by Anna Bloom
One side of his mouth lifts into a smile. "That’s the thing, brother, you don’t know anything about me. You left me before you had a chance to get to know me. I was just a kid, and you left. You left Erin and I to die."
I reel at his words.
"Her death had nothing to do with me. She was dangerous, Shayne. She nearly ended your life out in this sea that day, did you ever think about that? It could have been both of you.
But I’ve said the wrong thing because he screams into the air.
I can’t stop though, it’s all coming out. "I couldn’t join the police because of you. You ruined everything, was I supposed to sit around and play happy families?" I want to lurch forward and throttle my hands around his neck, but I hold still, even though my legs are burning with a need to move.
A demented smile on Shayne’s face transforms into a manic leer. "There is no happy family, and you don’t know anything big brother. The internet is a wonderful place to make new friends, especially when that friendship is based on a mutual hate of a washed up has been." His teeth chatter as the cold sea batters his internal temperature—what must it be doing to her?
A delirious laugh booms from his mouth, screeching above the rush of the sea. “You will never ever know who else wants her, and I’m going to love watching it eat you away inside. You will always wonder who wanted her dead.”
Just like that he lifts the syringe directly for Sophia’s neck. I see it in slow motion and I launch myself forward, knocking into Shayne’s chest and pushing him off balance. Sophia shrieks as she’s set free, her hands grasping for my body but I’m being towed under, the weight of my brother dragging me down as the sting of a sharp scratch jabs against my arm.
"No." She cries, her sobs running in time with the sea, but it doesn’t matter because I know I’ve saved her just like I always promised and at the end of it that's all that ever really mattered.
I. Saved. Her.
Epilogue
Sophia
New York
"Hey, Superstar." Sarah lifts the sunnies protecting her eyes from the spring sunshine. "How was the audition?"
"Don’t call me that." I roll my eyes. Because I’m anything but a star these days. I trawl the audition pool like all the other actresses out here. Sure, I’d been offered the pick of the crop when I first set foot in town, but I turned them all down.
This is my life, and it’s on my terms. A dark day in the sea taught me that.
I shudder and pull the wrap of my cardigan around my shoulders. "Still feeling the cold?" Sarah pushes her hot chocolate towards me and I wrap my hands around the white cup.
"A little."
"Come on then, tell me about the audition."
I grimace and slurp at her drink. I wasn’t so poor that I couldn’t afford my own although the fine from the Stein Studio had depleted my funds considerably. In a way it’s good though, liberating.
There’s no staff, no cleaners, no drivers, no cosmetic bills for keeping my mother young. There’s just the little house I bought with what I had left. It doesn’t feel like the home I expected. But, then I know why that is and I know there isn’t anything I can do about it.
Every day I miss Blake Henderson. It’s a ripping hole that aches within my chest. Every movement I make, every word I speak makes it sting. I never want the sting to go away. I never want to forget.
"Audition? Hey, are you going psychotic again?" Sarah waves her hand in front of my eyes.
"Oh sure, the audition. They made me sing, it was terrifying."
"You can sing though. So, did you get good vibes?"
At my feet is a guitar in a case. A guitar that nearly six years ago Blake left when he walked away to protect me. My eyes sting and I nudge the case with my foot. It’s my lucky charm. Lucky that all the producers love the fact I turn up willing to play and not just eager to trade in on my famous face.
"Yeah, the vibes were good, and I liked the story."
"You always get the call."
"Yep." I smile and lick the chocolate from my lips.
"And you always turn them down."
"It’s because I’m waiting for the right role."
"Don’t wait too long. Broadway might like aged stars, but no one likes a former A-lister on a Zimmer frame."
I kick her under the table and slide her cup back across the table top. "I can’t stay long I’ve got to go to meet someone."
"Oooh, yeah baby, it’s dating time in New York."
I shake my head. Dating is not for me. I made the decision that I can live without dating, and from what I can tell it’s overrated, anyway. "No, I’m meeting Johnny."
