“The sun’s killing me today,” I say, squinting up at it. “Sorry, Brittany. I should probably head back.”
She nods quickly. “Of course. I didn’t mean to?—”
“No.” I reach out and touch her arm lightly. “It’s good to see you. I’m glad you’re here.”
She looks at where my hand rests against her sweater. There’s something unsaid behind her eyes. Something deeper than crushing grief. A secret. A silence too loud.
But again, she doesn’t speak.
“Maybe I’ll see you around,” I offer. “I come out here a lot.”
“Yeah.” She blinks fast. “Me too.”
I nod once, then turn to go. The walk back feels longer.Heavier. Like her sadness has followed me, settled on my shoulders beside mine. The unbearable weight of our shared loss is suffocating. As I walk away I know I won’t see her again, I can’t, she’s too close to the woman I loved. Too much a reminder of what I’ll never have again.
I don’t look back.
Chapter Forty-Four
Jonathan
“You look like death, Calum.” My voice cuts through the silence.
I find him in the studio, as expected, hunched over another portrait of her. He’s painted her a hundred times, maybe more. Each one a desperate attempt to bring her back, to immortalize her in strokes of oil and pigment. But no amount of paint will undo what’s been done. “Have you eaten? You look hollow–sunken in. Like you’re vanishing before my eyes.”
Calum flinches, his hand jerking and smearing the brush across the canvas. He turns to me, his eyes bloodshot and hollow. “What are you doing here?”
I ignore him and ask, “when’s the last time you ate?”
“I don’t remember,” comes his quick reply.
I sigh. I don’t bother with pleasantries. There’s no point. Not anymore. “We need to talk.”
He narrows his eyes, suspicion flickering across his face. “About what?”
I glance at the painting behind him. Annabel in one of hermany moods, this time serene and wistful. But her eyes—those damn eyes—seem to accuse us both.
“About her,” I say, nodding toward the canvas.
Calum follows my gaze, his shoulders tensing. “What about her?”
I step closer, the storm outside rattling the windows. “You think you knew her, don’t you? You think she was this perfect, ethereal creature, your muse, your everything. But she wasn’t. She was human, Calum. Flawed. And she was drowning under the weight of your expectations.”
His jaw tightens, his hand curling into a fist at his side. “Don’t you dare?—”
“She was pregnant.” The words leave my mouth like a gunshot, reverberating in the small room.
Calum freezes, his face a mask of disbelief. “What?”
“You heard me,” I say, my voice steady despite the chaos inside me. “Annabel was pregnant when she died.”
His mouth opens, then closes, as though he’s struggling to process the information. “That’s… That’s not possible.”
“Isn’t it?” I challenge, stepping closer. “You were so wrapped up in your work, in turning her into this idealized version of herself, that you didn’t even see what was happening right in front of you.”
His eyes dart to the painting, as though searching for answers in her painted likeness. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Maybe because she couldn’t.” My tone softens, justslightly. “Maybe because she didn’t think you could handle it. Or maybe because she didn’t know if it was yours.”
