Hope bleeds from my chest as I finally realize who I’m dealing with—the rich, the powerful, the elite of this city. I have no weapons left to fight this battle. Maybe he’s right, and I did foolishly fall for his daughter. Maybe I’m just another guy who fell for Sosie, though that connection still feels damn real to me. With nothing to say that will change the trajectory of this conversation, I reason through why it’s wise to turn the phone over to him. But my heart just can’t seem to get on board with that decision.
“What do you want?” he asks. “Money?” He digs into the interior pocket of his jacket and pulls out his wallet. Too stunned by the insult, I scoff. “I’ll give you a reward for returning it.”
I stare at the hundred-dollar bill he’s holding through the slats and then drag my gaze back to his. Disappointment, evenshame, and a lot of frustration still flurries in my veins, but I keep my voice calm. “I don’t want your money. I want?—”
“I don’t care what you want, you little bastard!” he shouts. “You think I’d let my daughter date someone like you? You are sorely mistaken, so give me the damn phone. Now.”
I grab the gate with my full strength, pulling myself mere inches from his face. “Don’t you ever fucking demean me,” I warn through gritted teeth. “I’ve worked too fucking hard to get where I am.”
“You haven’t paid for a thing,” he says as if he has me all figured out. He doesn’t know jack shit about me. I’m still paying for the turbulent choices of my parents.
Tugging it like I can loosen the hinges, toss it aside, and rush the door to find Sosie crowd my thoughts. “You think you’re better than me. You’re not. This fortress gives you a false sense of security. These bars might keep me and my kind out, but your daughter will find her way back to me despite what you want.”
His head jerks on his neck before he growls, “Watch yourself, son.”
“Don’t threaten me.” I tighten my grip to keep myself from barging my way through this gate. “Sosie?—”
“Sosie,” he yells before taking a breath. The sides of his mouth pull upward as he nods like the final nail was hammered into my coffin. He did win this round. He fucking got what he wanted—a reaction to use as ammunition against me. “You overestimate my daughter. Sosie will do as she’s told like she’s doing right now by staying in her room.”
My gaze flicks to the window again, and I swear I catch a flash of her before the curtain falls back in place. I stop, struggling to keep my heart from dropping to the pit of my stomach. I look back at him, releasing my fists from around the iron as defeat sinks in.
My gut told me she was near. I could feel her presence stretching the lengths between us. I can’t look at him. Seeing the victory in his eyes will reveal a side of myself I don’t want to let loose. I drop my head as truth conquers the last shred of hope I held for us and hand him the phone.
“I suggest you move on with your life,” he says, his voice too calm, too the opposite of the tornado I’m feeling inside. “Find someone else to entertain you because it’s not going to be a Stansbury.” He turns, giving me a cold shoulder as he walks away, but when he reaches the first step, he glances back. “Good night, Mr. Matthews.” Such a simple pleasantry after dealing the final blow to protect what he claims is his.
She’s not.
She was mine last night, and I have no doubt she will be again.
My heart thumps against my rib cage as panic rises. “No.” No good night. No goodbye. Hours aren’t enough. I need days, months, and years. I need to see her. There’s no good without a Spark in it.
If she wants me gone, she needs to tell me herself. I need her to look me in the eyes and tell me last night meant nothing. She won’t be able to, just like I can’t.
No love is lost when I shout to his back. “That’s it?” With my hands thrown out from my sides. “Fucking coward.” The door slams shut behind him. I grumble, “Had to threaten me to get me out of her life. Asshole.”
Stepping back feels like stumbling into an abyss. I don’t know when I fell for this girl, but I’m drowning in the deep end. I walk down the block, my feet as numb as that fucking organ in my chest where only echoes of heartbeats are heard. Grabbing hold of the fence in front of her window, I yell, “Sosie?”
It’s a bad movie gesture, a last desperate attempt at making a difference. For her? For me? No, for us. I know it. Does she?
When the curtains don’t move, I silently wish to see her sneaking a peek again, but she doesn’t. There’s only a shadow that drifts from one side to the other. It makes me sick to give up, but she’s there and not coming to save me.
“Hey?” Anger takes over as it rages in that hollow cavern of mine, needing her to acknowledge I exist. I exist in her world as much as mine. “It’s me. Sosie? Come on. We’re not just one night. You know that.” Can she hear me? The anger starts to resolve as I try to appeal to what we have, what we share—that connection that keeps me standing here in the freezing cold. “We’re bigger than this, babe. We’re meant for more.” Throwing my hands on the top of my head, I step back but keep my eyes locked on that upstairs window. “Don’t let the world decide who you are. Not your dad. Not anyone. Sosie, please.”
I stand in one place, hoping for anything she’ll give me. “Hey, Spark?” I laugh without an ounce of humor. “One sign. That’s all I need, and I’ll keep fighting for you. I’ll fight for another night and do it all over again tomorrow.” The shadow disappears, and hope fills my chest at the same time as the cold of our unfinished business seeps in. Lowering my head, I close my eyes and whisper, “One sign. Please.” I look up, letting my shoulders fall and my guard down, open for what comes next. I’m not the praying type, but I pray her heart hears mine. “That’s all I’m asking for. One more chance.”
Four months later . . .
“Keats Matthews. Bachelor of Science with a focus in finance.”
I walk across the stage, shaking hands with the dean of the department. I also shake Professor Johns’s hand since he’d suffered through all my texts over the past year. He’s stayed firmly in my corner since day one. I hope I’ve made him proud.He grins, and when we shake hands, he pats my arm. “Well-earned, Keats.”
“Thanks.” I take my diploma to the other side of the stage and stop for the university photographer. This is the only photo I’ll have from my graduation since no one showed up to take one. Who else is there anyway? My mom? I never expected her to show even though I had hand-delivered an invitation.
When I return to walk down the long aisle to my seat, I look up at the theater filled with family and friends of the graduates. I glance to the right, and my eyes lock with the one person who doesn’t feel real all these months later. It was only one night, and I’ll never forget it. Neither will my heart because she took it with her.
I stop dead in my tracks but mistakenly blink, and the dream is over.
CHAPTER 12
