“He’s been busy…” Zack begins.
“Busy!” I repeat with outrage. “He once promised that he would write to me on toilet paper, even if he didn’t have time to wipe his ass.”
Zack seems surprised at this, but he lowers his eyes. “People don’t always keep their promises, Sophie.”
“Cole does,” I say with more vehemence than I intend. “The only person who has kept every promise he’s ever made to me is my brother. And I don’t understand why he’s stopped now.”
“He said he’s not feeling well,” Zack adds hesitantly.
“Not feeling well?” I ask slowly, testing the words. Cole would have to be deathly sick to stop writing me. Even if he were, he’d surely ask his assistant to send me a message. And it’s been so long… No, the only real reason for the lack of contact must be that he’s given up on me. He’s letting go of his past and pushing me out of his life. Understandably so. I reach up to rub my forehead before sighing and moving toward the bedroom. “I’m going to get ready for work.”
“What about my proposal?” Zack asks.
I had completely forgotten. Shaking my head, I shrug, trying to find the least awkward way to respond. “No. I can’t. I won’t—I don’t want to… I’m sorry.” Okay, that was still pretty awkward. With my cheeks flushed in frustration, I move to exit the room.
“Sophie!” Zack says angrily. “You can’t walk out on a conversation like this. At least give me a fucking reason.”
“I don’t have time,” I call back as I grab my keys and purse. When I turn around, I am startled to find Zack standing very close. He is looming over me, all six feet three inches of him, and blocking my path. I take a step back instinctively, wondering if he is going to hurt me.
Zack grabs my shoulders with his very large hands and looks me squarely in the face. My insides constrict in fear. Recoiling and twisting away violently, I toss my purse aside and lift my keys to defend myself.
“Sophie,” Zack says in surprise, lifting his hands in a gesture of peace. “I’m not… I just want to say a few words before you leave.” He pauses, looking at me in amazement. “You really think I’d hurt you?”
“I don’t know,” I say quietly, but I have already been glancing around the room and searching for every item within reach that could be used as a weapon.
Zack sighs and moves to sit on the bed, looking defeated. “You know, you’re right to refuse. You shouldn’t marry me.”
Taking several deep breaths, I lower my keys. “Then why’d you ask?”
“You’ve been so distant. I didn’t know what to do. I thought I was losing you.”
He isn’t totally wrong. Feeling guilty, I move to sit beside him on the bed, and we share an uncomfortable silence.
“I screwed up, Sophie,” he says softly. “It’s been eating me up inside, and I can’t keep it to myself anymore. I’ve done something really terrible to you.”
“Zack…”
“I lied to you,” he says haltingly. “I have been lying to you.”
When he turns to look at me, I realize that my stomach is doing flip-flops and my heart is beating erratically. “Zachary. Tell me. Fucking tell me what you lied about.”
“Your brother—he has been writing you letters. But I kept them from you.”
“What?”
Zack nods, unable to meet my eyes. “I was jealous. He’s this big shot CEO and I am lucky if I get freelance work now and then to keep us afloat. I read some of the letters he sent you, the ones you kept in the nightstand… I can tell that he’s in love with you. You and I never have conversations like that. I just wanted you to talk to me for a change. I hoped that if I kept the letters it would improve our relationship. I thought that if you kept communicating with him… you wouldn’t want to be with me anymore. You would never want to get married.”
My head begins to throb and I press my palms against my eyes. “Zack. God.” Anger surges inside me, but I manage to just barely keep a cork on it. “Just... dammit. Did you read the recent letters? Is he okay?” I try to appear normal, but on the inside, I am paralyzed by the weight of this news. My brain hurts with the effort it takes to process this, and my emotions are going haywire. I try to breathe slowly and calmly to keep from hyperventilating.
“He… doesn’t seem to be doing well. There are issues with the business,” Zachary explains. “He was saying that he thought someone was trying to sabotage his work, or maybe even hurt him.”
“Who?” I demand. “Did he say who?”
