coffee.” Mom’s voice carries through my bedroom door. “I’ll leave it out here.”
There’s a shuffling, and then her footsteps retreat back downstairs again.
I roll onto my side on my bed. Three days. It’s been three days since I had that fight with Dax on his roof terrace. Three days since I ran out of his apartment and tore down the driveway to the cottage. Three days since I yanked my suitcase out from under the bed so hard that it swung into the giant mirror he gave me and smashed it.
Jasmin told me not to worry. That it was just the glass, and it could be replaced.
I found a tiny shard of it that must have gotten caught up in my clothes when I threw them in during my angry, hurt-fueled packing. The jagged edge of it sliced right through the skin of my forearm when I was unpacking back at Mom’s house—I can’t even call it home anymore. I don’t know where I belong now. I didn’t even react when the blood started pulsing from the cut. I stood and reveled in the sensation. I welcomed it. Because although it was pain, it wasn’t the pain I’ve felt in my heart since Dax left me alone on that roof. It was a relief to feel a different pain for a change.
“Rose?” Mom calls up the stairs to me as I’m running my fingers over the edge of the thin dressing that’s covering the cut. “There’s someone here to see you.”
The pathetic loser in me jumps up from the bed as my heart lifts.
It could be him.
He could be here to take back what he said. To explain everything. To… Fuck, I don’t know what he could say to make any of it better, but just the thought of seeing him is enough to get me to leave my room.
He didn’t fight for me. He said we were an illusion. A trick of the light.
But I saw in his eyes he was lying.
Has he come to fight now?
I know I told him once that love was just dopamine. But I stopped believing that a long time ago. Dax made me change my mind about a lot of things.
He changed me.
I rush downstairs and into the kitchen.
But it’s not Dax hovering by the table.
“What’s she doing here?” I turn to Mom, my pulse rocketing.
“You two need to talk. It’s time.”
I glare at Mom and then bring my eyes back to Casey, who’s looking at me with tears pooling along her lower lids.
“It’s so good to see you, Ro.”
I clamp my mouth shut, my teeth grinding together.
Breathe, Sunbeam. Breathe.
I shake my head, trying to get his voice out of it. He always knew how to calm me.
Well, fuck you, Dax Silver, because you aren’t here now, are you? Where are you when I need you?
I take a deep breath, concentrating on the sound of it passing up through my nose and filling my chest. And I take in the scent of Casey’s familiar perfume, the same one she’s worn for years. It immediately transports me to my twenty-first birthday with her, singing and dancing all night at the party Mom and Dad threw for me at Vienna’s restaurant.
That was such a happy day.
“Why don’t you girls go and sit on the porch? It’s a beautiful day outside.” Mom nods gently at me. “Go on, Rose. You need the fresh air. You haven’t left your room since you came home.”
I turn back to Casey who’s holding her breath, her bottom lip pulled into her mouth as she looks at me.
“Fine. You first,” I say to Casey.
I frown at Mom before following Casey out to the front porch. This used to be one of our favorite places to sit together, talking about school and boys, and putting the world to rights.
Back when we were both younger… and naïve. Before lies tore us apart.
She sits in her usual spot on the long wicker sofa, but I slump into the chair, as far away from her as possible instead of sitting next to her like I always used to.
Her shoulders droop and she looks at her hands in her lap. “What’s it like being back?”
“Shit,” I answer without missing a beat.
Her lips curl down. “I’m sorry about what happened. Your mom told me. It sounded like things were going well last time we spoke. You… sounded happy there.” Casey lifts her eyes to mine, and I look away as my heart constricts painfully.
“I was… while it lasted.”
“She told me about the police, about that man… Dax’s dad… about what he tried to do to you.”
I stare out over the front yard as a breeze blows over my arms causing goosebumps to scatter up them. “So everyone knows all about my shit, then? Fuck up of the family like usual.”
“Don’t say that. She told me because I care about you. I call every day and ask about you. We haven’t spoken in weeks. And I know that’s my fault, and I…” Her voice cracks. “I am so sorry.” Casey drops her head as she wipes the tears from her cheeks.
