“You missed the end of the party,” she told me. “Everyone’s gone. Do you want to come upstairs? Maybe sit in the garden? There’s plenty of champagne left and it hasn’t started raining—yet.”
Actually, sitting out in the garden with her, watching the sun go down with a bottle of champagne sounded like exactly what I needed. I hugged her close again. “You go ahead. I’ll be up in exactly one minute. I just have one thing I need to do.”
I swept the stuff that had spilled out of her handbag back into it and gave it back to her, then watched her go up in the elevator. Only then did I walk over to the workbench where I’d been sitting and retrieve the photo of the SUV. I wasn’t sure I wanted it up on the wall again, even underneath the poster, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away, either. Eventually, I settled for putting it away at the bottom of a drawer. When I closed it, I felt somehow...lighter. I wondered if I’d reached a turning point.
I was heading for the elevator when I saw something glinting under a table.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Natasha
Upstairs, the caterers had left and the house and gardens were quiet. The sky was fully gray now, and a breeze was getting up. There was still enough warmth left in the air that it was pleasant, though, and as long as the rain held off for a few minutes, we could still enjoy the sunset. I picked up a half-full bottle of champagne and two glasses and wandered out into the garden. I pushed the door shut behind me, realizing too late that it only opened from the inside. I’d have to go around to the front and ring the bell to get back in. I’d have to hope Darrell joined me soon, or I’d be caught outside in the rain.
Picking a spot where Darrell would see me when he came out but where some trees would shelter us from the breeze, I sat down on the grass and tucked my legs under me. With Carol gone and just the two of us alone, this could be a magical evening. We’d watch the sunset together, then maybe go out somewhere for dinner...and finally, that big, four-poster bed. I smiled.
I wondered what exactly they’d fought about. Had Carol tried to rekindle some past relationship, or was that just my paranoia at work? If she had, Darrell had obviously turned her down. Had she wanted him to work even harder, and he’d told her he was putting me first? That would certainly explain her outburst, though I was still bemused by the talk of peaceniks and hippies.
What made me happiest was what Darrell had said when I’d arrived at the house. The past was off limits, and maybe, maybe, if we could keep it locked away there, we had a shot at a normal relationship. I hadn’t even cut in days....
I froze. Whenever I thought about the past, about cutting, I always touched the cigarette case. It was an unconscious thing, like a child stroking their security blanket. Except my fingers suddenly couldn’t find it.
I pulled open my bag and rooted through it. Then, with growing panic, I tipped it upside down and emptied out the contents, rifling through them on the ground. Nothing.
It must have spilled out of my bag, down in the workshop.
Darrell was in the workshop.
I ran for the house.
Chapter Twenty Nine
Darrell
I picked up the thing and examined it—it definitely wasn’t something of mine. Then I remembered Natasha dropping her handbag, and her things spilling out.
It was like a woman’s powder compact, only bigger and rectangular, and I vaguely remembered seeing something like it in an old movie. A cigarette case.
I turned it over and over in my hands. I knew she didn’t smoke. I was certain I would have smelt it on her. What, then?
Obviously, I shouldn’t open it. It was something personal. I moved towards the elevator again. I’d give it back to her unopened.
At that moment, the doorbell rang. On the security monitor, I could see Natasha knocking at the front door. Worried. Scared, even.
I looked down at the case. What if it was something about her past? A photo, maybe, like the one I kept of the SUV. The person who’d abused her?
The doorbell rang again. Then again. She was frantic.
What if I looked and didn’t tell her? What if I could get a hint of what had happened to her? I could tell her I hadn’t looked, but I’d be better prepared to help her. At least I’d know what not to say. I was desperate to help her—I had to take any opportunity I could.
I fingered the case. I knew that whoever had abused her, it wouldn’t stop me loving her. I’d never tell her I knew.
I pressed the button, and the top sprang open.
Chapter Thirty
Natasha
I knocked, then banged, then hammered on the door, the noise almost lost in a rumble of thunder from above. My panic had turned into a cold, gnawing dread in my gut. Why would he take so long to answer? Unless....
He opened the door and I knew immediately that he’d looked inside the case. He didn’t have it in his hands, but I recognized his expression. I’d seen the same thing when Clarissa found out.
I never thought I’d have to see that expression on him.
I took a step backwards. “You opened it,” I whispered.
He was staring at me with something between raw anger and pity. “How could you do it?” he asked in a halting voice. “Why would you hurt yourself?” And just like Clarissa, he wasn’t asking for an actual reason. What he meant was, Nothing could possibly be so bad that a sane person would do that. Except it was that bad. He’d never understand.
“Why did you open it?” I took another half step back.
He took one step forwards, on the doorstep now, shaking his head. “Why would you—” He stretched his hands out towards me. “Natasha, you’re so beautiful. Why would you hurt yourself?”
