by Emma Scott
“Stop it,” I cried. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?” he inquired, and every single thing I thought I knew about us was disintegrating in the cruelty in his eyes.
No! I know what I saw. Who I am…
“I know what you’re doing,” I said. “You’re trying to push me away. To protect me from Ash…from him. It won’t work.” I sucked in a breath. “I-I’m your wife.”
Casziel stared and then, to my horror, he threw back his head and laughed. “My wife? You?” His laughter died and he moved in close, all seething malice and barely constrained disgust. “My wife was fierce and brave. She didn’t hole up in a small dark room, living her life between the pages of books. She was remarkable in every way.” He moved even closer, brushing his nose against my cheek to whisper hotly in my ear, “The only remarkable thing about you, Lucy born of light, is how easily you are fooled.”
It felt as if the floor had fallen out from beneath my feet to the center of the earth. My hand went to my heart that was breaking.
“No. Don’t…please.”
His face was impassive. Cold. He sipped his wine with a final shrug that dismissed me completely. “It’s what we do.”
“Uh, hey. Am I interrupting something?”
Guy Baker was there, raking a hand through his hair.
“Not a thing.” Casziel’s eyes were like stones on me. “You’re here for your dance.”
“Well, yeah. But if this is a bad time, I can come back…”
“There is no other time.” The demon took my hand and placed it in Guy’s. “Goodbye, Lucy.”
For a split second, Casziel’s hard façade cracked, and the pain seeped out. His eyes flickered to mine, agonized…
…or maybe it was just my imagination because he walked away and didn’t look back.
I watched him go, stunned and hollow, while Guy cleared his throat. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“Would you like to sit down?”
“No.”
“Maybe some water…?”
Stop talking.
“You’re asking me to dance. Let’s dance.”
Guy pulled me onto the dance floor. I moved like a zombie, as if I’d felt every emotion I could possibly feel in one week and was now drained. Wrung out. There was nothing left.
“You look really beautiful, Luce,” Guy said, holding me close. His breath was strong and pungent with alcohol and a mint working overtime to cover it up. His blue eyes were glassy and vacant as they drank me in. I guessed he’d decided not to stay sober after all. “Kind of funny, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“That we’ve worked together for two years and I’m just now really seeing you.”
“What do you see?”
“Someone who’s kind, and smart, and…beautiful. You’re very beautiful, Lucy.”
“What else?” I asked, tears stinging my eyes.
Tell me everything, Guy. Tell me everything I’ve been waiting two years to hear. Right now. When it’s too late.
“Well, it kind of sucks that here we are, finding each other after so long just as I’m leaving for Sri Lanka.”
Finding each other after so long.
I thought I’d be sick.
“I’m still putting my team together,” he continued. “But it looks like I’m outta here at the end of next week.”
“I know. I helped work out the logistics.”
“Right, right,” he said with a short laugh. “But it’s not easy to find people who would drop everything and fly halfway around the world to scoop plastic off a beach.” He cocked his head as a thought occurred to him. “You’ve never been on one of my expeditions, have you?”
“No, never.”
This is it. My fantasy coming to life. Right now.
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.” He chuckled. “What do you say, Luce?”
“You’re asking me to go with you.”
“It’s short notice, I know but…yeah. I want you to come with me. I don’t know what happened this week, but it suddenly feels like the two years you’ve worked at Ocean Alliance have flown past me and I feel every second of it. All that lost time.” He held me closer. “I don’t want to waste one more minute.”
Tears filled my eyes, and I hid them by pressing my cheek against his broad chest. Guy’s scent filled my nose--nothing like Casziel. No fire and spice. He felt different from Cas too. I felt different in his arms. Stiff and uncomfortable instead of perfect. Across the deck, Abby was alone but had her phone out, filming everything.
“I’ll go with you to Sri Lanka,” I said.
“You will?”
I felt him want to pull me back, to look in my eyes, but I held tight.
