As I sit in the gallery’s kitchen, Max wraps my forearm up with a bandage from the first-aid box. The gash is deep; it’ll need stitches. But I don’t care about the wound in my arm. It’s the distance Max is putting between us that hurts more than a thousand pieces of glass.
He’s right beside me and yet so far away. His eyes are a tunnel of darkness with no light at the end. I’m not sure he has actually looked at me yet. Like, has really looked into my eyes since before I’d shot Erik.
After I’m patched up, he leads me to the rear loading bay, where Carter sits behind the wheel of a black limousine.
We drive away from the gallery. Away from that whole nightmare. The car is dark and silent. Too silent.
Staring down at my bloody dress, I begin to whimper. ‘Get it off me.’ Desperation controls my movements as I scratch at the dress. At the seams. At the zipper. ‘Get it off!’
Max is immediately kneeling in front of me, helping me shed that revolting layer. Once I’m sitting in my underwear, he slides back onto the black leather seats, pulls me to straddle his lap, and buries his face in my knotted hair.
With shaky arms I embrace him. I finally feel a wave of sorrow submerge me.
Drag me down.
Sink me.
Max must feel me trembling because his thick strong arms tighten around my waist. His breathing turns jagged and heavy, weighed down by emotion. I rub my face against his shoulder. My eyes well, the sting of tears biting at the heels of my anger towards Erik. They fall. Down my lips. Down my chin. And now I’m sobbing violently into the curve of his neck.
Max holds me close. One hand moves up to cup the back of my head, fingers brushing my hair. The other bands my waist, pressing me to his warm hard torso. Our heaving chests beat together in a collective erratic tempo.
He leans into my ear and whispers, ‘If you were me, what would you do to make you feel better?”
‘My mum sings to me.’
‘What song? Sing it for me.’
My breaths wobble as I begin to sing. ‘Someday I’ll wish upon a star.’ Suddenly frozen, Max seems to have almost stopped breathing. I know he doesn’t understand the love of a mother. A mother singing to her child – the whole concept must be completely foreign.
As I continue to sing, my voice breaks and everything in this car is swallowed up by my grief.
