"Henley… I’m coming in.” She doesn’t respond at all so I take that as confirmation that its okay to open the door.
When I catch sight of her, my whole body freezes. There is blood everywhere. The straight razor my father got me a few years ago is clutched tightly in her hand. You can see where it easily parted the skin on her forearms. The new cuts are framed by pale faded old ones. Jagged, and covering her arms from her wrist almost all the way to her elbows.
She is standing so still, her eyes focused entirely on the opened cuts, that I don’t know is she even sees me standing here. I don’t know if she sees anything.
“Henley…”
Her whole body starts, her eyes flicking up to me, and then with a grimace flicking back down. Her whole face changes the moment she really notices the blood. She flicks the razor out of her hands, and it hits the ground ringing out in the silence between us.
“I’ll… we’ll… doctor…” my mind, unable to focus entirely on one solution to the problem, is racing out of control. What the hell is going on. This is my fault. Whatever I did… whatever I didn’t do… I caused this.
“Henley,” I start moving slowly toward her.
A look of disgusted panic passes her face before she shoves her hands into my chest as hard as her little body is able. “Don’t touch me! Just don’t…” her body gives one final shiver before she turns and bolts right out of the bathroom.
“Shit,” I don’t have time to think. I don’t have time to wonder or worry about her not wanting me to touch her. I just run after her. When I round the hallway into the living room, I catch a glimpse of her dipping into the foyer. It only takes me a few strides to make it across the living room, but when I make it to the foyer I’m already too late.
Henley is leaning against the back of the elevator sobbing as the doors close. I bolt toward the fire escape, and begin running down the stairs. I’ve only got to go down five flights before I can get on the public elevator and try to catch up with her. I take the steps three at a time, bursting out of the fire escape door and into the hallway.
I shove past a couple getting off the elevator and press the button for the lobby. It takes forever for the elevator to reach the bottom. It seemed like every two floors the elevator stopped to pick people up. They all took one look at me in the elevator and changed their minds.
When I get to the lobby there are a few people walking around, but none of them are Henley. I run my hands through my hair and head over to the concierge desk. It’s the same woman that was there last night. I think she sleeps there. If she sleeps. I try my best to smile as I walk up, but I can feel that it’s not working. My muscles are pulling in all the wrong ways.
“Hi, did you happen to see a young woman run out? The same one I carried in last night?”
“First of all Mr. McKerrick if I ever catch you dragging a drugged woman back to your condo again I’m going to call the cops. I gave you the benefit of the doubt last night that your friend might have been drunk… but if another girl comes running out of here looking like that and crying? You are so getting arrested.” With a blink of her eyes she turns off her glare and smiles at the person standing next to me.
Fuck. I jog out the front door and onto the sidewalk. People are milling about in the early morning sun, and none of them are Henley. With a sigh I turn and head back inside. Slowly making my way back to the top on the private elevator. When I get back to my condo I consider calling Henley, there is nothing else for me to do, so with shaking fingers I pick up my phone and dial her cell number. There is a whirring vibrating sound coming from the coffee table in the living room, and there on the table is Henley’s purse. Fuck. Of course she wouldn’t have answered even if she had her phone. Why would she? When it seems like she doesn’t want anything to do with me. The look on her face before she pushed me away tells me she won’t want to see me again.
Of course she waited until I knew I was falling in love with her to tear my heart out. I knew better. Relationships always fall apart. It just so happens that ours fell apart like this. But if I don’t know what happened to her I won’t be able to get over her either. So I have to at least make sure she is okay.
My assistant answers on the second ring.
“I need you to look at hospital admissions. I need to know if someone named Henley Williams gets checked in.”
“Okay. Do you need to know where?”
“No.” Because she will never want to see me anyways, so I would rather not torture the both of us. “I just need to know that she is okay.”
“Alright I’ll-”
Maybe I’m a dick. I really don’t care. But I end the call. I scrub at the itch moving down my face, and my hand comes away wet. I’m fucking crying. That’s just what I need. I stomp my way back to my bed intent on forgetting Henley ever existed, because I knew this was coming. Stupid me for forgetting for even a second. I throw myself into bed and hope the whole fucking world disappears.
When my eyes open again my long dried tears are crisp against my skin, and my head begins craning around trying to catch the noise that woke me. I can hear someone shouting my name from the front of the apartment. It sounds like Gwen. Just what I fucking need.
“Connor!” Gwen skips into the room followed by Aiden and our parents. “You’re in so much trouble,” she mouths with a smile.
“Whats wrong?” I ask with a yawn. I don’t know why everyone would run over here like I need reinforcements.
“It’s Sunday,” my father replies stiffly. “And you don’t appear to be dying.”
I didn’t show up for dinner. Of course the fucking rescue party decided to show up. I’m really not in the mood. Not for my sister who is grinning, enjoying my suffering no doubt, or my brother who looks like he would rather be anywhere else but stuck in the middle of what he knows is going to be a fight. And I am definitely not in the mood for my mother and father, who can’t even be honest enough to tell us that their marriage fell apart years ago.
“Sweetheart… how’d your date go?”
