“I would never do that and you know it!” she snapped, panic sharpening her breaths. “Red, listen to me. I put you on the list because you’re important.”
He dragged his hands through his hair so hard she knew it must have hurt. “Important like doing something bad?” he rasped, his tone harsh and mocking. “Didn’t you use me for that, too? And I thought it was fucking cute.”
She stiffened. “You don’t understand—”
His shout was ragged, ripped from his chest, a mix of anger and pain that burned her like acid. “Don’t tell me I don’t fucking understand. You will not make a fool out of me!”
A strained silence fell. He looked as shocked by his outburst as she felt. But the hollow emptiness between them birthed a desperate idea: she couldn’t make him trust her, not when he was so obviously spiraling, but she could show him the truth—if only he’d give her a chance. She’d find proof, find the list, and he’d come back to her and stop shaking, stop shouting, stop looking at her like she was someone else.
She’d never wanted to strangle anyone as much as she wanted to strangle a stranger named Pippa right now.
“Just wait,” she said. “I’ll show you.” She bent over the coffee table, rifling through rubble and paper and countless notebooks, searching for the notebook, the one that would fix everything.
He heaved out a breath. Made a sound like cracking glass that might have been a laugh—a broken, broken laugh. “Yeah, I bet. You’ll search for some kind of evidence that’ll prove you aren’t a manipulative, lying user, only you won’t be able to find it. But oh, shit, if only you could. Right?” He didn’t sound angry anymore. He sounded tired. Bone-deep, dog tired. “Just stop, Chlo. You got me. It’s done. So tick me off the list and I’ll pretend I never fucking met you. Good riddance.” He turned and strode out of the room.
No, no, no.
She stood for a moment, stricken, unable to speak, or think properly, or even take a decent breath. Those words whipped at her heart and carved deeper lacerations than they should. She tried to remind herself that it was all a misunderstanding, that this was what Dani would call him being triggered.
But her demons howled louder: He's leaving you.
Once upon a time, Chloe had promised herself that she would never chase anyone who wanted to leave. She would never allow abandonment, desperation, love to make a fool of her. But her feet moved without permission, slowly at first, then faster, until she was stumbling over stray boxes and leaning against the walls for balance, righting herself with vicious determination. By the time she caught him, he was standing in the open doorway, his back to her. On the threshold.
Wasn’t this always how it ended?
But he didn’t move. He didn’t take the last step. His muscles were tense, as if frozen. He seemed to vibrate with something that might have been rage or regret or indecision.
Hope flared inside her, sharp and dangerous and impossible to resist. “Trust me. Just trust me.”
He didn’t turn around. “I don’t think I can.”
She clamped her molars together so hard, she swore she heard one crack. A lump of painful pride, acid and sawdust and heavy concrete, formed at the back of her throat. Chloe tried to swallow it and failed. She tried to believe he wouldn’t do this—wouldn’t walk out on her just like that, wouldn’t refuse to hear her out for even a second—and failed.
When she spoke again, her voice was panicked and fearful and she hated herself for it. No. No. She hated him for it, hated him for proving her every anxiety right. Surely he wouldn’t prove them right. “Red. Don’t.”
Silence. Silence that burned.
“If you can leave this easily,” she said, desperate, “don’t fucking come back.”
The slam of the door shook her bones.
She broke.
* * *
As soon as Red stepped out into the corridor, something forced his mind back into his body. For the last ten minutes he’d been distant, detached, floating above himself like a ghost. Watching himself lose it. Feeling the echo of his own pain as if it belonged to someone else. Now he felt it firsthand, as if God had just punched him in the gut.
The walls of Chloe’s flat had been slowly closing in, her beautiful, heartbroken gaze had suffocated him, but now he was out and free and drained and weak. He leaned back against her door, unable to take another step, and sank slowly to the floor. His world was a haze of bright white melting into blood red, but when he pressed his palms flat against the cold linoleum, the shock of it helped him focus. His mouth was numb, as if it belonged to someone else. His tongue tasted coppery, like blood. His skin was sweat-soaked and clammy and he hadn’t even noticed.
He was afraid. He realized it all at once, both surprised and resigned. He was afraid, and it made him angry, like a rabid fucking animal gnawing at its own trapped foot. But the thought was jarring, and he found himself frowning, correcting the negativity. I am not an animal. Then he said it aloud, because Dr. Maddox was always harping on about mindfulness and mantras. “I am not an animal,” he whispered, his voice disappearing like smoke. “I am not an animal.”
What came next? He told himself positive things, and he . . . he found something to focus on. That was it. Red chose the first thing his eyes fell on: the door to the flat opposite Chloe’s, which had a scuff mark he’d need to paint over. Yeah. He stared at the black mark against the red wood and repeated his words like a prayer. That door better not fucking open, because he was in no shape to talk to tenants right now. Or to anyone. He sat with himself for a while.
“Okay,” he finally murmured. “Okay, Red. What just happened?”
Chloe had manipulated him, that was what. She’d manipulated him just like Pippa had. Except the thought that had seemed so reasonable five minutes ago now felt absolutely ridiculous, because Chloe was nothing like Pippa. And he knew that belief was his own, because he’d thought it a thousand times before. This wasn’t like his last relationship. No one was messing with his head.
