by Megan Hart
Awfulness washed over her like a wave of nausea. He didn’t want to hear that she was sorry, even though she was. Tovah couldn’t blame him.
“I’ll let myself out,” he told her. “Take care of your leg.”
As soon as he’d gone, Max padded into the room and laid his head on the couch next to her. Tovah buried her face in the thick, soft fur, not sure if she was crying or only imagining her tears until the dog lapped at her cheeks.
“What just happened?” she asked the dog, and was glad he had no answer.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The last thing Tovah wanted to do was walk into the meeting on crutches. Walk. As though what she was doing could be called walking. She lurched into the meeting already flustered by the difficulty of navigating the elevator and doors while carrying her briefcase and maneuvering her crutches. The only thing worse would have been showing up in a wheelchair.
She bore the pitying look on Kevin’s face when she came through the door by biting the inside of her cheek hard enough to taste blood. He got to his feet when she pushed the door open, but it was her lawyer Reginald Perry who held the door for her and helped her get to her seat. The pressure of Kevin’s fingertips against the glass tabletop left expanding circles of moisture.
“Tov.” One small word, made so important by the waver in his voice.
It was the first time they’d been in the same room since the day they’d signed the mediation papers. She’d seen him once after that, looking at her through the glass of an observation room at the Sisters of Mercy Hospital. He’d turned away from her then. She turned away from him now.
Tovah thanked Mr. Perry and arranged herself as best she could in the too-cushioned chair. She’d chosen a midlength skirt today, long enough to cover the bandages but short enough not to tangle in the crutches and to provide ease in caring for her stump during the day. It was serviceable but not attractive, and at the sight of Jennifer Petrucci’s smart navy pinstriped suit, dowdiness ambushed Tovah into wishing she’d worn something a little less practical.
Kevin’s lawyer, Bill Long, cleared his throat, perhaps to catch Kevin’s attention. It worked, because Kevin sat abruptly, as if someone had cut the back of his knees. The marks his fingers had made on the tabletop slowly dissipated. Tovah watched for a moment but had to look away at the evidence of Kevin’s anxiety.
“Should we get right to it?” Mr. Perry said.
Mr. Perry didn’t waste time with cheery words or false enthusiasm. He laid out the insurance company’s final settlement in clear, crisp tones, then added the specifics about the divorce agreement. He pushed a thick folder toward the center of the table. It bulged with receipts for service from Tovah’s doctors, her prosthetist and the supply companies she used. She’d kept careful documentation for years, had been the one to live through the endless appointments and open the boxes full of skin creams and cotton socks, and even to her the file looked obscenely stuffed.
“This is the financial responsibility my client has managed for the past three years.” Perry pushed another, slimmer file next to the first. “These are copies of the insurance payouts.”
A chortle—an actual chortle—burst from between the other lawyer’s lips. “Yes, but Perry, you don’t need a thick stack of papers when the checks have six zeroes on them.”
Mr. Perry pursed his lips and looked at Tovah. “My client has looked over the proposal carefully, Mr. Long, but I’m going to be upfront about this. I’ve counseled her to deny any further requests for support or a portion of the settlement.”
“Still got that beach house in the Keys, huh, Perry?”
Mr. Perry looked pained. “We’re here today to discuss these arrangements, Mr. Long. Not my vacation house.”
“Right, right.” Long nodded. Unlike the actual chortle, he didn’t really rub his hands together in glee, but it didn’t take much imagination to picture him doing it.
Tovah had never met Kevin’s lawyer before. The divorce mediator had been nice and fair. This lawyer seemed almost a parody, and she turned to look at the man to whom she’d been married. Kevin wasn’t looking at her. He stared at his hands, clasped tight on top of the table. His shirtsleeves had pulled up, showing wrists once familiar to her but now not.
Kevin’s lawyer was still talking, making a joke out of the insurance companies and their bad habit of holding on to settlements or something, Tovah wasn’t paying attention. She was too busy looking at Kevin’s watch.