“He doesn’t know. He was asking if you could fly to L.A. to help him out. Do you see why I didn’t want to show you those letters? I had this sick feeling that if you went to California, I would lose you forever.”
I clench my fists until my nails dig into my palms. “Zack, my brother’s in trouble—and you hid this from me?”
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” he says softly.
“You asshole!” I hiss as tears of rage flood my eyes. Adrenaline courses through me, and I rise to my feet, hands twitching with the desire to punch him in the face. It takes great discipline to restrain my anger, and my whole body trembles with the effort. “Cole is the only family I have, and you kept him from me!”
“I know,” he says with pleading eyes. “To be honest with you, Soph, I feel threatened by him. Ever since I lost my leg, I’ve just felt… inadequate. I feel like I’m only half a man.” He places a hand on his thigh to illustrate his point, and to remind me that there is no flesh and bone under his sweatpants.
Of course. Every time Zack does something to upset me, he blames it on the fact that he is an injured vet. This one’s going a little too far. I know that it does affect him, and I’ve seen him completely break down and cry on occasion, but I have been there for him. I have held him and reassured him, and forgiven all of his transgressions due to this overused excuse. I am starting to realize that being an amputee shouldn’t mean he automatically gets to be a dick. He doesn’t get to take away part of me just so he can feel more whole.
“You’re just so close to him, Soph,” Zachary says as though it gives him pain. “And you guys have so much history together! Can you forgive my jealousy? I just didn’t want to lose you.”
I find myself staring at him with my face twisted up in disgust. “You’re a real piece of work, Zack. Cole saved my life. I don’t know if I’d even be here if it weren’t for him. He’s the only person who ever... It doesn’t matter. Do you know how miserable I’ve been? You let me think that my brother had abandoned me, just like my parents did.”
“I know. I’ve watched you getting depressed and I knew I was responsible. I just didn’t know how to stop lying. I wanted you to have no one else, so that you would need me,” Zachary admits. “This isn’t like me, Sophie. I haven’t been the same since I got home. I’m really fucked up in the head… but I do love you.”
Wrapping my arms around my middle, I try to fight back my anger, shock, indignation, and above all, overwhelming relief. He never stopped writing to me. Unshed tears of joy replace my tears of rage, but there is no time to let them fall. Once I break the seal and let a few tears slip, I’ll never be able to withhold the rest. Besides, I won’t give Zachary the satisfaction of seeing me cry.
Lifting my chin proudly, I glare at him while mentally planning my trip to California. I don’t care if I lose my job—Cole is all that matters now. I inwardly calculate how many of my belongings I can quickly grab before rushing out of Zachary’s apartment. It’s been a while since I had to abandon ship in a hurry, but I’m pretty sure I remember how it’s done. I just need to stuff some clothes into a backpack, and…
“I have all the letters,” Zack promises. “I always meant to give them to you, but—”
It’s easy to ignore Zack as I rush around and begin packing. A pair of jeans and a few tops, some underwear, and a bra. Just the essentials. A toothbrush, a hairbrush, a razor. Everything else should already be in my purse.
“Sophie?” Zachary sounds
genuinely guilty now as he clears his throat. “This might be a bad time to bring this up, but I think I saw something about your brother on the news recently.”
“He’s always on the news,” I say in annoyance as I sling my backpack over my shoulder. There. Done. All packed, in record time.
“It was different. I think he was hospitalized.”
I am halfway to the door of our apartment when I swivel around. “You didn’t think it was important to tell me this sooner?”
“I thought you would have seen it. I know you’ve been spending time at Starbucks lately…”
The fact is, I haven’t been to any coffee shops. I’ve been working late, and lying about my whereabouts. I frown deeply. “You know I don’t watch television, Zachary.”
“I didn’t take it seriously at the time. You know those Hollywood types and their drugs and rehab. It’s always drama with celebrities on the West Coast.”
“Cole isn’t a celebrity. He’s an architect.”
“He’s a celebrity architect, Soph. But if you think something is really wrong, I will do whatever I can to help out.”