“Sure. Why not?” I pressed against him, not sure if I would laugh or cry.
Cry. Definitely cry.
“Great! Let’s talk about it at the office on Monday. Work out the details.” He sighed, content, and held me tighter. “It’s going to be perfect.”
“Perfect,” I nodded, my tears staining the front of his jacket. “Happily ever after.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
Twenty
The heavy clouds that had been building on Saturday broke into a steady rain that didn’t let up all day Sunday. The weather app said a huge storm was coming and would last until Tuesday night. Casziel’s last day on This Side.
My thoughts tried to turn to him, but I kept steering them away and spent the dreary afternoon prepping for my presentation. Going through the motions like a robot. Rain battered the window—now closed.
Because it had all been a lie.
My phone rang with Cole Matheson’s number. I ignored it. My BFF tried again and then a text popped up with a thumbnail of his latest sketch—me, looking radiantly happy and surprised about it. Shocked I could actually feel that way.
This is your heart on Cas. Any questions?
My heart clenched with actual physical pain.
Another text followed. OK that was cheesy, even for me, but you’re beautiful, Lucy. I hope the wedding was everything it was supposed to be. Call when you get a chance.
A great sob welled up in me, but I pushed it down. If I started crying now…
I tossed my phone aside and noticed that Edgar, my houseplant, was dead. All the water he needed was pouring down the panes of glass outside the window.
“I’m sorry, Edgar,” I murmured, touching his dried leaves. “I’m so sorry. I got so wrapped up in…”
My words trailed. I didn’t know how to describe the last nine days. A nightmare? A fever dream? Or maybe the entire thing was a hallucination. Maybe I had a brain aneurism. Maybe I was lying in a hospital bed in a coma on the brink of death.
Dad’s voice sounded gently in my head. You’re alive, kiddo. You’re here. You’re strong and you’re not done yet.
I wished I believed him. I wished I believed it was my dad. That he was still with me, just in the next room. But maybe that had been a lie too.
The next morning, I dressed for work and packed my presentation materials in an old briefcase Dad had given me when I went to college. “To hold all my big ideas.” It’d sat empty in the closet for years.
Now, I put in my notebooks and my laptop loaded up with a very plain Google Slides presentation of my shoe idea. I didn’t know why I was still going through with it. I guessed I had a shred of dignity left because the idea of lying around all day, feeling sorry for myself, was nauseating. Then again, everything in my tiny, empty, simple little apartment made me sick. The rows of romance novels were pages and pages of lies. There were no happy endings in real life. Real life was brutal and full of cruel jokes.
Like the fact Guy had finally noticed me and wanted to take me with him to Sri Lanka.
I searched my entire soul and found no feelings for him. I’d been waiting for real, true love my entire life. Probably longer. And now I had a chance, and I couldn’t bring m
yself to care.
“Fake it ‘til you make it,” I muttered on the subway.
If Guy wanted to take me out of my silly little life, I’d let him. There was nothing for me here. And while I knew I’d never feel anything real for him, he was better than more loneliness. More solitude.
You don’t have nothing, pumpkin, Dad insisted. You have you.
And what was I? I had no clue. But I could give this presentation and clean plastic off a beach and maybe do some good in the world.
At Ocean Alliance, I headed straight for Guy’s office.
“Hey, Luce, what’s up?” he asked. Maybe it was my imagination, but his smile felt forced, and he had a hard time looking at me.
“Um, well we have a lot of details to work out for Sri Lanka. Don’t we?”
“Sri Lanka?”
“Yeah. What we talked about on Saturday. At the wedding.”
He cocked his head, his face scrunched up. “What did we talk about?”
I tensed all over. “You don’t remember.”
“Oh shit. Did I get drunk and say something inappropriate?” He frowned. “Funny, I don’t remember drinking at all. Sorry, Luce, what did I say?”