For as long as she’d known him, he’d worn the thick metal band of a watch that had belonged to his grandfather. Even in college he’d preferred that old-fashioned timepiece to the nylon and plastic sports styles his friends had worn. He’d worn it every day and placed it with care into its original box every night.
It had been replaced with a similar but brand-new watch. There could be no mistake. The metal was shiny, the links tight, the watch face decorated with large, clear numbers instead of the slightly blurred roman numerals. She was too far away to read the maker, but the watch looked expensive.
“Nice watch,” she said aloud.
The conversation between her lawyer and Kevin’s stopped. Kevin looked up. The way he pulled his sleeve down over the watch told Tovah more than anything else. She felt the wash of emotions cross her face: anger, grief, loathing, disgust, and she saw that Kevin saw them, too.
Tovah looked at Kevin’s lawyer. “Mr. Long, Kevin signed a mediation agreement in which he agreed to relinquish any insurance settlement to me in return for not taking financial responsibility for the continuing costs of my injury.”
Long’s slick, smarmy grin made Tovah want to spit. “Ms. Connelly…”
“That was a binding agreement, Mr. Long.” She looked at Kevin. “He can’t come back with his hand out now just because the dollar signs started flashing.”
“Tovah.” Kevin gave a small shake of his head, seeking to stifle her.
“Since the insurance premiums were paid for through my client’s wages and via his employer—” began Long, but Tovah cut him off.
“He walked away. He was driving the car, and he walked away.” She bit out the words one at a time, making each count. “Literally. Kevin walked away from the accident and from our marriage. As far as I’m concerned, he doesn’t deserve a penny of this money.”
“I don’t think you can just—” started Long, but Tovah cut him off again.
Her gaze, locked on Kevin, didn’t waver, and though Jennifer tugged at his arm he gave Tovah the respect of looking at her instead of at his fiancée. “You walked away.”
“I know.” Kevin’s voice scraped the floor, but he didn’t look away from her.
“Kevin,” whispered Jennifer with a frantic look back and forth between him and Mr. Long. “You don’t have to talk to her!”
The room filled abruptly with silence.
It took Kevin seven breaths, in and out, to speak. “Actually, Jen, I think I do.”
There was a kerfuffle then, with the lawyers posturing and Jennifer flailing, but in the end it was just the two of them. Tovah and Kevin, facing off over a glass-topped table. Kevin leaned back in his chair, one long leg crossed over the other. He toyed with the end of his tie, one she’d never seen.
Once she’d known every item in his closet, had washed and folded and taken to the dry cleaner everything he’d ever worn. His clothes had been as familiar to her as his body had been, each line and bump. Each scar. All the flaws, and all the perfections, too. Though they sat close enough for her to count the stripes on his tie, they were very far apart.
She shifted in her chair, pulling the skirt smoother under her thighs so the bunched material wouldn’t rub. The glass of the table hid nothing, and though she was careful not to flash him with anything, she made no effort to conceal the wrapped end of her limb. Kevin had, after all, seen her in the hospital. Seen her at physical therapy. Seen her in the car, as a matter of fact, her bones sticking through her shredded skin. He’d seen her in the first days after the
accident, when what remained of her leg had swelled and oozed. He’d been there the day they took off the bandages and began fitting her for the first prosthetic.
He’d been there for all of that, had once professed to love her, and still he flinched at the sight of her residual limb beneath the skirt. And still she didn’t manage to hate him for it.
“I think it might be easier if it’s just you and me,” Kevin said.
The table rocked a bit as she scooted her chair closer. “Maybe.”
Such small words, common talk. Like strangers, though they weren’t.
His eyes flicked again beneath the table, but he looked away. Ashamed, she thought. Discomfited. Repulsed. She didn’t move.
“Look, it’s not like I’m asking for something that—”
“You don’t deserve?” she cut in.
He met her gaze. “We were both in that accident.”