With a sigh I run my hands through my hair, and I guess that’s all the affirmation she needs. She sits next to me and wraps her arms around me. All the motherly affection in the world can’t fix this. Can’t fix the last sight I had of Henley. Covered in blood.
“Well honey… there will always be other girls.”
“Don’t give me that shit,” I growl out as I stand up and start pacing around my room. I should have known better… I did know better.
With a sigh my mom starts again. “Honey. If this is the girl for you, you’ll just have to fight for her. I’d like to think that your father and I have provided a prime example of a good relationship, so you should know whats worth fighting for Connor.”
My whole body is rooted to the floor, as I stare at her in disbelief. My mind replays that one moment in time over and over again. Staying home sick, and overhearing them yelling at the top of their lungs at each other. Watching my father pick his things up out of the yard. The two weeks after that we didn’t see him… mom had said he was away on business, but I knew better. All the times I forced myself to be the good boy so that they didn’t fight after he came back. All the times I kept my mouth shut so that my siblings weren’t as disillusioned as I was.
My mouth starts moving before I can stop it. “What the fuck are you talking about?” Everyone in the room tenses, but I can’t stop myself all the things I kept bottled up come out. “Don’t act like you’re all superior. Give me a fucking break. I was there! You think I didn’t notice while I was hiding in my room that you were throwing his shit out and telling him you never wanted to see him again?”
With every word out of my mouth my mother’s face grows paler, but I still can’t stop not till I’ve let it all out. “His two week business trip? Or the fact that ever since then you’ve spent your time running through fucking hobbies like your life depends on it. Keeping busy so it doesn’t hurt so fucking bad?”
My chest is heaving by the
time I’m done and my mother is wiping at her eyes. I feel terrible. Letting it out didn’t help at all. I still hurt. I hurt for my parents, and I hurt for Henley.
“Are you done yet?”
My head snaps around at my fathers gentle whisper. I plan to give him a piece of my mind too, but before any words come out, his fist is plowing into my jaw. I’m flung to floor like a small child instead of a full grown man. Gwen and Aiden are beside me in a heartbeat as I wait for my vision to clear.
“I don’t know who the fuck you think you are talking to your mother like that, but I can assure you, your britches aren’t that fuckin’ big.”
My eyes flick up to my fathers face, before flinching back to the floor. I have never seen him with an expression like that before. Dark. Disappointed.
“Well,” my mothers soft voice is unsteady as she takes a few deep breaths. “I guess our secret is causing quite the misunderstanding Alan. It’s time to clear it up I suppose…”
“You don’t have to say anythin’ you don’t want to.” My father who usually talks without an accent is so angry… so upset… that he is talking with his natural brogue. I haven’t heard it since that day twenty years ago when he begged my mother not to throw him out.
“Connor sweetheart,” my mothers voice is soft and when I glance up at her her eyes are only showing motherly affection, even though I was such an ass to her. “Somehow sweetheart I think something has been misunderstood. You’ve been a good boy trying your best to keep it to yourself up until now… to keep from worrying your siblings. But you’ve got the story a little confused.”
“Soph… you don’t have to say anythin’.”
“It’s fine Alan really… it’s been twenty years if I can’t talk about it now I’ll never be able too.” My mother moves to sit beside us, grasping our hands gently. “Let’s see… where to start… I met your father when I was doing an internship during medical school. He had gotten into a fight. While he was there people kept coming and going. Family. All your uncles and aunts. I was an only child so seeing someone with such a large happy family made me really envious. And this led to that and well. You’re father and I got married and started our own family. Gwennie was about… five or so… when I got pregnant with you’re little brother.”
This gives us all a pause. Because we know Gwen is the youngest. We don’t have a little brother. My fathers eyes are closed, but his face is a mask of pain as he leans against the door. For my even tempered father this is a sore spot.
“It was about… four months after that, that I had the miscarriage.” My mother is smiling while she says this. A sad forlorn sort of smile. “And well there were some other complications… and I’m not able to have anymore children. While I may not have had as many children as I wanted, I was blessed with three very wonderful children… and yes I did throw your father out. I was sick and tired of hurting, and he kept acting like I was fragile… broken even, but we worked it out. Because that's what you do when you love someone.”
She smiles at each of us in turn, and I can tell Gwen and Aiden are both trying not to cry. It’s safe to say I feel like even more of a cad than I did before. I can’t believe I spoke to my mother like that.
“Mom I-”
“Connor… sweetheart please tell me that your inability to date isn’t due to this misunderstanding?” I think my silence tells her everything she needs to know, and she lets out a soft laugh, gripping my face in her hands. “If she is it for you Connor, if she’s yours, you need to fight for her.”
Henley’s disgusted face as she pushed me away flashes in my mind and I can’t help but voice my fears. “I think I already ruined it.”
“You’re a smart boy you’ll figure it out,” she replies with a smile before standing. “Come on you two… I’m famished. Let’s leave your brother to figure himself out. And Connor…” she stops in the doorway looking back at me with a smile. “I expect the both of you to be at dinner next Sunday.”
She leaves the room, with my brother and sister in tow. Which leaves just me and my dad in the room.
