Hell blinked twice, feeling the truth through all the lies he’d ever been told. “I should never have let him do that. I should have killed him there and then.”
“I wish you did.”
“Fuck, me, too. But I can’t change the past.” His eyebrows pulled down, his lips becoming a thin line.
“Just the present.”
Hell would have nodded if he could.
“Woodrow wants me to make peace with you. He wants you to love him completely. Him, me, Woody, and whoever fucking else,” Hell reputed, with a sardonic smile curling his lips. “You were told we were delusional.”
“No, you're not. Not when it comes to this. I can love you. In some way, I always did. . . because you’re part ofhim, and I—”
He cut me off, pulling out his phone. He clicked the note app in the center of the screen, and nine-hundred and forty-eight notes appeared in a list.
“Take it inside. Read as many as you want. Sleep on it, maybe. Come back when you’re done, and then make your decision on how you feel. I don’t want meaningless words, Jolie. Lies don’t taste nice on your tongue.”
I nodded, and I closed my fingers around the phone. The lock screen wallpaper, blank, with a lack of expression,stared up at me as I looked down at the device.
And I continued looking at it as I walked away, only glancing back to see Hell still facing away from me, slumping—something he never ever did—as he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Chapter 27
Jolie—present day
Ifound myself back at the kitchen island. . . the smell of daisies doing for me what they did for Woodrow, calming me as I read through the notes on his phone.
I started at the bottom. The first dozen or so were all Woodrow. I could tell without even seeing his name labeling the title. He liked easy writing—the simpler things in life.
I twisted a daisy in my fingers, using it as a distraction from the pain inside when I read over his prison experiences and how it felt to be out. To be free from a prison sentence, only to receive a death sentence instead.
I found a note from Woody next, and it was hard to understand. He didn't mention prison or the institution. He didn't speak of the cancer, probably unsure what it meant. He talked about Ollie, and how he'd stayed with him for a while, which I thought was slightly odd.
Hell took over next, as he often did. And, as always, he was angry. Enraged by the nightmares Woodrow suffered that made their shared body tired. Nightmares of abuse by inmates that he wasn't protected against, because Hell, was again, shut out. But this time, a pill was to blame for that.
He was angry at me, too, for leaving them behind and not testifying their innocence when Woodrow claimed the deaths of the Heaven family were in self-defense. Angry that I’d run off and left them, despite Woodrow telling me to do it.
He didn’t know I’d been kidnapped.
All Hell heard was his father, whispering of how I’d leave him as soon as I got the chance. And because I wasn’t around, for a while, that was exactly what he thought.
The next message was again from Woodrow, talking house plans that Ollie was helping with. Talking about bringing me home. Ollie was secretly helping him to track me down, but for whatever reason, the police were kept out of it. Woodrow left a personal note to Hell before closing his message.
. . .I'm getting her back. I'll need your help. I need this. I need her. . . and I need you to be better for her.
Over the next few messages, they argued back and forth, disagreeing over me.
But the deeper into their story I got, I learned Hell was dealing with more than he let on. Grief. Pain. Anxiety.
All caused by me.
Because he missed me.
Little things he said in the messages proved that.
Proved other things, too. . . he was in love with me. In some twisted way.
He started releasing his frustrations in a new way, through creativity and writing, and it pleased Woodrow. For a while, the notes on the phone were just them shooting ideas back and forth. Woodrow gave pointers and Hell created something beautiful for me. A story for me to read.