Either he was the greatest actor in the world, or his confusion was genuine. My stomach twisted and I recalled the strange smell and the breath mints, the weird emptiness in his eyes…
“Oh my God…”
“Shit, Luce, I’m really sorry. I don’t know what happened but if I gave you the wrong idea—”
“You didn’t,” I said quickly. “We were talking about logistics. That’s all.”
“Really?”
I managed a smile while inwardly, I felt like puking. “Yep, really. You asked me if I’d help calculate supply arrival times and I said yes.”
“Oh.” Guy blew out a laugh. “Well…great! That’s such a relief. I’d hate to think I might’ve been a dick.”
No, you were just possessed.
The ramifications slid deeper. There was no Sri Lanka. No happily ever after for me, pretend or otherwise.
“But you still look a little shell-shocked.” Guy’s smile softened into something like pity. “Does this have something to do with Abby’s video?”
“What video?”
“Listen, Luce. I think it’s sweet, and I’m flattered. But I have a strict no-dating-coworkers policy. Keeps me out of trouble—”
“What video?”
“It’s nothing. She’s been playing matchmaker between us, I think. Silly, really.”
“Silly.” A heavy ball of something ugly settled in my stomach. “I don’t understand. Is it your song from karaoke night?”
Guy’s confused expression returned, and my stomach clenched all over again.
He has no idea what I’m talking about.
“I don’t remember singing that night.” He chuckled. “Good thing too. No one wants to hear that.” He cleared his throat and shuffled through a small mountain of papers on his desk, missing my incredulous stare. “Sorry, Luce, I have a million things to do before my trip. Was there anything else you needed?”
“Not a thing.”
“Good luck on your presentation,” he called as I backed away. “Can’t wait to hear it.”
I exited his office to see clusters of my coworkers bent over phones or gathered around laptops, snickering and murmuring. They stopped when they saw me, identical guilty expressions on their faces.
I stormed up to where Dale was huddled with Hannah from fundraising, my hand out. “Give it to me.”
“Oh, uh, Luce, it’s nothing,” Dale said, exchanging glances with Hannah.
“You don’t need to see it.” Jana strode up, shooting daggers at the others. “Come on, Luce. Let’s talk about your presentation. I have good news—”
My outstretched hand didn’t waver. “Show me.”
Dale looked sheepishly at Jana, then handed over his phone. Abby had posted a video to TikTok—a montage of me over the last few months gawking at Guy in the office, staring like a puppy dog when he walked by, gazing up at him while he spoke in a meeting. A documentary of my pathetic crush, set to a song called “Notice Me.”
My skin felt hot and too tight.
“Luce.” Jana’s voice sounded far away. “Forget it. The presentation…”
The presentation. Right. I had to stand up in front of all these people and talk about shoes.
No way.
I rushed to my desk to gather my things. Permanently. I’d get another job. Somewhere no one knew me. I’d sit in the corner and mind my own business and not talk to anyone. Because this last week had made it abundantly clear what happens when you put yourself out there. Humiliation and pain. My “demons” were right all along. Silly Lucy had ventured out of her silly little life and had been slapped for it. Hard.
In minutes, I’d thrown all my belongings into my bag—there wasn’t much. Jana hadn’t followed me. She was probably in the conference room waiting for me along with everyone else. She could run the shoe project without me.
I shouldered my bag to go when my eye caught the single red rose Casziel had given me in its water bottle. It was brown and wilted, having dropped all its petals. But for one. One petal remained, and it was as red and vibrant as it had been a week ago.
There’s still time.
Time for what? I’d lost everything. I thought I’d touched on something real with Cas, some deep truth about us—about me—and it’d all been a lie. His redemption and our big plan to make Guy fall for me? More lies. Every deepest wish of my heart had been exposed and burned to ash.
Tears flooded my eyes, and I sank into my chair, staring at the rose.
Hey pumpkin. Dad’s voice was as clear in my mind as if he were sitting right next to me. I even thought I caught a whiff of pipe smoke. Don’t give up. It’s not too late.
