I sit down in my office chair, kind of feel good I planted the right seeds in Mangolia’s head which is all I wanted to do. Just to be on her mind how she’s still on mine. I called her like I said I would. Asked her if she wanted to get something to eat and she said she was heading off soon to pick up her sister from somewhere.
Better Bridge than Ballentine.
I think I was overreacting before, just got in my head about it because I love her and I’ve never loved someone before. Not like that anyway.
And then she was there and fucking Brown was trying to make benign threats against her — I can get rid of him. If he ever looks at Magnolia or my sister sideways again, I’ll kill him on the spot. But I think pulling the plug with her was stupid. I think there’s something there.
I think she’s wading through her own shit with Ballentine, there’s enough of it there, it might take a while, but I reckon we could get there, me and her.
It’s what I want.
Kekoa wanders in to my office and tosses today’s paper down on my desk.
He reclines back on the sofa next to Declan who’s playing FIFA on the Xbox.
“You okay after the other night?” Kekoa asks, picking up the other controller and joining him.
I frown over at him. “What other night?”
Koa shrugs. “Reckon I could count on one hand the amount of times you’ve swung a miss—”
I toss him a dirty look. “I didn’t swing a miss.”
“Oh, so that’s her upstairs in your bed, then?” he shoots and I ignore that comment. Read my paper. But if we’re keeping track (and we arent’t), no, it isn’t.
“Does she know you’ve turned into a raging slut?” Declan asks as he shoots a goal.
“Turned into?” Koa repeats. “Always been.”
I breathe out my nose, ignoring them.
“She’ll come around,” I say but not really to either of them. Maybe a bit to myself. “Just needs a minute.”
Koa stares over at me. Nods a bit like he doesn’t buy it. And maybe he’s right, maybe she needs more than a minute but also maybe she’s forgotten that we were fucking spectacular together, and we weren’t even together. We made sense. I love how I felt when I was with her, I love who she makes me be, how she makes me feel. I hate anyone else in my bed now. That girl upstairs? She can fuck off. There’s no post-have infatuation. Not that that’s what Magnolia turned out to be in the end, just a slow-motion falling in love. Or maybe it was all at once and I didn’t know it. Different feeling, loving a girl to a painting, so it turns out.
I look out over the top of my paper and spot flowers in a vase on the corner of my desk.
“Ey, these are nice—” I nod at them. “Where’d they come from?”
Declan shrugs.
Koa glances over, disinterested. “I don’t know.”
I pull it over towards me. It’s a nice vase, actually. I flick it with my finger. Glass. The Ronsard Opalescent glass vase. White. Double handles. Mid 1920s.
“Is this one of mine?” I ask as I check underneath it.
Koa shrugs again.
“I like Rene Lalique’s shit,” I tell them as I look over it.
“Gift maybe?” Declan says, then swears at the screen when Koa gets the ball off him.
I lift my eyebrows, thinking about it. “From who?”
He shrugs.
“Daisy?” He offers. “Did your Lalique break?”
I look over at him. I guess it did, yeah. Can’t imagine my sister rewarding me for that specific breakage by buying me a different one.
I lean in, take a sniff.
I point to the flowers. “What are those?”
“Don’t know.” Kekoa looks over at them. “Lilies, I think.”
I nod. “Smell good.”
Pretty too.
Decks looks over after a couple of seconds, scratches the back of his neck and squints.
“Nah — they’re magnolias,” Decks says.
“Oh.” I nod.
I stare at them for a couple of seconds, thinking it’s funny. Fortuitous timing almost, like it’s a sign.
It is a sign but it takes me a second for it to land.
Kekoa’s head snaps in my direction the same time I jump to my feet.
“Shit—” He drops the controller and runs over. “Is there a note?” He rifles through the flowers and I throw open my computer. Pull up the tracker I hid in her wallet. Size of a pin’s head. Don’t give me that look — it’s obviously necessary. Case in point right now.
