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The thin material flutters on top of the clothes I’ve crammed inside my bag, and I slam the thing shut before zipping the memories away.
The quicker I get this all behind me, the better.
I drag the suitcase down to the front door, trying my damnedest to think of anything other than Marcus crowding me while asking me to stay or his forlorn gaze when he told me he was crazy about me.
Halfway through rolling my luggage toward the door, I pause to glance at my laptop sitting innocently on the coffee table where I left it. “On second thought, I’m gonna need a drink.”
Mateo’s warning the night ofT’slastawhispers across my mind as I search Lucy’s fridge for a bottle of—hell, I don’t know, but at this point, anything will do.
I suppose the old man was wrong about one thing. These thorns I’ve grown are as sharp as the day I arrived on the island. Only now, they’ve grown so thick, I fear I’ll never get rid of them.
Settling for some chilled chardonnay, I pop the cork and take a hefty swig right from the bottle, listening to a low rumble of thunder outside.
“Shit,” I hiss, scrunching my nose at the bitter flavor. I raise the bottle, inspecting the swirling liquid with a frown. “Disgusting, but it’ll have to do.”
I carry my new companion over to the couch, drinking three more burning gulps before sitting down in front of my computer. The windows are drawn and the door is double locked, but just like when I attempted this hours ago, I seize up.
I’m sobbing behind the steel fortress of my mind. Clawing and pinching my skin as I scream at the top of my lungs until my throat is blistered raw, but on the outside, I’m staring at a blank document, mocking me with its blinking cursor.
Hanging my head in my hands, I rub my tired eyes and try to force the words from my body. I leave for Chicago tomorrow evening, and I’ve got nothing prepared. Zilch, zero, nada.
“Maybe I need another swig for good measure,” I say, swallowing a mouthful before setting the bottle on the table and scooting onto the floor.
I close my eyes, trying again, to reach deep within for my best words, but my creative space is utterly empty. Like the synapses in my brain packed everything up overnight with no more than a ‘that’s all, folks.’
Blinking the room back into focus, I reach for my camera and pull my knees to my chest. I balance it on my kneecaps as I flip through the images on the memory card, each image deepening my frown.
Scrolling through the ones of Penelope and Marcus sneaking out of rehab, then Marcus at Pearl Beach, I find myself slowing down to absorb all the tiny details.
There are rows of photos of just Sparrow that I’ve taken in the pasture, her gray-black coat changing in every picture, and more that follow of the her grazing in vibrant green grass.
The images shift to the hills surrounding the ranch as well as some of Augustine, with the locals hard at work in their shops and flowers cascading from every stone balcony.
I flip back through them all one last time, suddenly sad that I have no representation of the friendships I’ve made here. And it dawns on me how much I wish I could call Penelope, Cat, and her girls to come build a pillow fort that we would lay in while we talked through this mess the same way I talked with Theresa about her boy problems.
Each one of those girls crept through my barriers, smearing vibrant colors all over the walls, and hollowed longing forms in the space to know I’ll be going back to my colorless life, never to see them again.
I gently place the camera back on the table and turn it off.
The sun set a while ago, meaning the window for getting Leah’s autopsy has closed. But even if it hadn’t, giving Ellis Turner anything on Marcus wasn’t going to happen, no matter how beneficial it may be.
A rumble of thunder grows louder the closer the lightning gets, but it’s not the ticking of rain falling on the roof that I’m listening to. It’s the reason behind the abrupt silence inside that chamber in my head.
The force of what I feel for Marcus rattles me in a way that no single word could describe. I think of the man he was pretending to be, of all the things I swore I couldn’t stand, and how despite it all, I came so close to sacrificing everything for him.
“I can’t do this,” I say, folding into myself.
I can’t give Alice what she wants because somewhere between my hatred for who I thought Marcus was and giving him access to parts of me no one else has ever seen, he helped me heal the kind of scars that last a lifetime.
An idea hits me with the strength of the lightning bolts breaking the sky.
I may not be willing to give her a tell-all… but I can give her something else.
A loud clap of thunder startles me, and when I crawl over the couch to peek through the window, I hear the distinct sound of someone walking up the front steps. My diaphragm freezes, refusing to pump my lungs full of oxygen necessary to keep me upright.
I turn, waiting for a knock, a word, anything as thunder rumbles low again.
With a knot in my throat, I tread toward the door and hover my fingers over the top lock. Then in a dizzying, frantic rush, I unlatch and twist each lock before yanking the door open.
