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Tears soak sheets that still smell of Cohen, as I empty everything I have left.

I thought Piers was the one, turns out I was wrong. He was a dream. An ideal. He was safe.

And all it took for me to figure it out, was for the right one to come along.

I thought I would never find someone, but Cohen found me.

He may be basically a stranger, but my body and soul recognize him.

He’s my never say never. But he left.

#####

Cohen

As soon as the plane lands, I switch on my mobile. No missed calls.

There are however, three texts, all asking the same thing.

Where are you?

Then nothing. Silence. Please let her be okay.

I hated leaving Scarlett there alone, sleeping peacefully curled up in white sheets, looking like an angel. Every mile further away I flew from her put a wedge of doubt in my heart that matched the distance.

Was she with me because she truly wanted to be? Or was I still just chasing away ghosts? I normally wouldn’t mind being used for my body, wouldn’t be the first time.

But this is different, she’s gotten to me, mind, body and heart. And it’s my heart I’m most worried about. It just started beating again.

Every mile closer I got to her, I felt my resolve slipping. I was ready to call the whole thing off and stay there, wrapped up on soft white cotton. Sheets that smelled of sex and cotton candy.

Then I got the call.

“Come home.” The quiet sobs caused me to panic, so I jumped out of Scarlett’s bed and on the first plane home. It wasn’t her usual demands, or empty threats. It was her rock bottom voice. A voice I had been hearing since I was old enough to understand what rock bottom really meant.

So now I sit in a sterile room, the smell of antiseptic heavy in the air and wait for them to bring her back to the room.

After what feels like forever, an orderly wheels her in and I’m stricken with guilt seeing her once tan skin has an ashen grey, and her once lovely brown hair is matted to her head. But it’s the eyes, eyes shaped like my own, but the color of amber that hold me captive.

Eyes that accuse. You left me.

Eyes that judge. You failed.

Eyes that demand. You promised.

“Cohen.” Her voice cracks.

“Yes, Mum. I’m here. I’m back.” I stand, and my black loafers squeak as I walk to where they lift her into a bed. Just for observation, only a couple of days, the doctor advised when I first arrived. She must have sent all her texts before she passed out.

“Did you find him?” She asks, when we are alone, obviously still out of it from whatever they gave her to counteract the drugs she consumed. She knows I found James, knows he’s sick…a different kind of sick than she is. She must not remember, I’ve been in contact with her the whole time I’ve been gone.

“Why did you do it Mum?” I try to take her hand, but she rolls over and turns her back to me.

“You left me.” She cries. “Just like him.”

“You sent me!” My voice is full of anger. She sent me to find him. For revenge.

Instead I found her. And now… I don’t care about getting even. I just want come clean to Scarlett and make all this okay, to be the man she needs. The man she deserves. But now I’m stuck here, in a room with a grown woman who was too drunk to realize she’d downed a bottle of her anti-depressants. So pissed out of her ever loving mind, she didn’t realize that she was calling for help, drawing me away from where she sent me.

From the bed of the woman I was dangerously close to falling in love with. Back here to drag me down with her, to drown in the past. Yet here I am, and here I’ll stay, to see her home and get her the help she needs.

“You weren’t coming back. That woman! That woman is stealing you, you’re leaving me for her. I hear it in your voice when you talk about her.” Her words become hard to decipher as she mumbles incoherently about moving on and I think she’s talking about me and Scarlett until I hear her talking about her long red hair. She thinks I left her, like him.

“Mum. I’m here. Shhhh.” I try to console her but she keeps her back to me.

When her breathing settles and I’m certain she’s asleep, I sit back down in the uncomfortable plastic chair, shifting around to get comfortable, wearing my tux from the night before. Taking out my mobile to text Scarlett, I see that my battery is dead. In my haste, I didn’t go by my hotel to grab anything, not even a change of clothes or my charger, when I left London. I’ll go buy one, but I can’t leave just yet.

My head falls back on a sigh. I’m exhausted from the lack of sleep from last night and flying across the country this morning. Memories of Scarlett’s skin under my hands, her quiet moans have me closing my eyes. Maybe I’ll just sit here and rest my eyes for a second.

My body is exhausted, but my mind is racing. She’s going to wake up and think I left without so much as a word.

My heart is torn between the woman who gave me life and the woman I want to make my life.