“You bastard–” Calum growls, his eyes hard and anger.
“It’s true,” I say, my voice cold. “And it’s your fault.” I take another step closer, the heat of anger blooming in my chest. “You were too blind to see it because you made her into some untouchable masterpiece in your head. But I knew her. I knew the real Annabel.”
Calum stands, his brush clattering to the floor. “You don’t know a damn thing.”
“Oh, I don’t?” I snap, my words cutting through the air like the lightning slicing across the sky outside. “She was never going to choose you. Not really. She loved the idea of you, the artist, the dreamer. You were her escape, Calum, never her reality.”
His face twists with anger, but there’s something else there too—doubt. It’s a small crack, but I see it, and it spurs me on. “You’re wrong,” he says, but the words sound hollow. “Annabel loves me.”
“Did she?” I take another step forward, closing the distance between us. “Or did she love the pedestal you’ve put her on? You trapped her in this fantasy, this gilded cage of your making. She didn’t love you, Calum. She loved what you represent. And you didn’t love her. Not really. You loved the version of her that existed in your head. She was a wild, wicked girl and she burned too bright for this world. And now she’s dead.”
The room falls silent, the storm outside echoing the turmoil inside.
“If she’s dead it’s because you pushed her.” Calum’s hands tremble at his sides, his fists clenching and unclenching as if trying to hold onto something that’s slipping away.
I shake my head, bitterness choking out my thoughts.
“Get out,” he says finally, his voice low and trembling with barely contained rage. “Leave. Now.”
I hesitate, my breath ragged. I could push harder, break him entirely. But there’s something in his eyes—something fragile and raw—that makes me pause. I step back, the tension between us thick enough to choke on.
“You’re a fool, Calum,” I say, my voice softer now, laced with pity. “And one day, you’ll see it. One day, you’ll finally see her for who she really was. And it will destroy you.”
His eyes burn with hatred as I turn and walk away, my footsteps heavy in the stillness of Holiday House. The storm rages on outside, but inside, the silence is deafening.
As I reach the door, I glance back. Calum is staring at the painting, his shoulders slumped, his hands limp at his sides. The light from the storm flickers across Annabel’s face on the canvas, her eyes seeming to mock him with their knowing sadness.
The storm batters against the walls as I step out into the night, the cold rain hitting my face like needles. Somewhere in the distance, I think I hear her laughter—haunting, hollow, and triumphant.
Chapter Forty-Three
Calum
My life has been bitter since I last heard her voice. As if her presence in my life has been a journey of precious and violent revenge.
The air shakes the window panes, the soft howling slipping through the cracks like a protest.
“Don’t leave me here where I can’t find you…” I moan into the void. “How can I excise pain that radiates through my body, that torments my blood, that clings to my bones?”
Her phantom touch is like a vibration through my skin. I feel her everywhere–in bed next to me, a lingering comfort that never quite fulfills. Annabel–my phantom lover, sent to destroy me. The last remaining pieces of me erode the longer I cling to someone that’s already gone. The realization hits me that the ghost of what could have been is more painful than what was, the emotional echoes of a relationship that won’t let go. The endless cycles of regret and obsession, repressed grief and unresolved emotional damage, my new addiction. I’ve become my pain, loving her my new identity, heartbreak has trained my brain to crave the very thing I need to escape.
“I miss you so much, Annabel, it’s left a you-shaped hole in my soul. But if I stop missing you, I lose you. I’ll forget that you were real, that even for a while, you were mine.” I crush my hands over my face as anguish descends. “I never deserved you, I was never enough–but for a time you made me feel.”
I think of her heartbreak when she found out Jonathan married Brittany, is this how she felt? Broken? Ruined by love? Lost in her pain? I refuse to believe she loved him–he was only a distraction–I’m sure of it. We were more. We were always more.
I draw a fingertip along the curve of her waist, the unfinished painting of her in the garden, the faint outline of her nipples through her slip as morning sun bathes her body in warmth. Missing her might cost me everything–life, happiness, hope–but still, she haunts the edges of my mind. I’ve lost so much, losing even a single memory feels like another death I can’t take.
My eyes drift to the mirror, the one that always reflects her. I grind my teeth as unspoken rage pummels my system. I grip the nearest object–a clean canvas propped at my feet–and hurl it against the mirror. It doesn’t crack, so I grab the canvas again and angle the sharp edge at the center of my reflection. I beat against the glass, hot tears washing down my cheeks and blurring my vision as I beat the canvas over and over until pain throbs through my hand and streaks of crimson paint the walls and mirror, shards cutting my fist and decorating the canvas in splatters of red.
The mirror is irreparably broken, the glass covering the floor around my feet. My breathing comes out in frantic gasps as the fractured mirror finally matches my broken heart.
I hate her. I love her. I need her. I need to be free of her. I don’t think I ever will be. I feel haunted, hopeless, maimed by her love. For the first time, regret crawls through my system. Ishould have turned away from her that first day on the beach, recognized her love would ruin me. I should have done so many things, but instead I’m standing here, stumbling through the architecture of my heartbreak, trying to piece together my soul and wondering if instead of finding myself in her love, I lost myself. I know I’ll never love again.
My muscles feel weak, like they’ve finally atrophied from heartbreak. I drop into the chair in the corner, allowing my eyes to fall closed. Her dark features materialize in my mind, her wry smile as she takes in the unfinished painting of her in the garden. Her last words echo in my mind before she walked through the gate and out of my life for the last time.
“Finish it, Calum. For me. For us.”
I push myself out of the chair with sheer will, moving out of the cottage hoping that fresh air will clear my mind. The sun’s too bright. Even with sunglasses digging into the bridge of my nose and the salt wind stinging my skin, it feels like the sky is trying to split open and swallow me whole. I walk the shore anyway, barefoot, the sand cold and wet and unfamiliar.