“She’s by Kennington Park—” I tell them.
I scramble around my desk, grab my keys, Koa running after me.
I run to my car and drop the keys when I get to the door, pick them up again but I’m shaking.
“Give them to me.” Kekoa holds his hand out. “I’ll drive.”
I don’t give them to him and he takes them from me anyway.
Opens the car door, shoves me inside and I climb over to the passenger side.
He’s pulling out of the driveway before he even closes the door.
“Jules, it could be nothing,” he tells me but I know it’s a lie because he’s driving like a fucking maniac. Weaving in and out of cars like a Formula One racer.
“Call her—” he tells me.
I pull out my phone. Dial her.
Bang my fist a thousand times on the dash as I wait for her to answer but she doesn’t.
“Could just be flowers, man—”
I look over at him, my whole face pulled tight. “Someone just sends me some fucking magnolias out of the blue—”
“Maybe?” He shrugs, weakly, grips that wheel tight and accelerates.
I try her again.
“Pick up,” I say under my breath. “Pick up, fucking pick up—”
I let out a frustrated sound under my breath and feel sick head to toe. Never felt sick in my toes before but I do now, this sharp feeling, like the edge of pain spreading through me as my mind begins to do the math on how much it really costs to be loved by me.
“Where is she?” Koa asks.
“Heading up Harleyford Road towards Vauxhall.”
He nods, accelerates then looks over at me. “Do you have a plan here?”
I shake my head. “Grab her? Take her back to the Compound?”
“How’s that going to fly with the boyfriend?”
I shake my head at him. “I don’t fucking give a shit!”
We pull on to Vauxhall Bridge.
Call her again and fucking finally — Bridget answers.
“Oh, hello!” she sings. “We were just talking about you!”
“Magnolia—” I say, urgent. “Are you with her? Where are you?”
“What?” Bridget laughs, not sensing the tone.
“Put her on.” I tell her.
“She’s driving—” Bridget says.
“Where are you — what car are you in?” I ask her, looking around the bridge. It says they’re on here somewhere.
“What? Sorry, I can’t hear you—” She frowns and it’s then I spot them driving the other way. White Aston Martin DBS Superleggera.
Spot them the same time a car slams into her from behind, spinning her onto the other side of the road and Kekoa slams the breaks.
Have you ever seen the person you love be hit by a car just because they love you?
Two cars, actually. Because as I reach for my seatbelt to get out and to her, another car t-bones her.
Love is wild, isn’t it? It makes a life so much more valuable… not just to me but to my enemies. No one was trying to kill Magnolia Parks until I loved her.
And I know this is them. They’re hit cars.
Black, plain, unnoticeable, no plates.
I barrel out of the car and I’m calling her name — sounds far away, though — I’m yelling for her, running towards her, feels like one of those dream runs. Like your feet are buried in sand and you can’t get to where you’re trying to go—
Koa grabs me by the shoulders. “We have to go.”
I throw him out of the way and keep running to her but he pushes me backwards.
“We have to go now!”
“I have to help her—”
He gestures to the car wreck. “You can’t!”
“I have to!” I push past him and he shoves me backwards, plants himself hard on the ground.
“Listen to me—” He grabs me by the shoulders. “You can’t.”
“I love her!”
“I know,” he nods, measured, staring at me. “But Daisy. We have to get to Daisy—”
My chest starts heaving as I try to see past the growing crowd of people who are trying to help her.
“But what if she’s—”
I can’t see anything. The car’s flipped, that’s all I can see.
The black cars are gone now — I don’t know where they went, I lost them, I should have been paying more attention but I lost them the way I think I’m losing her.
I shove Kekoa off me but he grabs me.
“Julian, we don’t know if she’s—” He shakes his head and pushes me back towards the car. He opens the door, puts me in the seat.
“I’m sorry—” He shakes his head. “We have to get to Dais.”
