She tilted her head to one side, her eyebrows raised. “Of course,” she said. “No one else will.”
“Are you all right?” he asked scrutinizing her, his eyes narrowed. “There’s something different about you.”
She forced a smile, “I’m fine,” she said. “I’m good.”
Serenity threw the few items from her desk in the box and left.
A silver-framed photograph of her and Jackson on vacation sat in the top of the box. Taken in the early days, the photograph had captured her young and glowing, her nose pink from the sun. The vacation to Florida had been the first she’d ever taken and she remembered being happy for the first time in years.
The girl in the photo didn’t exist anymore; she had been broken and couldn’t be fixed.
Serenity took one last look at the picture and then let it fall from her fingers into a trash can on the side of the street. Without a second thought, she tipped the rest of her things in and stuffed the cardboard box on top of them for good measure.
She wiped her hands on the seat of her jeans and a strange wave of pride washed over her. Peter was right. Something was different about her.
With a lighter step, Serenity trekked back across town. The whole time she searched for Sebastian, hoping to see him. His face reflected in every tall man with dark hair. Her stomach leapt in expectation at every turn, but she was always disappointed.
By the time she reached the hospital, her positivity had seeped away. She was tired and fed up. Whether from the disappointment of not seeing Sebastian again, or the prospect of taking Jackson home, she didn’t know, or care.
Why hadn’t she seen Sebastian again? Was he angry with her for not leaving Jackson? Her emotions churned. If she really loved this man, why hadn’t she done exactly that?
Love?
Could she love him; a man she barely knew? But what did she need to know? What made you fall in love with someone? Just because you knew their favorite food was steak or they had seen ‘The Great Escape’ fourteen times, didn’t make you love them. How they made you feel must be more important. She loved each and every one of her unborn babies. They never had the chance to have a favorite food, or color, or song, but she didn’t love them any less.
Serenity didn’t understand her reasons for staying with Jackson; she should have done exactly what Sebastian said and packed her bags. Instead, she held onto the guilt that she deserved everything she got—or maybe the guilt held onto her?
Arriving at the hospital, she headed straight up to Jackson’s ward. She was late and the old nervous butterflies fluttered in her stomach, certain he would punish her for her tardiness.
From the doorway of the ward, she could see Jackson lying in bed, his eyes closed. A white bandage was taped down to the back of his head and a silver bedpan rested on top of the covers, held loosely between his fingers.
Her heart gave an evil little leap for joy. Her prayers about him taking a turn for the worse must have come true. She chewed her lip as she approached. He sensed her arrival and opened his eyes.
“Where have you been?” he said in the ‘I’m so ill and weak’ voice he saved for when he wanted sympathy.
The sound made her want to scream, but she forced a smile. “Sorry. I needed to go into work and get a couple of things done. But I’m free now to take care of you.”
Jackson grunted and flailed his hand around on the bedside table, trying to find his glasses. Eventually his fingertips touched the frames and he hooked the glasses up and slid them onto his face.
“That old bastard of a boss didn’t give you a hard time, did he?” he grunted. “I don’t want to go and have words with him about how he’s treating my wife.”
She gave a small, unnatural laugh. “Don’t be silly.”
“Good.” With exaggerated effort, he pushed himself to sitting and glanced at her empty hands. “Haven’t you brought me anything? Where are my magazines? Where the fuck are my grapes?”
Embarrassed at his language, Serenity glanced around, making sure no one else heard.
“I didn’t think to bring anything. I thought you would be coming home today.”
Jackson grunted again and lowered himself back down onto his pillows. “I started getting sick during the night and then my vision went blurry. The doctors suggested I stay in another night.”
“Oh, I see.” She tried not to let her joy at the thought of another night without him, and a possible night with Sebastian, show. “Shall I go down to the shop? Get you what you wanted?”
“What’s the matter? It’s like you can’t get away quick enough,” he complained, but then went on to give her a list.
She made her way down to the shop, bought him magazines, a couple of packets of chips and a coke. For a man who’d been throwing up, he was certainly craving some junk food. She wondered how much of his nausea and blurred vision was because of a concussion or if his hangover had kicked in.
Reluctantly, she went back up to the ward.
“Read it to me,” Jackson said, pawing at the magazine.
She resisted the impulse to roll it up and hit him.
The rest of the afternoon was spent reading to her husband and running around for him. Serenity found herself repeatedly glancing at the clock, hoping Jackson wouldn’t notice.
Just before five, a nurse came around to advise visiting hours were over and Serenity should let Jackson get some rest. Serenity was only too eager to have an excuse to leave.