I wish I could cry like that. I imagine it’s a relief, to let it all out. I just have this constant pressure inside that makes me feel like an overinflated balloon that could pop at any moment. It makes my head pound. It makes my chest so tight I struggle to breathe. It makes the very essence of me vibrate like a corked bottle that’s been shaken violently.
“I didn’t know he was married. I swear. He… he was so nice to me. He made me feel beautiful and intelligent, and worthy of his attention. He made me feel alive.” Casey looks at me, her eyes still full of tears. “I loved him. At least, I loved who I thought he was for those few months. Before the lies all unraveled.”
I swallow as the hard lump in my throat throbs forcefully. I remember all those months when Casey would have been seeing the man who knocked Brett down. I wasn’t there for her. I was too busy dealing with my own shit to notice that my best friend needed me. She was in love, and I had no idea.
“I’m sorry I was a shit friend.” The words fall from my lips, causing Casey’s eyes to pop wide. I mean them, every one, despite how angry I’ve been with her. “Whatever has happened since, it doesn’t change the fact that I should have been there for you, and I wasn’t.”
“You had your own stuff going on with Gareth, I get it. And… I don’t know. I think deep down, I knew something wasn’t right from the beginning. Otherwise, I would have told you about him. The way you told me about Dax.”
I snort. “Yeah. I wouldn’t shut up about him on some of our calls.”
Casey sniffs and then giggles. “I can’t blame you. He’s one of those pretty bad boys. And older. And your boss. It’s like the law that we should have spoken about him as much as we did.”
A sad smile creeps over my face as I pull my legs up underneath me and curl into the chair. “Yeah, I guess.”
I glance over at her again. She’s relaxed a little and her tears have finally stopped. The two of us sit in silence for a few minutes, and we wave as a neighbor passes, walking their dog.
“When did you find out he was married?”
Casey tenses. “The day that Brett…” She sighs, and for a moment, I worry that her tears will start again. “I found out that morning. We had a huge fight and I told him his wife deserved to know. Then I left. I don’t know if I would have told her or not. My head was a mess. I just needed to get away from him, to let it sink in. But he had gotten it into his head that I was on my way to see her. To ruin his life. But it was him who ended up ruining everyone else’s that day instead. Because of me.”
“No. Not because of you.” I take in a deep breath. There are so many things I wanted to say to Casey. So many hurt-filled words I wanted to launch at her. To make her feel as empty and broken as I do. But looking at her now, I can see… She already is. We’re both as empty as each other.
“I don’t blame you for Brett’s accident.”
I’ve been such a bitch. If time with Dax taught me anything, it’s that forgiveness is one of the strongest things you can give yourself. And one of the most meaningful things you can give to someone else. Being angry at Casey was a deeper reflection of the anger and blame I still held against myself. And it’s only sitting here with her now that it’s starting to make sense.
“I don’t blame you, Case. It wasn’t your fault. And it wasn’t mine.” I have to stop and take a breath. It’s the first time I’ve said those words out loud.
It wasn’t my fault.
“But what hurt me is that you lied about it. I would have still felt the way I did about Brett’s accident. I would still have blamed myself all these years. But you were there for me, by my side all that time, knowing something about it that I didn’t. That’s what hurts. That you didn’t trust me enough to tell me.” I look over and into her eyes. They’re shining with emotion.
“I do trust you. I just didn’t know how to tell you without causing you any more hurt. Seeing what your family went through was awful. Seeing what you went through, I’d never wish that on anyone. I was so helpless.”
Her voice cracks, and I turn away.
“You were the one person who kept me functioning,” I confess, leaning my head back against the back of the chair and gazing up at the clouds, unable to look at her until I’ve gotten everything out. “I just wish you’d told me. You must have been hurting too, finding out that about him.”
“Yeah.” Casey’s voice is small. “Yeah, I was. But mostly I was angry at him for making me fall in love with a lie.”
Tension spreads through my shoulders as I allow her words to sink in. We’ve both been burned by love and lies.