I’m not beautiful. Not on the inside. You don’t know what I’ve done. I had to keep backing away, stay out of reach of him, so I could run. I could feel the whole world sliding away from me, ready to send me tumbling six years back through time.
We stood there staring at each other. It was worse—much worse—than it had been when Clarissa found out. She’d been a friend; Darrell was a part of me. I felt as if I was bleeding—he’d ripped something away and exposed my blackened, ugly core, the part I never wanted him to see. I wanted to scream and rage at him for destroying what we’d had together, for blowing my one chance at happiness, but I knew he wouldn’t understand.
So I turned and walked away, scrunching down the gravel driveway towards the road, a breadcrumb trail of tears behind me.
“Natasha, please!”
I heard his footsteps behind me and walked faster, barely able to see, now.
“Wait! We have to—”
I broke into run, but then his hand was on my elbow, spinning me around, his face right up close to mine.
“Natasha, you have to let me help you! I can’t let you keep on doing this!”
And finally, I cracked.
“Why?” I screamed at him. “Why? Why can’t you let me? I’ve been doing this for years and managing just fine! Why do you—Jesus, why do you think you have to fix me?!”
He took a step back, stunned at my rage. “But you’re hurting yourself.” As if I didn’t know that. “I love you. I can’t let you hurt yourself.”
You love what you think I am. “It’s not your right!” I was hysterical now, tears streaming down my face, crying so hard I thought I was going to throw up. “You don’t get to decide what I do with—It’s my body! Mine!”
He shook his head. I almost understood. He wanted to protect me from myself; he didn’t realize he was getting between me and the one thing that let me cope. And I could see him starting to lose it. “I just don’t—why? Why would you willingly hurt yourself? It makes no sense!”
I put my hands to my head. “It’s not—It’s not like I want to do it.“
“Then stop!”
“It’s not that easy! You don’t understand....”
He took a deep breath. “Natasha, I love you. I love you for who you are....”
You don’t know who I am. You don’t know the real me.
He continued, “...you don’t need to do something like this to get me to...focus on you.”
I think my jaw actually dropped open at that. “You think I’m doing this for attention?”
He flushed, and I knew that was exactly what he’d been thinking.
“Do you think that’s what I’m like—like a kid holding his breath until his parents give in?” It was difficult to speak, my face crumpled and red now from crying.
He was getting angry now—just as Clarissa had done when she’d found out. “Then tell me! Stop telling me what it isn’t and tell me why you do it!”
“I can’t!”
“Why not?”
Because you’ll hate me. The way he kept pushing and pushing for an answer finally tipped me over the edge. “I had it under control!” I screamed at him. “I had it under control—I haven’t even cut since Tuesday! It was all fine, it was better since I met you and now....” I trailed off. Now it’s all ruined.
The clouds finally let go, three or four warning drops and then the deluge began. It was the sort of rain that hissed and chilled, like solid lances of water stabbing straight down into us. We were soaked in seconds, but we just stood there glaring at each other.
I could see it dawn on him. He’d thought he was saving me. He was just realizing that he’d stepped between an addict and their needle, a child and their security blanket. He grabbed my shoulders, his eyes panicked. “Natasha, please. Come back inside the house. We can talk about it.”
I shook myself free and stepped back. My dress was stuck to me like a second skin, my bare calves running with water. Everything we’d built together was ruined, and that made me so horribly, sickly angry that I shook. It wasn’t the pure, cleansing rage I’d felt before. It was old anger that was bitter and bloated and rotten from having been bottled up for so long, since the revelation that night when I was fifteen: I’m never going to be a normal person now. I’d escaped, with Darrell—for a wonderful handful of days, I’d stepped outside my fate and lived another life. And now I was being plunged back into it and that made my very soul howl in pain. I took another step back.
“Let me help,” he said desperately. “Let me help you.” He reached for me, just our fingertips touching.
I turned and walked, heels sinking into the soaked gravel of the drive.
He ran alongside me, spluttering with the water coursing down his face, trying to blink it away. “Natasha, you’ll get pneumonia. It’s a mile back to the road. Come inside, we can talk!”
I could feel myself closing down, everything drawing into a tight knot at the center of my body, the rest of me cold and dead. I shook my head, a tight little movement, and kept walking.
I heard him stop and drop away behind me. Then he said, desperately, “Don’t give up on us!”
I stopped. Is that what he thought—that I was giving up on us? I wanted him, more than I’d ever wanted anything in the world. But I knew where this was headed. He’d want to—need to—fix me, and he’d keep pushing for an answer. When I refused, he’d get angry again. Or he’d eventually wear me down and I’d tell him, and then he’d swing from love to hate.