She leaned down to kiss Jackson on the cheek but, before she had the chance, he reached out and grabbed her face between his thumb and forefinger. Squeezing her cheeks painfully, Jackson forced her mouth against his.
Serenity held her breath while he kissed her, not wanting to smell the old alcohol and potato chips on his breath. Finally, he let her go.
“Just wanted to make sure you won’t forget me,” he said, smacking her on the rear as she made her exit.
“I could never forget you,” she said, her voice cold as she walked away.
Chapter Seven
Serenity walked out of the hospital and found Sebastian sitting on a low wall in the ambulance bay.
He sat with his arms resting on his knees, his foot bothering an old cigarette butt on the tarmac. A smile broke out on her face. He wasn’t yet aware of her presence and she drank in the sight of him. He was dressed in a light gray suit and a strand of his dark hair fell over his forehead. Even in the failing light, he took her breath away and for the thousandth time she wondered what the hell he saw in her.
The ever present guilt reared its ugly head. How could she look at another man when her husband lay in a hospital bed in the building behind her?
The guilt didn’t stop her from approaching.
“No appearing in bedrooms today?” she said as she walked up to him. “No more doorways to disappear through?”
He glanced up with a grin, the low light catching in his green eyes. “No, thought I would travel the old fashioned way today and catch the bus.”
She laughed; a foreign sound for her. “Why do I find it hard to picture you on public transit?”
“Okay, I lied. I walked.”
Jackson’s presence in the ward behind burned into her back. Knowing he might look out of a window or walk out at any moment to find her talking to Sebastian terrified her. She wanted to get away from the hospital.
Suddenly, she realized she could do just that. She could leave with Sebastian and no one would be any wiser.
A sense of freedom washed over her. She always had to report to Jackson exactly where she was and when she’d be back. The lack of restrictions almost overwhelmed her and her head spun as though she were drunk from it.
She could do whatever she wanted.
What if he calls you at home?
The thought struck fear into her heart, but she refused to let the possibility drag her down. If he asked where she’d been she would think of something; she’d been vacuuming and hadn’t heard the phone ringing. For once
in her life, Serenity decided she didn’t care. He would probably beat her when he got home anyway, just to make up for the couple of days he had missed. She couldn’t escape from that.
Sebastian must have seen her face pale. “Are you all right?”
She shook herself, pushing away any thoughts of Jackson.
“Yes, I’m fine,” she said, looking up at him. “Are you here visiting your mysterious friend again, because visiting times are over?”
He grinned. “No. I came to see you.”
She couldn’t help the buzz of excitement coursing through her.
“Can we go somewhere?” she said, her joy at having him with her overwhelming any shyness. “Somewhere special to me.”
“I’d like that. Where are we going?”
“You’ll have to wait and see.”
He stood and swept his hand forward. “Lead the way.”
They walked from the hospital grounds together, leaving the sirens and the sickness behind. With each step taking her further from Jackson, Serenity’s heart lifted a little more. She kept checking for Sebastian beside her, that he hadn’t disappeared on her again or she wasn’t hallucinating the whole thing.
They strolled side by side, their fingers touching, and the backs of their hands brushing together.
The walk was long but neither of them minded. As the late afternoon bled into evening and the last of the light fell out of the sky, they headed down through the suburbs, toward the ocean. Serenity didn’t feel the ache in her legs from the long walk. The pain in her back, which normally gave her such trouble, had all but disappeared.
They headed down a hill; the expensive houses of Santa Monica framed them on both sides of the wide street. A soft glow lit the houses as families went about their evening routines. Above them, street lamps flickered to life.
Finally, a view of the sea rewarded their long walk. The ocean stretched out ahead, a black expanse of water punctuated by the occasional light from a ship or small sailing boat in the distance. The white sand of the empty beach glowed under the moonlight.
Ahead stood the pier, each side lit with a myriad of colored light bulbs suspended from wires. On the right side, restaurants served the tourists. Beside them an arcade house, with its ten-cent slots and flashing fruit machines, beckoned the sightseers. A children’s carousel with colorful elephants instead of horses, went around and around. Beside the carousel, a stand sold popcorn and cotton candy, the sweet aroma drifting over, tempting them in.
Serenity knew the far end of the pier had been closed off while reinforcements were carried out on the struts. Her old company had won the tender for the work and she was disappointed she wouldn’t be able to see the job through to the end. In a few days, the rest of the pier would be closed off and as far as Serenity knew, it would remain closed for the rest of the winter.
She hoped her dismissal wouldn’t spoil her feelings about this place. She hated that something bad was now linked to the one place she had always felt good.
“Come on,” she said, suddenly excited. “I can never resist the smell.”