"Blah blah blah. Tell him he’s a prick from me."
"He and Charlie are getting married, apparently." I raise an eyebrow that makes Sarah peel with laughter. If there’s one good decision I made, coming to New York and finding her had been the right one. I’d known all the way back in rehab that she was my kind of person, that she was the kind of person I could trust. I lean across the table and squeeze her slim fingers. "I’ll shout you later and fill you in."
"Sure, sure." She settles back in her chair. "I’m people watching, maybe I could learn something useful for my next audition?"
"Maybe." I sling my bag on my shoulder and step away from the pavement cafe. I fricking love New York. No one gives a shit who you are here. It’s like London, you can just be yourself. After I’d left Wales, after what had happened, I’d gone to London. It had been eye opening. It was a shame that my visit had been marred by my broken heart and flooding grief. I’ll go back there one day and maybe it will be different, but for now New York is my town.
Johnny is waiting for me in the bar at the Waldorf. He’s rocking something on ice. I grab a club soda and sit perched on the stool next to his. No one looks at us, the bar keeper continues to do his thing, his eyes averted. Man this town rocks. Shame about the gaping hole in my heart that stops me enjoying it.
"How’s things?" Johnny clinks his glass against mine.
"Actually good. Really good."
His eyes hold mine, and underneath the calm exterior I see a ripple of fear and something else etch across his skin. "Listen, Fee." He rubs at the back of his neck. "I wanted to talk about what went on between us." He coughs as he takes a sip of his drink. Is his hand shaking? "It’s just, I know it was unhealthy, and I think I took advantage of how unhappy you were."
"Unhappy?"
Johnny’s eyes meet mine. "Yeah, after Blake left. I hadn’t forgiven him for that humiliating night, and I guess when I saw how broken you were it made it easy to think of it as a game."
I keep watching. He knows the truth about that night, I know he does.
"I crossed lines in that game and I’m sorry."
I’m just going to say it. This new clear world, this new place I’m in, it doesn’t leave me space for bullshit. "Did you abuse me that night, Johnny? I have never been able to remember."
His fingers tremble but he holds my eyes. "No. We were having sex, but you knew what we were doing, you were participating, to begin with."
"But?"
"But then I realised you were passed out, and I stopped. I must have got my measurements wrong that night, nothing was how it should have been. Then I passed out. I couldn’t keep myself above the surface, it was the worst feeling I’d ever known. I tried and tried to stay awake so I could keep an eye on you, but I couldn’t move. Then when I woke up, you’d slashed your wrists. It was a mess, so much blood, and all I could think was that you’d done it because you’d thought I’d raped you. I tried to call for help but I couldn’t even move."
A lone tear slides down my face. "I wish you’d told me that at the time."
"I thought for a while you might not remember, but then the way you were with me, the way you flinched every time I was close. I knew. Then you ran off to Wales, and I wondered if that was easier for us all. Charlie and I had been dancing around each other for ages. If you broke that stupid contract then we could a
ll live.
Live.
We hadn’t though. Not all of us.
"Thanks for being honest with me, but I wish you’d done it before. The way we were together, that wasn’t healthy, wasn’t normal."
Johnny cracks me a grin but it doesn’t do anything to alleviate the dead feeling inside of me. "I know. Sex is quite normal with Charlie, but don’t tell her I said that."
"And you guys? You’re getting married? Is that,” I hesitate, I don’t want to be rude. “A good idea?”
Johnny shrugs, giving me a small smile as he stands and I slip off my stool alongside him. He kisses my cheek, a cool passing touch. "Take care, Sophia Jennings, the future is ours now."
Reaching for his arm I give it a squeeze. Somewhere, a long way off, there will be a time when we are passed the things we’ve done to one another. "I will."
I walk from the Waldorf with my head held high but I can’t contemplate any future. Not really, my heart won’t let me.
