When she still doesn’t say anything, I get up and head to my room. There, I take a long, hot shower—I won’t be getting in a bath anytime soon—and change into pajamas. Of course I don’t sleep that night. Olivier’s face haunts me as soon as I try to close my eyes, and then he stays while I stare at the ceiling, studying every crack and bit of chipped paint, hoping he will leave me alone. Olivier was going to ruin my life, but I think I ended up doing that all on my own.
***
Daylight peaks through the curtains, the sun rising into the sky and pushing its way into the room from behind the velvet fabric. Seconds, minutes, hours pass, and I still haven’t looked at my phone. I just want to lie there, away from everything, where the outside world can’t get to me. My mind is in shambles as I turn over to face the wall, my back to the window. I’m aching all over, my eyes are paper dry, and I can’t bring myself to move. Suddenly, the doorbell rings. And rings, and rings. There’s no ignoring it.
“Taylor!” I cry out. “You going to get that?”
But I hear no footsteps, only the shrieking tone, which won’t stop. I drag myself out of bed and have to push off the mattress with both hands to stand.
“Cassie? Cassie!”
Darren’s voice filters through the door before I’ve even opened it. When I do, the first thing I notice is his face contorted in worry, his crinkling eyebrows.
He bursts into the foyer. “Cassie, oh my god! I thought something had happened to you. What the hell?” There’s no harshness to it. Only fear deep inside his eyes.
And then he’s hugging me, wrapping his arms so tight around my body it hurts. I drop my phone onto the console in the entrance so I can hold on to him better.
But then he pulls back. “What happened? I was worried sick!”
I take a deep breath. Wordlessly, I start leading him to my bedroom, but catch myself. If anyone sees us together in there, it won’t look good. We go in the living room instead, where I sit down. I feel restless and unable to carry myself at the same time.
“I must have texted you a hundred times!” he says, towering over me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t respond. I was…embarrassed.” The words barely come out of my mouth. “Can you sit? You’re making me nervous.”
He does but his knee bounces up and down so much I feel seasick. “You said he was violent—”
Shit.
“No, I said… I didn’t… It wasn’t like that.” The iron. Olivier grabbed it first. I would never have done it. “I was annoyed with him. That’s all.”
Darren comes to kneel beside me and hangs on to both of my elbows, making sure I’m paying attention. “Cassie, you don’t have to lie to me. If he did anything, I’m here to protect you. And if he ever shows his face here again… I mean, he better not show his face here again.”
I want to laugh, it’s so pathetic. I really thought Darren and I were going to work out this time. We’d learned our lessons; all the mistakes had been made. I couldn’t imagine that the worst ones were yet to come.
Darren leans over, close enough that I can feel the warmth of his leg through his slacks. “I went to work this morning but I couldn’t focus. You weren’t responding to me! So I gave my boss an excuse and rushed over here. I thought… You said he was trying to kill you, Cassie. That’s more than a little joke. Even for you.”
Fuck. He’s not going to let this go. When I needed him that night, he wouldn’t take me seriously and now… Darren has always been so straight and narrow. I don’t fit in his world.
“You know me. I get a bit dramatic sometimes. Olivier and I broke up. He decided he wanted to stay in Paris because he doesn’t like it here.” I make a sweeping motion around us, my hand grazing his cheek in the process. That part of the story won’t be hard to believe, because it’s true. “So we’re over. I didn’t react so well at first.”
It was all going to work out perfectly, but then Olivier had to come back into the room before I had time to leave. He had to see his passport ripped to shreds. He should have known it was all over for him, but he had to try again. The poor guy was so desperate. He couldn’t let me go. So I had to make him.
I can’t explain any of that to Darren. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep or the adrenaline I’ve run on since I left the hotel, but there’s no happy ending here.
“This doesn’t make sense, Cassie. You told me your husband was out to murder you.”
“It was a horrible joke, okay? You of all people should get me.”
Darren exhales slowly as he stares at a dent in the walnut coffee table. “Everything’s a joke to you, isn’t it? You came back with this stranger and then went and married him three months later, and then you tell me—”
I cut him off. “I think we misunderstood each other.”
“So what happens now? You’re here; you’re safe. Without him.” He crosses his arms against his chest as he lets out another sigh.
“What happens now is that you leave,” I say at last, looking at the doorway. “I’m sorry about what I said. I can’t do this right now. I need to get through my divorce first.” I swallow hard, needing to catch my breath. “I want to be alone for a while.”
The words feel itchy against the insides of my throat. Because of course it’s a lie. What I want is to erase the last few months of my life. I want to go back to when Darren and I were together, and I want to fight for him. For us. Because that means I would have never met Olivier. I would never have gotten myself into this fucked-up mess. And, maybe for the first time in my life, no one can help me out of it.
