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I feel Scarlet’s eyes shift toward me.
“I came out to see you, and she was with Ellis. He hid her behind him, but I saw her and didn’t know who she was.” My fingers flatten out the creases in the photograph. “I couldn’t remember what she looked like. I didn’t know I needed to remember.”
I don’t expect Scarlet to say anything, she hasn’t spoken to me the entire drive home, still hurt from what I said back at the hospital. But I wish that she would.
I wish she’d talk to me now.
I can see the figures on the terrace. The two of them. At first, I presumed it was Mason, but now that we’re closer, I can see it’s Charlie. The ache in my chest somehow grows impossibly worse.
“He’s been good to you?” I ask, not taking my eyes off them.
Charlie sits on the terrace steps, Waverley tucked at his side, waiting.
Scarlet nods, and I know her silence isn’t out of anger anymore.
She tightens her hands on the steering wheel and sucks in a deep breath. “He wasn’t the only one. All of them.” She finally pulls her gaze away and looks at me. “I wasn’t okay for a while, Lance.” Her brow creases as if she’s trapped in a memory. I can’t help but want to steal it. To know it. The fact I know nothing of a time when she wasn’t okay, let alone it existing, makes me feel fucking feral inside.
There was a time when I thought I’d never not know this woman. A time when I loved her so deeply, I knew nothing but her. And now it’s as if I know nothing.
“You’re shaking,” she whispers, her gaze now on my hands.
“I’m fine,” I tell her, tipping my head toward the terrace as we roll the last few metres into the drive. “What do I say to her?”
She twists her head and looks out of her window, her smile widening when Waverley stands and starts to wave.
And the second I see her smile, the way she looks at Scar, my entire chest caves in. Scarlet reaches for the handle, and I snap out my hand, grabbing her arm. “Scarlet.”
I wonder if she can hear it, see it even, as my heart seems to pound so hard, I feel echoes of it in my fingertips.
She twists in the seat, her gaze rolling over me. Her face falls, and then without holding my eyes, her head dropping, she slides her hand over the top of mine on her arm. She’ll never know what it does to me. What it doesforme. “I don’t know how this feels,” she tells me honestly. “I don’t know what you should say or do or think. But I do know that she’s going to adore you, Lance.”
“Can I get the door?” I hear her voice call out, the glass making it muffled.
Time seems to stand still as Scarlet looks up with watery eyes and smiles at me.
A reassuring smile.
I steel myself and sit back in my seat, knowing what’s coming the second I turn my head to look out of the window.
Although nothing could prepare me for what greets me.
Waverley pulls on the handle, but it doesn’t open. Charlie steps up behind her a second later to swiftly pull open the door.
She beams at me,my daughter, her smile nervous and yet sure. “Hi.”
She’s beautiful.
She’s so fucking beautiful.
“Hello, Waverley.”
I can’t take my eyes off her.
Charlie places his hands on her shoulders and shuffles her back a step, his smile warm and focused on her. “Why don’t you let him out of the car before you go full creeper on him.”
“Shut up,” she says, smiling over her shoulder before pushing him back playfully.
I slide from the car, resting my weight on the door.