The streets are teaming with people. Taxi drivers shout from canary yellow cabs their arms resting on open windows, and, birds chirp a spring refrain in filled trees smothered in pink, white and red blooms. The avenue is lovely, and a small thrill creeps up my spine as I place my front door key in the lock. "Dad, I’m back, are you still home?"
He doesn’t answer so I drop the guitar case onto the floor and throw my keys into the bowl on the hallway sideboard, flicking through the mail.
"Are you carting that old six string around New York?"
I spin at the voice. It does something magic to my insides. "Blake?"
He’s leant against the kitchen door jamb, his tall powerful frame hidden beneath a cashmere sweater and dark jeans. He’s lost weight in the last few months; my eyes scan him from top to toe, taking in all the delectable sights that make him who he is, and then I launch myself at him like a bulldozer. My arms sling around his neck, my fingers sliding into his dark waves. "I didn’t think you were ever going to come."
He pushes me away slightly, his gaze resting on my face. "I would never stay away. I just needed to sort things with the family first, you know that."
It had broken my heart, but that’s what I’d agreed to as he recovered from his overdose and near drowning in a Cardiff Hospital. Every day for months I’d never known if he would eventually pitch up. Every day that went by made me believe that he never would. His brother had died, his family had been destroyed. I mourned with him at his loss, but I also mourned for losing him.
Yet here he is in my cottage.
"Oh, I’ve got something for you." He leads me into the lounge, both his hands clasping mine tight. I giggle, a sound that’s alien on my lips. Stopping dead in the middle of the naked floorboards I stare wide-eyed. "Amanda?"
"The one and bloody only, did you think I was going to let him come over here without me?"
I rush to her and throw my arms around her neck. I’d grown so fond of her in the days we waited in that miserable hospital, waiting for Blake to pull though or worse, not. Bernie had been a wreck, her grief for her younger troubled son at war with her hope and desperation for the elder one to survive.
Somehow Amanda and I had kept each other upright.
When Blake and I had decided to live separate lives while we dealt with the fall out of those few days in Wales I think Amanda had been nearly as broken-hearted as me. Nearly, but not quite. My own heartbreak had sliced me clean in half.
"Look what we bought you, all the way from England." She thrusts a giant pot towards me. Within the pot is a delicate rose, its pale pink bloom quivering as the pot passes from her hands to mine. "It’s an English rose for an English rose." She snorts at her own humour. My eyes are on Blake. They are always on Blake. It’s like I’m seeing him again for the first time. His hair flops in his eyes just as I remember, and his jaw is still covered in a dark stubble but there’s something else there. Something I’m not used to. He’s smiling, his lips curving in the most delicious smile.
"Amanda, you can have the room on the top left," I say never moving my eyes away from Blake.
"Okay, but…"
"Go, Amanda." Blake words are a growl and my stomach flips. God how I’ve missed him; every breathing moment has been painful, but I’ve survived and I’ve done so clean and sober.
We stand facing one another, two equals at last.
"Just to confirm, are you here in a bodyguard capacity or another?"
His lips quirk but there’s a tightening around his eyes I choose to ignore. "Another."
"Oh." I fold my arms across my chest and his smile morphs into a smirk. "And what would that be?"
Then he’s there, his hands on my skin, his face pressing against my cheek. Lady in Red begins to blare through my sound system and the howl of Amanda’s laughter almost drowns out Chris de Burgh. "Don’t make me say it, Sophia." His lips skim my cheek and tears prickle along the edge of my lashes.
"Say it."
He groans against my throat. "Boyfriend." He bites the word out into the air and my chest almost explodes with the ping of my heart. "Boyfriend, lover, friend, cook, cleaner. I don’t really give a shit just so long as I am here with you." He smiles against my cheek.
"So, you are here for good?"
His mouth falls onto mine, devouring in its intensity as he teases me open and I surrender to his touch. "You’re mine and I’m never leaving your side."
The End
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