Considering this for a second, I nod. “Get me your phone,” I demand. Zack scrambles in his pockets for his phone, but realizes he left it in his jacket, and has to limp over to the closet.
It may have been a while since I was last in the same room with my brother, but it’s been even longer since I’ve touched a device that could connect me to the Internet. I was banned from going online for years after I was caught hacking, but even after the ban was lifted, my employers thought it best that I do all my work with a paper and pencil. It was safer.
They wouldn’t even let me have a landline.
For the longest time, I thought I needed this restriction. I thought it was healthy.
I was an addict, after all, and putting a keyboard in my hands gave me way more power than any one girl is supposed to have. It was worse than giving Zack, and all the members of his squadron, fully-loaded, high-powered assault rifles. It took me a while to detox from the thrill of my cybercrimes, but I was reformed and I had repented. Besides, I enjoyed my new job, and they certainly paid me well enough.
When Zack returns from the closet with his cell phone, he extends his hand containing the slender object toward me. I stare at it warily, like an alcoholic looking at a gorgeous, perfectly mixed cocktail. I am about to reach out and take it, but when my fingers are a few inches from the tiny piece of technology, I hesitate and withdraw.
No. There are other ways to get information. I can find out what I need to know while getting away from here. Heading to the door of our apartment, I unlock the bolt and turn the doorknob so I can march out into the hallway.
“Wait!” Zack calls, limping after me in his sweatpants.
I see it then, at our neighbor’s doorstep. A newspaper. Stooping to snatch it off the floor, I quickly rifle through to the business section. I am scanning through the pages rapidly when I see Zack pointing to the newspapers in my left hand. His face is ashen and his eyes are wide.
“Soph…” he breathes.
My forehead creases as I turn back to the front page. The front page of all the sections. For a moment, the hallway spins around me as the headline grows blurry in my eyes. I stare at the letters so hard that I can see the molecules of ink staining the cream-colored newsprint. I can’t seem to focus on the individual words. In a caffeinated frenzy, my eyes dart around the paper like it is an encrypted message, and each symbol and image is a clue to decipher.
I feel suddenly weightless; the sentences on the page are alive and malicious.
The words swirl around in a maelstrom of black ink, and I know that they want to drown me.
VISIONARY CEO MURDERED IN HOSPITAL HE BUILT
Cole Hunter, the prodigy architect, was known for his cutting-edge designs and is responsible for hundreds of landmark buildings all over the world. He was not even thirty years old when he was gunned down late last night…
The paper seems suddenly very heavy, as though all the little black letters are made of lead. My arms sag with the burden. Gunned down? Cole’s name is littered throughout the article, and I can’t look at it any longer. The news slowly sinks into my veins, and saps my energy. Gunned down. I move back to lean against the wall, and clutch the paper against my stomach as my knees grow weak. There is a deafening silence in the hallway and a ringing in my ears.
“Sophie,” Zack is whispering, and his arms are reaching out for me.
I flinch at his touch. When I look at him, anger flashes through me, and I see the monster that stole my brother. But I do not have the energy to sustain my anger, and it dissipates as quickly as it comes. When I look at Zachary again, it feels like I am seeing him through thick, cloudy goggles. The air around me has grown heavy, as though we are underwater. Zack’s hands are warm, and they gently rub my shoulders and pull me back to reality. I am about to push him away when I am struck by a terrible realization.
Zack is now the only person on the planet who cares about me.
He is the only person who gives a damn that I exist.
And I could really use a person right now—any person. For this reason, I let him put his arms around me, and I sink against his chest with the vile newspaper crushed between our bodies. I am alone. All my deepest fears have been brought to the surface. I feel like a child again, stripped of everything that made this world good. Stripped of any reason to wake up in the morning.
And it’s my fault. I could have been there for Cole. I could have helped him.
A broken sob escapes my chest, and then I push Zachary away.
“I need to go,” I tell him as I struggle to straighten my body. Moving almost mechanically, I feel my shaky legs taking me to the elevator.
“Wait!” Zack asks, grabbing my arm. “Where are you going?”