“You’ve awakened the devil,” he says giving me a pat on my back. “She can smell the scent of grand children in the air.”
“Yeah… listen dad I… I’m really sorry.”
“I know… hey… you know… your mom didn’t tell you but… that whole time, the whole two weeks, she really tried her best to get rid of me. The important thing is you just don’t let go. No matter how obnoxious it makes you. She’ll kick and scream, and when she’s done with that she’ll just straight ignore you. But if you can make it through that… she’ll come around.”
“Right…” I reply as he walks out of the room.
I can hear the front door close as I make my way out of my room into the living room. I’m exhausted. Physically and mentally exhausted. My heart is aching for my mom, and the siblings we never got to have. And it’s aching for Henley.
With a sigh I flop down on the sofa and stare at Henley’s things that got left on the table. Her phone, her purse, and that notebook she was writing in at the club. I reach out and pick up the notebook, curious as to what type of notes she wrote down and, if I’m being honest, just hoping it can help me feel a little closer to to the her I had before everything fell apart.
I flip toward the back of the hand written notes, looking for the page from last night. The black ink is scrawled evenly across the page in a flowing delicate script. I don’t know why but her writing her notes in cursive makes me smile. There are two images hastily sketched in at the bottom of the page. One looks like the rum and coke I had last night. And the other one, no matter how scribbly it is, is obviously me scowling. There is an arrow pointing to the back of my head with the words ‘He has a cowlick when he wakes up’.
The words cause me to laugh, but the laughter doesn’t lift that dull hollow ache in my chest. “Really what is she looking at all the time.” My eyes scan to the top of the page, and it’s dated in her scrawled print. She seems to be very meticulous with her notes, my hands freeze on the page as I realize this isn’t ‘notes’. It’s a diary. Shit. I know I should put it down but I can’t help myself as I start reading the page.
‘He looks so angry I don’t know if it was okay to bring him here… or maybe I shouldn’t have told him at all? But I’m glad he came because it means I get to watch him for a little bit longer… I think I already know what kind of tattoo Connor will brand into my skin… but just thinking it terrifies me.’ I frown a little bit at the mention of me branding a tattoo on her when I recall my sisters previous words. Henley gets a new tattoo for new turning points in her life. It makes me curious what sort of turning point Henley considers me.
I force my eyes up off the page I really shouldn’t be reading this. This are Henley’s personal thoughts. About everything… my hands are scanning through the pages for the day we met before I can stop them.
‘Nora told me to write everything down even if it seems pointless… so… going to sign books today. It’s making me nervous. People will definitely feel disillusioned since I’m just… me. More later I guess.” I frown at the words on the page. Henley doesn’t seem like someone who would have confidence issues to me. As my eyes reach the next words, they are no longer beautiful and scrawling they are jagged and short. So I continue reading.
‘What the hell was I thinking? Was there anything stupider I could have done than fuck that guy in the bathroom?’ Well in the beginning it looks like she wasn’t a fan. The next part is scratched over and hard to read like she decided she didn’t want it included. ‘Why did he have to have those stupid blue eyes and that stupid mussed up hair? Couldn’t he have been a normal person instead of the god of sex? He reminds me of the old meaning of Angus… unusually strong. Virile. Male. I bluffed and acted like I knew what the fuck I was doing just like Nora told me but… I can’t believe I asked if he knew how to use his dick…’
I put the book back down on the table and try to scrub the blush off my face. Henley
was looking at me like that the whole time, and honestly now I feel like I might not mind the name Angus so much. From the beginning I felt that Henley and I were combustible, and apparently she felt the same.
I told Henley no matter what I would still love her. Even if she thought nobody would. I still would. Whether she remembers that doesn’t matter. Even when I saw the blood all over her arms I wasn’t put off… I was just worried. And if talking to my parents and reading that notebook proved anything it’s that Henley is worth fighting for.
There is still no call on my phone from my assistant, so I grab her things and head for the door. When the elevator dings into the lobby. The woman behind the desk turns and gives me a glare. I ignore her as I head for the Maserati.
Henley has to be mine. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her. If I have to fight for her tooth and nail, that is exactly what I’ll do. Henley was made for me. It’s time I own up to that and be strong enough for her. I don’t know what I did. But I’ll fix it. I have to.
So I get in my car and race toward the only place I might have a chance to find her. Her home. Henley has kept me so far out of her life that I have no other way of finding her except hoping beyond hope that she went back to her house.
If happily ever after really can exist… if people really can hold it together. Then I could be that with Henley. I could hold on to Henley. I just have to convince her of that.
The miles cruise by easily, and it doesn’t take me long to reach Henley’s home. The gravel of her driveway crunches under my tires as I pull up in front of her home. In her front yard there is a lanky sort of guy with Mr. Darcy on a leash.
I step our of the car with a frown. “I’m looking for Henley… you seen her?” I’m a little bit pissed that this guy might be my only lead.
“Nah man. She called and asked me to look after her dog. Honestly I wish she hadn’t. There was a reason this thing couldn’t be adopted,” he replied with a tug on the leash, which made Mr. Darcy start snarling and pulling back.
Torn (The McKerricks Book 1) Page 14
