“Marvin, get your ass here. RIGHT NOW,” he growls.
He tosses the phone aside, tells me he’ll be right back, and disappears into the kitchen. Jasper returns with a ceramic bowl of lukewarm water and a piece of antibacterial soap. Carefully, he takes my painful hands and dips them into the water. I let out a soft gasp as the water eases some of the pain. He barely grazes my skin, soaping my hands as if trying to eradicate whatever holds my flesh hostage.
My ears perk up at the sound of the front door opening and closing. Jasper stands up, and with large strides, he walks to the hallway.
“What did you do?!” Jasper yells.
I frown at the insinuation. Marvin answers, but his voice is soft, as if I’m not allowed to listen, making his words muffled. I’m unable to hear what they’re discussing. A loud bang makes me sit up straight, water sloshing over the edge of the bowl from my sudden movement. More hushed voices.
A few minutes later, they both walk in. Marvin doesn’t even look at me as he goes straight to where Tammy is. Jasper notices the wet spots on my pants.
“I got startled when I heard that loud noise,” I shrug.
“Sorry for that, I didn’t mean to scare you.” He fidgets with his sleeve. “I thought Marvin had done something to hurt you. I know it’s foolish. I wasn’t thinking straight.” He gives me a small smile.
Marvin returns. “It seems the florist made a mistake… The leaves you placed around the… girl… It’s Hogweed.”
“What?” I glance at Jasper, confused, who scowls at Marvin.
“Damnit, how could you let this happen?!”
“I’m so sorry, sir, there were so many bouquets. It also didn’t occur to me to check if the florist did their job properly.”
The last sentence is a sneer, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Jasper. The tension between the two is palpable.
“What is so bad about Hogweed?” I ask.
“It causes severe blisters on the skin. You were lucky, and by that, me as well, that you washed your hands afterward because of the glue,” he snarls, but it’s not aimed at me.
Marvin shifts uncomfortably, tiptoeing from one foot to the other. It’s clear he wants to leave.
“Go,” Jasper says.
He clenches his fists, the veins almost popping. I realize he sent Marvin away to avoid punching him, and I doubt Jasper would be able to stop after the first hit.
Chapter Thirteen
My flesh feels wrong afterward—overexposed, stripped of its defenses. The color had drained, but as the days passed, it returned darker, bruised, stained, as if the skin remembers what touched it and refuses to forget. Even after healing, the mark lingers. My hands carry the injury like a memory that resurfaces, whenever light finds it again.
I stare at my hands, the discolored skin, the scarring from the blisters, and tears silently stream. Jasper takes hold of them and kisses my knuckles, my palm, and the tips of my fingers.
“You’re still just as beautiful to me as before, Starling. There’s no end to loving you, Darling, and even when our flesh rots in the soil, I will find my way back to you, to love you even more.”
I feel like a moron for not knowing of such a plant’s existence and not being alerted by Tammy’s glances. She knew. I ignored the unease that called to me after seeing her darting eyes, pushing past the emotion to get whatIwanted. A cruel joke by fate for choosing myself, for what I desired. My hands are mutilated at the touch of a poisonous plant.
Marvin called later that evening and said he had spoken to the florist. It turned out that one of her interns had accidentally added it to the bouquet, mistaking it for another leafy addition. As they worked with gloves, he didn’t suffer. The explanation was plausible, but Jasper had demanded that the intern be fired. Marvin had agreed and said it was inexcusable.
To me, none of it matters; the damage is done. The scars on my hands are a bloodless symbol. I am forced to wear gloves whenever I go outside, especially in the summer. The heat is unbearable, stinging my skin. The voices in my head are getting louder again, whispering their poison to me in their mean tone. They are doing their best to overthrow the healed parts within me, and I try to fight them. I do my best to convince myself that Jasper will not leave me over some imperfections. Yet, the seed of doubt only needs one root to spread; even without further watering, the fracture is there.
“Darling, come back to me,” the softness of his voice returns me to the moment. Tears well in the corner of my eyes.
“I understand if you want me to leave,” I whisper, the words coming out choked.
It feels like my heart is held together by the thinnest thread, ready to snap at any moment. To shatter into a thousand unrepairable pieces. A small part of me is prepared for all of it. His abandoning me.
“How can you expect me to leave you, now that I have been with you? What can I say to make you understand that I will stay by your side, no matter what happens? Clara, you havemy blackened heart; it beats for you, in your hands. Even ifyoudecide to step away, I will stay nearby in the shadows. It’s not possible for me to stay away from you.”
The words are desperate, and I feel the invisible noose that I placed around my neck loosen.