She’d seen his scars. He’d been hurt, too. “You agreed to sign the settlement over to me.”
“Yeah.” He played with his tie again, rubbing it between his fingers. She might not recognize the tie, but she knew that habit. “Well, things have changed.”
“Not for me.”
He frowned. “Tov. C’mon. Be fair.”
She blinked. “Fair?”
“I’m sorry, Tovah.”
“Then don’t do this. Do not fight me for this money, Kevin. I don’t care what Jennifer wants.”
“It’s not her,” he said so stoutly she knew he was lying.
“Don’t fight me for it. I didn’t fight you for things I could have.”
That was true, though it made her feel petty to point it out. Kevin’s frown creased his mouth and made him look older. For the first time, she noticed a glint of silver in the black hair at his temples.
She hated that it took so much effort and arranging to stand, but she did it, balancing on her sound leg and using the table for support. “Sign the papers like you said you would, and we’ll be done with each other for good.”
“Is that what you think I want?” He stood, too, buttoning his jacket. He shoved his hands into his pockets, a little boy pouting.
“It’s what I want!” she cried, too loud. “I want to be done with you, once and for all, so I can just get on with my life!”
They stared at each other. Kevin looked away first. Sickness swirled in Tovah’s gut.
“I need that money,” he said after a moment.
“So do I, Kevin. More than you. I need it to take care of myself, okay?” The instant she said it, she regretted it.
He looked at her, eyes gleaming a little. “You’re doing okay, aren’t you? You’re not—”
“I’m not crazy,” Tovah told him harshly. “If that’s what you’re getting at.”
“I never said you were crazy.”
He’d come to see her just that once at the Sisters of Mercy. Once through glass, not even close enough to speak to her. She’d never forget the way he’d stared and turned away.
“It’s…a lot of money, Tov. That’s all.”
She was glad to hear shame in his voice, though it was a short-lived happiness. “Yes. I know. I have a lot of bills.”
“You always did like to shop.” Kevin’s lame attempt at humor would have slapped her more had she not been so unsurprised by it. “I’m sorry, that was—”
“Insensitive? Boorish?”
“Stupid,” he told her.
She shrugged. “That, too.”
“Dammit, Tov! Why are you being so vindictive! I said I was sorry!”
He’d never been good at taking blame. Not for things as simple as leaving the kitchen light on or forgetting to feed Max, and certainly not for greater transgressions. He thought sorry should always be enough.
“And that should make it all better?” Tovah’s sound leg ached a bit, and she reached for the crutches to settle them under her arms and use her hands to take some of the weight off. The urge to pace was a physical need, incapable of fulfillment.
“Yes! I mean, no.” Kevin scraped a hand through his thick dark hair. “It just means I’m sorry. That’s all.”
“Then don’t fight me for this money,” she repeated. “Do not make this uglier than it already is, Kevin. I mean it.”
“Or what?”
She’d pushed him a little too hard, she guessed. Played too much upon his sense of decency by insinuating he wasn’t decent. Kevin reacted as he’d always done, with bluster and self-righteousness. Once it would have made her feel guilty enough to take back what she’d said, or to soothe him. Today it only exhausted her.
“Or nothing. Or you’ll have to live with the fact that you’re a prick, that’s all.”
A storm brewed in Kevin’s gaze, followed quickly by a scowl. “Nice. Very nice.”
Tovah sighed, bruised but not yet beaten. “You’ll have to sue me for it. I’m not signing it over to you. Period. End of story. Goodbye, Kevin.”
“You said you’d negotiate this with me!”
“Negotiation is over.” She turned to go.
“If I have to sue you, I will!”
“Goodbye, Kevin,” she said gently, because she had once loved him so much it was like fire.
He didn’t call after her. She didn’t look back.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Tovah burst through the veil between sleep and dreams. She needed the Ephemeros. Needed her body, the ability to shape something the way she wanted it.
If this was addiction, she didn’t care.