“You don’t think any of it was real? The way he was with you?” I stare at a cloud that’s shaped like a balloon, willing it to break apart so I don’t have to keep staring at it. I could look away, only some twisted part of me wants to look. To remember Dax. To believe that it wasn’t all a lie like he wants me to think.
“You’re Rose Jacobs. The girl who came from New York and crashed into my world like a meteor. You can do anything. You can find every silver lining, in every cloud, in a whole world of stormy skies. And you’ll be stronger for it. You’re a warrior. You show up day after day, always hunting for that beauty. For that magic. But it’s in you. It’s always been in you.”
Those are the words he said to me in the balloon that day. When we were high up in the clouds together. That wasn’t fake. No matter what Dax wants me to believe, I know none of it was fake.
Which means he is a liar.
I swallow as I squint at the sky.
“I mean, yes. Honestly, I do think it was real at the time for him,” Casey says. “But none of that matters now. It was over the minute I found out. And things are going pretty good with the new guy I’m seeing. And I’ve met his family, so there’s no secret wives he’s keeping hidden.”
“Thank fuck for that.”
Casey laughs quietly. “Yeah, thank fuck.”
I watch the balloon cloud until it’s moved out of sight. “Dax was lying to me too. He didn’t tell me what he was doing every night. He didn’t tell me he was on this revenge trip to catch Julian and get him arrested.”
Casey was a great listener, ever since we were kids. She would let me get it all out without interrupting. She knows everything there is to know about me. My best friend. God, I’ve missed her these past weeks. Being in England it was easier to ignore the gaping hole her absence left inside me. But it’s not that easy now I’m back here.
I don’t want to ignore it anymore. I want to fill it. I want that hole to be gone. Because I’m so full of holes that any more and there’ll be nothing left holding me together at all.
“I get why Dax didn’t tell me. He probably thought I was safer not knowing,” I continue.
“Yeah, you’d have followed him and insisted on helping.”
Casey and I look at each other, the corners of both of our lips lifting at the same time.
“Yeah. I would have,” I snort. “But before I left, he tried telling me that everything was fake. That none of it was real. That’s what hurts. That’s why when I think about him, I want to scream until the sky rips open. He’s trying to make out that everything I felt for him couldn’t be real, because it was all fake for him.”
“It’s like he’s invalidating your feelings by pretending he never had any.”
“Exactly.” She gets it. Best friends always do. “And I… I want to smack him in the jaw, and pound my fists against his heart, the way he’s done to mine. He knows how I feel about lying. But he’s still chosen to do it. I think it would hurt less if he really had never felt anything toward me. But then I think, surely if his feelings were real, then he wouldn’t be able to do this either. He wouldn’t be able to hurt me like this. Nothing makes sense anymore.”
Casey shuffles along the sofa so she’s closer to me, then reaches out and curls her fingers through mine. She stills as I stare at our entwined hands.
Then I squeeze hers gently.
“I keep thinking how my family told me I needed time. So they sent me there. And now I’ve come running back again. More fucked up than when I left.”
“You’ve never been fucked up, Ro. It’s just a fucked-up situation.”
I hold Casey’s eyes and smile gratefully. Her eyes shine, and she stands, pulling me to my feet. Then she flings her arms around me.
And there isn’t even the tiniest measure of time that I don’t consider hugging her back.
I hold her like I always have through all the years of our friendship. Because I meant what I burned on that paper at those bonfires with Dax.
Forgiveness. Blame.
It’s time I start living like I intended to when I burned those two words. Dax may not be a part of my life anymore. But I don’t have to lose everyone I care about. Not if I can live my life like I should have been doing for the past few years.
“Thank you for talking to me again. I’ve missed you,” Casey says.
“No more lies,” I say, hugging her harder.
“None, I swear.”
“Ever.”
“From sandbox to casket,” she whispers.
I squeeze my eyes shut as gratitude that she’s here flows through every cell in my body. I haven’t admitted everything to Mom, Brett, and Harley. I blamed my mood on jetlag. But they’re not stupid. They saw how Dax and I were together. But I still haven’t spoken about it with them. I haven’t told them just how much my heart weighs me down with every single movement I try to make. They don’t know just how much Dax meant to me.
