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“I-I know,” she whispers.
She sniffs, trying to hide the fact that she’s crying.
That I made her cry.
Fuck.
Apparently, I’m no good at this hero shit in real life.
All the boy wonder superhero roles ever written can’t prepare you for the grim reality of trying to clean up a mess like this without making a girl’s heart collateral damage.
Or maybe I’ve just always been a bit of a moose in a furniture store when it comes to handling emotions.
That’s why I was an actor. Let a script dictate what I’m supposed to think, feel, or do next.
What I say. How I act. How the story ends.
Sounds a hell of a lot easier than trying to come up with a solution on my own and accidentally pushing her down a dark hole in the process.
I rub her shoulder and then pull her closer, giving her a hug, fitting her head neatly under my chin.
It feels good, having her in my arms. The warmth of her body. The clean, fresh, flowery scent of her hair.
And I don’t deserve a single damn bit of it.
“Sorry,” I whisper. “I promise you, I want to help. I can’t stand seeing you suffer. Grace, if I could find out—”
“No!” She stiffens. “No one can help us. Nobody ever could. We need to go, pull our things together and get out of—”
“You need to stay here,” I rumble firmly, holding her tighter. “Go on. Hate me if you want. Just don’t put yourself in danger again. Nelson’s sick; you barely got away after being roughed up, and…”
I pause, amazed I’m able to bring myself to say the next words.
“And part of me still likes the thought of you sprucing up this dreary castle. Give me something to look at besides an urn that doubles as a vase for yellow roses.”
She pushes against my chest like I’ve slapped her across the face, breaking the hold I’d had around her shoulders.
I don’t understand.
“Urn?” she spits out.
Head cocked, I nod.
There’s a different form of distress in her eyes, something I can’t pin down.
It’s not that odd, is it?
Plenty of people keep urns of loved ones around. Maybe the custom vase thing is a little out of most people’s budgets, but hell, it’s tasteful and it gives Mom’s ashes some kind of life until I can figure out what to do with them.
I shrug, plenty confused now. “I wasn’t sure what to do with my mom. It was sudden and so were the arrangements. Tobin did most of the stuff with the funeral director, if I recall…I was too fucked up at the time. We wound up having her ashes sealed up in the core of that vase. The flower chamber, they crafted separately, so the two would never mingle. Never cared to understand the process but…she loved yellow roses.”
In my mind’s eye, I can still see her beaming after she came home from this big promo shoot for this film where she played a florist in love. She got to lay down in the flowers, laughing, and she brought big bundles of yellow roses home. I swear, Tobin smelled like perfume for the next week after unloading them and struggling to find enough vases to hold them all.
It’s the best I could do to honor her.
All I could bring myself to do, not counting the night I lost my mind.
Half of Hollywood wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone after her “suicide.” Then I tried taking justice into my own hands, and that botched attempt made me a recluse…
“What?” I snap, more harshly than I intend. “Why’re you looking at me like I’m some kind of freak? I’m not clinging to her forever like some mama’s boy. Hell, I’m planning to inter her, when I can find the right time, the right place, and—”
“Ridge, I…no. It’s not that. I’m sorry. We all grieve in our own ways and I just…” She spins around, plucking her coat off the chair like it’s about to burn. “I have to go check on Dad.”
I’m frozen, watching as she bolts out of the room.
What the hell just happened?
I think about stopping her because she just left the cabin twenty minutes ago, but I can tell she’s in flight mode. Freaked out over the ashes for some bizarre reason.
I’m fucking stumped.
She’s so down-to-earth, I wouldn’t think keeping ashes around respectfully would bother her.
I walk to the mirror, staring at my grave reflection.
Am I that ruined without even knowing it?
Some kind of morbid vampire in the flesh?
Have I isolated myself for too long, eaten up by acid guilt, to the point where I scare people like her?
My head flops against the glass, banging it with a thud.
I can’t believe I’m that far gone.
Tobin isn’t exactly winning awards for charisma and socializing, but he’d tell me if he thought I was mental. If it was that bad, he’d probably drug me and drive me to a shrink.
