ever give me closure.
I take in every inch of her three times over, realising I never should’ve come here. I should have left it be. “I’m sorry, Scarlet.”
“Yeah.” She nods, and I die a little inside as a lone tear slips down her cheek. “But I’m not the one you should be saying it to. Your apologies don’t mean a thing to me anymore.”
I try for the right words. “I didn’t come here to hurt you, but it felt wrong not to. I don’t expect anything from you—I don’t want anything from you. I’m going to stay in the city, see Mum—”
“You’ll come back tomorrow,” she tells me. “No… Friday. You’ll come back on Friday.”
A frown creases my brow, not expecting her to invite me back again. Maybe I should’ve told her I was coming out today. I knew Charlie would let her know I’d been released, and if there were any lingering thoughts because of it, I wanted to make sure she could move past them right away. “I just told you I’m going back to the city. I won’t be around here.”
She stares me down, her brown eyes gleaming with emotion. “You’reselfish, did you know that? Probably the most selfish person I’ve ever known.”
It would hurt less if she slapped me.
“You’ll come back on Friday.” She turns and runs up the steps.
“Scar.”
She doesn’t stop, and as the large wooden door slams shut behind her, I tilt my head back to the sky above and let out a long sigh.
She has every right to be angry at me, but it doesn’t make it any easier to stand here and take.
I sit on the steps for over twenty minutes, considering how stupid it would be of me to knock on the door and try again. To try and get the words right.
Eventually, I decide she deserves better.
I remove her letters from my bike as planned and carry them up the steps, leaving them on the mat below the front door.
Closure.
And then I head back into the city, far away from the only thing that’s ever felt like home.
Scarlet
I feel my brother’s eyes on me long before he knocks on Ellis’s bedroom door, and I’m in no hurry as I twist my head and look at him, waiting for him to say whatever it is he has to say.
Eventually, I give in. “You could help me, you know.”
He shrugs, a contemplative harshness on his face as he leans against the door frame. “And you could leave my son’s sheets to me or his mum to change.”