“Fuck it,” she said aloud to the gray. “I need to dream this for a reason, right? I need to be here for a reason. What’s my reason, then, huh? What’s my fucking reason?”
The mountain again. An obstacle to climb. A test to win.
She was here, and shaping this, on purpose or because she needed to, whatever that meant. She was going to climb this mountain. All the way to the top.
Tovah took a moment to center herself. To focus. This mountain was made for her, each crevice a potential hand or foothold, each outcropping another obstacle to overcome. And she would make it this time, all the way to the top, glass and razors or not.
She looked up. The mountain would have rivaled Mount Everest. Its top disappeared into swirling clouds of gray. No telling what awaited her at the top. But she’d never know unless she tried.
Hand over hand, her feet digging into the mountain, Tovah climbed. Higher and higher, each inch a triumph and exhilaration. Yes, she knew this wasn’t real, that a fall from here didn’t mean injury or death, but that didn’t make the climb any easier. Her muscles stung and pulled like they would have in the waking world, because she demanded that of herself.
She was close to the top when the rocks began to change.
“No.”
Her hand came down on glass. Sharp. It cut her palm, but unlike the last time, Tovah didn’t let go. She reached with the other hand and grabbed. Her hold slipped as the glass sliced open her palm. Blood ran down her arms, down her sides, dripped off her skin to fall to the earth below.
And she still didn’t let go.
Her right foot nudged the mountainside. A needle of glass pierced her foot. She didn’t scream, though the pain was sudden and intense, worse than in the waking world where shock would’ve shielded her for a while. She kept going.
She moved her left foot, but her mind betrayed her, refused to put it down. The memory of pain overpowered her will. She looked up again. She was one step from the top. One step and she’d reach her goal.
One step.
And still she couldn’t move, too afraid of the pain she knew would come if she put her foot on the glass.
One step, she thought. Just one.
And then, she took it.
Her left foot dislodged from its place in the crevice. Her knee bent. Her foot moved and found its place on the razor-blade-littered mountainside. Razors and glass pierced it, but Tovah felt no pain, because rubber and vinyl couldn’t feel.
And then she was on t
op of the mountain, the sweet grass tickling her face as she clung to the flat meadow. Daisies and violets sprouted beneath her fists as she laughed and cried, cried and laughed without distinction.
“I did it,” she said. “Fuck you. I did it. I made it.”
She looked up at the sound of slow, steady clapping.
“Good job, sweetheart.”
“You.” Tovah got to her feet easily enough, with a shift and surge of her will.
Edward spread his hands and cocked his head. “Me.”
Tovah’s smile felt forced. “You found me again.”
“Of course I did.” He reached a hand to pull her closer, but she resisted. “What’s wrong?”
It had taken her some time to figure it out, but now it all seemed very clear. “I think…Edward…that I don’t need this.”
“Of course you do.” His confident smile left no room for doubt. “If you didn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”
Tovah shook her head. The memories of Ben’s kiss, and Martin’s, swelled in her mind. “No. Please don’t.”
Edward let go of her hand. “What is it?”
If there had been a good reason to push him away, give herself distance, she’d have used it. Instead, she could only be honest. “There’s someone else.”
Edward looked stunned for one brief moment. Then he laughed. He drew her closer, trying to kiss her. “Sweetheart. Out there? How can that matter here?”
Tovah turned her face from his mouth. “No, Edward. Not just out there.”
He blinked and let her go so fast she stumbled back. “Not just? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Tovah sighed and began to pace, one hand on her hip. “I’ve met someone new, but there’s someone I’ve known for a while—”
“Wait. Stop.”
She stopped and looked at him. “I’m sorry, Edward.”
Edward shook his head. For once his features didn’t dance on his face, or shift and blur from one to another. He’d frozen himself to stillness. He looked up at her with one brilliant blue eye and the other a deep, fathomless black.
“But I gave you what you needed, Tovah. Didn’t I?”
