Exotic.It’s a word you’re no longer supposed to use, but it’s the only one that comes to mind. Lush mouth, those eyes the color of a summer storm, a dense charcoal gray. Which is the problem with women like her in a nutshell: even with your whole life in ruins, they’re capable of blinding you to everything else. Capable of making you wax fucking poetic about their eye color as you walk into a funeral. Capable of convincing you to kiss themat a grave.
Bloody hell.
This was not the way I wanted to meet the woman I now co-own a company with. A company that is probably going to wind up filing for bankruptcy, given that the show intended tosave us is no longer happening and Baby Makes Three, our primary competitor, is telling their millions of followers we are “cursed.”
“I just saw you walking back with Rebecca,” says Linda, Rick’s assistant. “Is she okay? I don’t know how she’s holding it together, but I’m scared she’s on the cusp of falling apart.”
I swallow. “From what Jessie said, she’s been on the cusp of falling apart for most of her life.”
It’s true, but there’s a sharp pinch of guilt as I say the words. The girl I just met was so lost and broken she’d have fallen into an open grave if I hadn’t grabbed her arm. It’s hardly the time to be punching down.
Linda shakes her head. “I’ve known her since she was small, and the real Rebecca is nothing like that. And she’s got a heart so big, you’d give her a pass even if shewas.”
That just makes me feel worse.
Was it my fault, what just happened? I could have stopped it faster than I did, certainly. She was out of her mind with grief and for a few regrettable seconds, my brain shut off and I ignored that fact.
“I really like you, Theo,” Rick said during our last conversation, not an hour before he boarded that train, “but I hope to God neither of my girls ever brings you home.”
And I kissed his daughter. At his funeral.
Bloody hell.
Bex
Ten weeks later
I have enough money that Iwill never need to work again.
Many young people would take this opportunity to go get that degree they always wanted or somehow fulfill the youthful promise their parents saw in them, but I’m not one of those young people. Perhaps because there wasn’t much youthful promise.
In the weeks since the funeral, I’ve managed only to quit my job and sleep. I sleep a lot. Some of that is the Xanax. Mostly it’s the misery, however.
Human beings supposedly have a set point for joy…some innate level of happiness that they’ll soon return to no matter what occurs. I still haven’t returned to mine, and I’m not sure if I ever will. I sometimes wake weeping and sometimes wake empty, but I’m definitely not where I was before, which might not have been happy but was a reasonable facsimile ofit.
The phone vibrates on my nightstand. I glance in its direction but sink farther beneath the duvet instead. It used to be my friends, and Brian, but I couldn’t be who any of them wanted. I couldn’t dust myself off the way they’d hoped. I grew tired ofdisappointing them and stopped answering their calls. These days, it’s mostly Duncan Levy, the executor of the will, saying there are forms to be signed or emails to be read. Neither of these will change anything. It can’t bring anyone back. So I usually don’t answer his calls either.
The ringing starts again and I heave a sigh. Levy must think there’s an emergency to be dealt with, but the silver lining of having everyone you love die is that there are no more emergencies—not real ones.
I reach over to silence the cell and see the Henchman’s name rather than Levy’s. God, it’s been ten weeks. I really hope he’s not calling to discuss how I fucked up at the funeralnow.I must somehow find a way to convince myself the fault was shared, but it’ll be a struggle. I wonder iffemale hysteriamight still be considered a valid excuse.
I pick up. “Hello?”
“Hi, Rebecca,” he says with the bone-deep discomfort of someone who needs you to do something but has to pretend to care about you first. “How are things?”
“Just peachy,” I reply. “Never better. Other than, you know, my dead family.”
There’s a moment of stunned silence. I’m sure his handsome, blade-sharp jaw is agape, and I don’t give a shit. I’m tired of people asking how I am. I’m tired of people expecting me to perform my grief or just…bebetter.
And let’s face it: this isn’t a call he’s making out of the goodness of his heart. If it were, he’d have made it a lot sooner.
Perhaps he hasn’t becauseyou threw yourself at him at your family’s funeral, Bex.
“Okay then,” he says slowly. “I’ll just get to the point. Your father’s absence—”
“Death.”
“Right, but I meant his absence from the company. It’s left a pretty significant hole in day-to-day operations on the U.S. side and there are decisions to be made, decisions I can’t legally make on my own when half of Families Travel belongs to you.”