They don’t know that I was willing to trade my life for his that night, had Julian given me the choice.
I would have done it in a heartbeat.
I screw my eyes up more until they sting and grip on to Casey. She didn’t give up on me. She kept trying. Because friendship is worth fighting for.
And I need my best friend more than ever right now.
I open my eyes and look at the sky behind her. “Yeah,” I whisper. “Sandbox to casket.”
Casey moves back from her hug and smiles at me, then her eyes land on my skin in my off-shoulder hoodie. “What’s that?”
“Oh.” I twist my head, but I never can see it from this angle. “It’s a tattoo. Dax did it. I’m getting it covered over with something else. I already made the appointment.”
If I had spoken to Casey, returned her texts and calls, then she’d know about the tattoo. It’s exactly the type of thing I would have called her about straight away.
I dust my fingers over my shoulder, and she steps closer, rising onto her toes to take a better look.
“Why? It’s beautiful.”
“It is. But I don’t want the word Silver on me. It just makes me think of him.” I tug at my top. I don’t know why I chose an off-the-shoulder one. I’m going to make sure it’s covered everyday now until my appointment to get it fixed. The idea of having a permanent reminder of him on my skin makes me want to throw up. And so does the fear that even if I cover it up, it won’t be enough to erase him. He’s kissed every inch of my body. He’s made love to me all night. He’s consumed every part of me.
No matter what I do, a part of me will always belong to Dax Silver.
“Huh? It doesn’t say silver. Turn around.” Casey spins me so she can look at it from behind me. “Oh, it’s one of those ambigram ones. Oh, they’re clever.”
“Ambi what?”
She turns me again. “You know. A word that reads one thing one way up, and something else the other way up.”
I pull at my shoulder again, craning my neck uselessly. “What does it say?”
“This way.” Casey spins me again. “It says Silver. But this way.” She makes me bend so she can look over the top of my shoulder again. “This way, it says Rose.”
“Rose? Are you sure?” I yank my phone from the hoodie pocket and thrust it into her hand. “Show me. Take a picture from there.”
My phone clicks as she snaps an image over my shoulder and hands it to me. On the screen is my delicate black cloud tattoo. But in the center, in intricate, scripted font is the word Rose.
“How is that possible?”
“He must have known what he was doing. They’re not easy to design. I bet it took him ages.”
I stare at the phone screen. It did take Dax hours to do. But that was when he was using the needle. How long had he thought about the design before that?
“You are the silver lining. It’s always been you. Look at this if you ever need reminding.”
He even told me before he did it. How can I not have seen this until now? He was trying to tell me something, the same thing he was always trying to tell me.
I am my own silver lining.
My throat thickens as I blink rapidly. How could he do this? How could he be so fucking amazing and beautiful… and him? How could he have been everything I ever wanted and needed?
And then he pushed me away like it all meant nothing.
He told me he just needed two more days. Two more days and then our future would begin. He begged me for that time. Two days later was when I went to the dockyard and found out he’d been working to bring Julian down. It was all meant to be over that night. But then something changed. Was it me telling him Julian was his father? Am I the reason he shut me out?
But if that’s true, I would make the same choice again. I couldn’t live with myself knowing that and lying to him. Even if it might be the reason, he’s now writing our time off together to history.
I click out of the picture and my screensaver shines back at me. The one he put on my phone. His neck. The bird tattoo. I screw my eyes shut at the sight of it and drop my phone onto the chair cushion.
I might have burned the word forgiveness and be trying to live by it now.
But the jagged grief tearing open my heart right now isn’t something that will be easy to forgive. And that’s if he was even here trying.
Which he isn’t.
You’re a bastard, Dax Silver.
You let me fall in love with you and then you slashed the ties that held me to you. You let the wind carry me away after you used me for what you needed.
Maybe that was his plan all along. Use me to smuggle things. Keep me at a distance. Even though I know from his actions, he didn’t manage it. His feelings were real, I have to believe that. But despite them, he kept saying he was no good for me. He told me that over and over.
I should have listened.
Because we both fell too hard and too deep.
And whatever rises must come down.
But we didn’t just come down.
We crashed.
