“Why can’t you understand that we’re over? We can’t be…anything anymore. Not lovers. Not friends. Not partners. Nothing. There’s too much pain. Too much darkness for anything good to survive.”
“No,” he moaned. “Maggie, I can’t live without you.”
She sobbed, her gaze lifting to the ceiling. “Can’t you see that I can’t live without you either? I literally tried to take my own life, but we have no other fucking choice but to do just that.”
He burst into tears, unable to bear the pain in her voice.
“Just please give me back my movie.”
He scrambled to his feet. “I can’t do that. I won’t do that. What you said means you still love me.” His heart careened at the thought. At the hope. “You just need time, Maggie. Just need time, amore.”
She uttered a sound in the back of her throat that might have been a snort. “So you’re just gonna be a prick till the end?”
He bent, looking her in the eye. “If not giving up on us makes me a prick, so be it. I won’t let you go, Maggie. As long as I’m alive, I won’t dare let you go.” He wiped his face with his hand. “And now is not the time to talk about work or do anything except getting you better.” He turned to the door.
“I’m tied to the movie as its director. You made sure of that. Which means I have casting approval,” she reminded him.
He spun around, reading her face. Even in her weakest hour, the stubbornness in her expression was evident. One look in her eyes was enough for him to know Maggie Dawson would not let him be the hero of her story.
Scene84
Maggie
I looked through the one-way mirror glass windows at the Happy Birthday banners my fans held outside the hospital doors. “There’re so many of them.”
“People love you, Maggie,” Dad said. “It’s a gift no money can buy and no power can force.”
“I don’t deserve it.” All my life, against all logic, I’d always thought if my own mother couldn’t love me, I wasn’t worthy of any other love.
“Yes, you do, baby. You deserve all the love the world has to offer.”
I continued walking down the hallway as Dad held my arm. “Where’s Andrea now?”
He sulked. “She left.”
I stilled for a moment, measuring his expression. “Left the house? The country?”
His silence and the last conversation I had with Mike alarmed me. “Mike talked about her in past tense, Dad. Is she…” A lump rose in my throat.
“I’m sorry.” His head lowered. “She… Loretta found her in the bathroom after she left here. Andrea hanged herself.”
Tears found my eyes against my will as a familiar, unbearable pain cracked into my chest. “Did she leave a note?”
He shook his head.
Not even an apology or a simple ‘I love you’. I had no control over the tears that kept streaming down my face. Then my breaths came out in dry heaves.
“Maggie, Maggie! Don’t panic,” Dad said, his voice distant, as if coming from under water, his hands holding both my arms. Then he helped me to a chair. “Just breathe.”
I closed my eyes, trying to steady my agonizing breaths. A panic attack with a bad lung was excruciating. My brain scrambled to process the situation. Even in my darkest moment, Andrea managed to make it about herself. Even in death, Andrea found a way to make it my fault. She’d ruined my life in every way, and now she wouldn’t even let me have any sorts of closure. She’d robbed me of any chance at a confrontation or having peace.
“Maggie, breathe.” Dad’s voice turned louder.
I stared at him and took a few breaths in and out. As the pain and the shaking became under control, I finally managed to speak. “She must have felt like she’d lost all power.”
“You were coding in front of her. She couldn’t handle the guilt, I guess,” Dad said.
“Guilt? What guilt? This was never about me. Everything was always about her. She wanted us to feel guilty and sorry for her, not the other way around,” I whimpered. “Did you kick her out or something?”