“Airport,” I mumble.
“You can’t drive in this condition. Let me take you.”
“I don’t think I can look at you right now, Zack.”
“You don’t have to—I understand. I know you’ll never forgive me for this, but I want to be there if you need me. I’m coming to California with you, Sophie.” Zack’s face is suddenly filled with determination, and his eyes are set like steel. “Whoever wanted Cole dead might also want to hurt you. I’m not going to let that happen.”
I open my mouth to protest, but the truth is that I don’t want to be alone right now. “Fine,” I whisper, ripping my arm away from Zack’s grasp. I see his cell phone sticking out of his pocket and I reach for it with sudden conviction, clutching it tightly in the palm of my hand. I can almost feel the wireless signals piercing through my skin.
It doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t have to try so hard to be good.
None of this would have happened if I hadn’t taken this job—if I had allowed myself to use the goddamned Internet. None of this would have happened if I had stayed close to Cole. Why was I so afraid? I could have prevented this. I know I could have prevented this.
“Get dressed,” I tell Zack bitterly. “I will need to see every single one of those letters you hid from me. And for god’s sake...” My voice is so cold that the words taste like shards of ice against my tongue. “Get me a fucking computer.”
Chapter Two
Jolting up to a seated position in bed, all my muscles are tensed to their limit. Was I dreaming, or do I really smell smoke? The air is hot. Sweat drips down my bare chest as I pant and survey my surroundings in panic. A guy my age should not be having nightmares like this. I can feel the fire entering my nostrils and making all the tiny hairs singe and curl.
But there is no fire.
My eyes are burning as I search for flames rising from the floorboards, expecting to hear them crack and splinter. I hold my breath as I listen for the sounds of the house collapsing beneath me, but the only noise is the thunderous pounding in my chest. I grasp my ribcage with both hands in an attempt to keep my heart from beating hard enough to tear my skeleton in ha
lf.
When I glance at the clock, I am annoyed to see that I have only been asleep for ten minutes.
“Ugh,” I grunt at myself in disgust. These damn nightmares just won’t let me be. Running both of my hands through my messy brown hair, I feel a thin film of sweat coating my scalp.
Since the night my parents died, I’ve had trouble sleeping.
Bottles of insomnia, anti-anxiety, depression, and ADHD medications lie on my bedside table, but I ignore the drugs. No one seems to understand that I want to be awake. I need to be aware of my surroundings at all times. Bad things happen, and I don’t want to be numb when they do. Alertness keeps you alive.
Maybe if I had been more cognizant six years ago, instead of sleeping blissfully under the stars in our backyard, my parents would still be here. I could have warned them, or woken them up at the first sign of danger. But I had my priorities all mixed up. Once I got permission to camp outside, building an awesome castle out of tree branches was all that mattered to me. I didn’t have a single care in the world.
When I was woken up by the sound of screaming sirens, I tried to rush into the house to help out, but it was too late. My whole world was burning, breaking, and literally crashing down around me; it was impossible to get upstairs where my parents were sleeping. A firefighter was able to pull me out in time, or I would have died there, too. I vowed, that day, to never sleep again. Not for real. Not until I’m dead.
A few seconds pass, and the stupid muscle in my chest finally stops thrashing about like a fish out of water. I am able to breathe and get out of bed, reaching for the baseball bat I keep close at hand. Moving to the door, I place my hand against the wooden panel, expecting to feel heat radiating through the thin material. This has become a routine for me; but like the thousands of other times I have done this, the wood is cool to the touch. Next, I turn the knob and step into the corridor, breathing deeply to try to detect any hint of smoke.
The unmistakable odor of tobacco tickles my nostrils, and I screw up my face in distaste. Professor Brown must have just walked by. That man must go through at least two packs a day, and his clothes reek with the stench of chemicals. He leaves a lingering trail behind him everywhere he goes, reminiscent of rotting flesh and decaying teeth. Sadly, it’s not the worst way I’ve ever seen a foster parent waste the money he’s receiving to help the children in his care.
The Sick Wife Page 20