Serenity grabbed his hand. The coolness of his skin raced through her fingers and up through her palm as she pulled him along eagerly. Distracted by the place she loved, she barely noticed his frigid temperature. Sebastian laughed as she dragged behind her.
She pulled him up to the stand, the tangy, savory scent of hot dogs and mustard making her stomach rumble but she only wanted one thing from the stand.
Paying the man behind the counter, she turned back to Sebastian.
“It doesn’t even look like food,” she laughed, holding up the large plastic bag. “More like house insulation!”
He looked at her with a mixture of amusement and curiosity. Serenity fished a piece of candy floss from the bag and put the sweet in her mouth, suddenly self-conscious.
The pink spun sugar dissolved like sugary sand, melting from cotton wool into nothing but an overwhelming sweetness.
It was the taste of childhood, of the times she remembered being happy.
“Here,” she said, holding some of the cotton candy up to his mouth. The fluffy pink turned dark and hard around her fingers. He shook his head and gently pushed her hand away.
“No, thanks. I’m not a fan of sweet things.”
“Oh, right,” she said, faintly embarrassed, and popped the candy between her lips.
“So why do you like the pier so much?” he asked.
She feigned shock. “What do you mean? Isn’t it obvious?”
He shrugged.
“Okay, okay,” she continued. “How can you not be happy here? Everything about the place is aimed at making people happy.”
This was what she told him. The truth was she found escapism in the bright lights, the tourists, fake frivolity. The structure of the pier spoke to her with the way it jutted out from the land, suspended over the water. She felt the same; not quite joined to the rest of the real world, but never actually heading anywhere.
“And you were happy here once?” he asked her.
“Yes, I was.”
They walked toward the end of the pier, to where a tall wire enclosure had been erected, fencing them off from the reinforcements. They stood together in front of the wire, peering through at the huge machinery—flat-bed trucks, borers, cement mixers—all brought in for the job.
“This is as far as we can go,” she said. In her heart Serenity knew she wasn’t just talking about the barrier. Whatever was happening between them, it couldn’t go anywhere. If she tried to leave Jackson, he would kill her. She knew people existed; organizations who thought they would be able to protect her, but they were wrong. They didn’t know Jackson, how he fooled people. He seemed harmless. No one would ever believe what he did to her and his charm would be the key to finding her again. He would smooth talk some unsuspecting person and they would point her right out to him. It was the ‘lost little boy’ act he pulled off so well; everyone assumed he was harmless.
She sighed and Sebastian reached out to take her hand. The contact almost stopped her heart. Serenity stared at his hand on hers, his pale skin against her own and wished she could find a way to join him to her forever.
“Everything will be all right,” he said quietly. “All you have to do is make the decision to change what you don’t like about your life.”
She shook her head and a little well of indignant anger bubbled up inside her. Easy for him to say such things, he wasn’t living her life. She forced herself to pull her hand free of his.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said. “You don’t understand what it’s like to be in my position.”
“You’re right, I don’t. But I’ve had some hard times myself, and I know you can’t always rely on someone else to change your life. You need to find the strength inside yourself to do what you think is right.”
“Don’t we find our strength from the people we love?” she asked, looking up at him, her eyes imploring. “If we’re alone, what is the point in having strength for ourselves? If our lives are devoid of love, what’s the point in continuing on?”
He reached out and tucked a stray lock of her hair behind her ear. His hand stayed on her face, fingers lightly touching just below her cheekbone.
“We keep going because of the possibility,” he told her gently. “Even when things are at their worst, there is always the chance things will change.”
Mustering the last of her courage, Serenity reached up and put her hand on top of his, pressing his palm against her cheek. She closed her eyes, committing to memory how it felt to be touched with nothing but tenderness. He wrapped his other arm around her waist and pulled her close, their bodies pressed together. Serenity let her head fall against the solid wall of Sebastian’s chest and together they watched the lights of Santa Monica pier while she tried hard not to cry.
“Let me take you home,” he said.
She nodded her answer against him. Though she didn’t want to go back, the worry
that Jackson might be calling the house haunted her. Together, they walked back up the pier. A number of cabs waited at the end and Sebastian walked up to the first one, opening the back door for her.
“I don’t have money for a cab,” she said, feeling foolish.
“Don’t be silly. I’ll pay.”
She climbed in, relieved she wouldn’t have to attempt the long walk back or catch a bus. This way, she would be home in twenty minutes or so. Sebastian slid in beside her. Serenity hesitated and then slipped her hand into his. Instinctively, they moved together, her head rested on his shoulder, his head rested on top of hers.
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