“Yes, it is, Daddy,” I whispered, the rose blurring in my vision. “I can’t…”
Yes, you can. You’ve never given up, not in thousands of years. You’re strong. Fierce. You’ve just forgotten for a little while.
The truth of it seeped into the broken cracks of me. I’d done more and seen more and felt more in one week than I had in my entire life.
I danced with the devil in the pale moonlight.
I stood straighter, shoulders squared. My personal life might’ve been reduced to a barren wasteland, but I was still standing. There was no one beside me, holding my hand. No all-consuming love, but I still had me. In that moment, it wasn’t much, but I still had work to do. The oceans weren’t going to magically rid themselves of the nearly ten million metric tons of plastic dumped into them every year.
I tossed my bag on the chair and grabbed my briefcase. The jumble of nerves in my stomach didn’t vanish—they tightened until I was nauseated at the idea of standing in front of the group, my humiliation still fresh in their minds.
But I felt Dad’s proud smile as I made my way to the conference room, clutching that briefcase handle in my sweaty hands. His voice in my mind—and heart—was so much louder than the demons that clamored I was making a huge mistake.
Thatta girl, pumpkin. I knew you could do it.
The water hit my face, and I held my cupped hands to my cheeks, the bracing coldness the best thing I’d ever felt. I looked up from the bathroom sink, and the woman staring back at me in the mirror wore a smile. They’d loved it. Kimberly had insisted on being patched in from Cancún and began giving orders to put my plan in motion. Jana, who’d been blinking back proud tears, announced that Kai Solomon had agreed to sponsor the shoe when it was ready. Guy was impressed, but I could tell he was already halfway out the door without me.
But maybe that’s how it was supposed to be. No Guy or Casziel. There were worse tragedies than not having a man, including the one in Sri Lanka.
That’s right, Deber sneered. Silly Lucy, back to her silly life. Alone. And that’s how you’ll stay. Because no one wants you. No one.
I ignored the insinuations that were so t
ired and old, like faded wallpaper, then jumped as a bathroom stall opened. I half-expected the demons to shuffle out but it was Abby. She had toilet paper pressed to her eyes and stopped when she saw me.
“Oh, hey, Luce.”
“Hi,” I said flatly as she joined me at the sinks.
Her eyes were smudged with mascara and brimming with tears. “Lucy, I—”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
Don’t be bitter, pumpkin, Dad said. It’s not your style.
I snorted. “Maybe it should be.”
“Huh?” Abby shook her head. “Listen, I need to tell you something. Lucy…I’m a bad person.”
I crossed my arms. “Okay.”
“I know, shocker, right? I don’t know why I do half the things I do. Do you know why I was so eager to help you with Guy? Because I don’t want him. He’s wholesome and good and we don’t vibe at all. But me and Cas? He’s got a darkness that I totally vibe with. Getting you with Guy was literally just so I could have Cas to myself. But he’s not interested in me and—wow—did he make that crystal clear at the wedding. I felt so invisible. Humiliated. So I humiliated you with that stupid video. As if all my shit is your fault, and I’m sorry, Lucy. I really am.”
I uncrossed my arms. “So, you and Cas…?”
She snorted. “What me and Cas? He never gave me the time of day, despite my best efforts.”
“You never slept with him.”
Abby gave me an incredulous look in the mirror. “I wish. He wouldn’t even kiss me. I mean…how humiliating is it when even an escort won’t touch you? That’s his job.”
I almost laughed. Abby’s insistence that Casziel had only been with me because I paid him was still insulting, but the fact he never touched her was like a burst of hope that tried to crack the brittle shell around me.
Abby started to cry again. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I get these urges to do terrible things like make videos, and I give in. Like it’s a thrill to see the number of likes and all the nasty comments, and then I just feel like crap afterward. Why do I do stuff like that?”
Because you have a Deber and Keeb too.