The iron band around his chest eased a bit.
He cradled his right hand in his left and rubbed his aching scar. His head ached, too. Words settled in his mind like barbed wire, ripping into everything they touched. I’ll pretend I never fucking met you. Good riddance.
He’d said that. It already felt like a dream, or a nightmare, but no—it had been him. The words had felt wrong in his mouth and they felt wrong in his memory. Then they swirled, twisted, transformed. He heard Chloe as if for the first time: I put you on the list because you’re important.
When she’d told him that, it had sounded like bullshit. Like the kind of nonsensical excuse Pippa always managed to dredge up, except Chloe wasn’t Pippa Chloe wasn’t Pippa Chloe wasn’t Pippa—and she’d told him it was a misunderstanding. Not like, You’re too stupid to understand, even if he’d heard it that way at the time. No; she’d been begging him to give her a fucking chance. She’d told him to wait. She might have told him the truth. And he’d left. He’d treated her like shit and he’d left.
He let his head fall back to hit the door. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Chloe?” he called, his voice hoarse, his hands twisting nervously together.
There was a pause that lasted a lifetime. Then her voice came through the door, thick with tears. “What do you want?”
His heart broke. It just fucking broke. How could he ever have thought that she would—? But he remembered exactly how. Remembered the desperate grip of panic that had choked his logical thoughts and dredged up remembered, toxic emotions. Now he just had to explain it to her, had to fix his monumental fuck-up.
Because whatever he’d overheard, whatever he’d believed, he knew Chloe wasn’t using him. He knew.
“Shit,” he said. Then, because it made him feel slightly better, he said it again. “Shit. I’m sorry, Button. I—I lost it.”
He heard some faint sniffing, but her voice came back stronger this time, threaded with iron. “I noticed.”
“Oh my God, Chlo. I’m a dick
. I’m such a dick.”
“Yes, you fucking are.”
The fact that she was even talking to him filled him with hope. Golden and glowing, it sloshed uneasily in his stomach, mixing with the bitter aftertaste of his fear. He felt nauseous. Ignored it. “Can I come in? Can we talk?”
Her answer was immediate. “No.”
He wasn’t surprised. He remembered, vividly, what she’d said to him, muffled beneath the ringing in his ears. If you can leave this easily, don’t fucking come back. He could tell her the truth—that it hadn’t been easy at all, that it had been his only option, that he’d wanted to turn around and touch her but he’d been so fucking afraid—only he didn’t think that would fix things. Because as far as Chloe was concerned, he’d just left.
The full impact of that fact hit him hard enough to rattle his teeth. He’d left.
“Chloe,” he said, the word shaking with all his desperation, all his regret. He closed his eyes and threaded his hands through his hair. “I don’t know what happened. No, I do. I fucked up, and I’m sorry. I panicked and I couldn’t think but—”
“I know,” she said, interrupting him. For a second, his heart gave a tentative little hop. But then she continued. “I know, Red. I understand. I really do. But . . . but I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”
Just like that, he truly understood the word devastation. He was the earth after a monumental asteroid, knocked off his axis, burned and choked and twisted into a wasteland. “Chloe, no. Please. I’m trying—”
“It’s not because of you,” she said firmly. Which couldn’t possibly be right, only . . . only, she sounded so sure. So calm. So in control, as if the tears he’d heard a moment ago had been imaginary. “It’s me,” she said. “I can't do this. Because we're only human, and I'll stumble, or you will, and it'll hurt just like this, and I can't. I can’t. I should’ve known I wasn’t ready for this. When you walked out . . .” She sucked in a breath so hard, he actually heard it. That breath painted a picture for him: Chloe, her lovely face streaked with tears he’d caused, her soft mouth rolled into a hard line to stop herself from sobbing. The thought caused him actual, physical pain. His hands ached, not because of his scar but because they needed to touch her.
But she didn’t want his touch anymore.
“When you walked out,” she said, composed now, “it felt like I was breaking.”
Red officially knew the feeling. “Baby.”
She kept going, the words marching out like well-trained soldiers. “No one should be able to make me feel like that. No one should have that power. It’s not . . . safe.”
A cold hand cradled the back of his skull, long, icy fingers flooding his nervous system until his whole body felt numb. She was shutting down again, because of him. He couldn’t bear it. He refused to be the reason someone so brave went back into hibernation. “Chloe, listen to me. I’ve got issues coming out my arsehole but that has nothing to do with you. You did nothing wrong. Even if you don’t—if you don’t want me anymore, that doesn’t mean you should give up on everyone. On feeling things for people. On risks.”
Silence.
“Chloe, are you there?”
Nothing. Panic filled him like flames devouring a forest, an unstoppable destruction.
“Chloe, please. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. You can trust me. You can trust yourself. If you just give me time—I’m working on this. I can be better.”
That, finally, garnered a response. Her voice was so gentle, but every word cut him deep. “You don’t need to be better, Red, not for me. Never. I should be better for you. For this. It’s been . . . perfect,” she said, so softly he almost missed the word. “But now it’s over. All right?”
For the first time, he turned around, abandoning the scuff mark that had anchored him. He faced the door he’d been leaning on, the door that hid Chloe, and said, “No.” Because it wasn’t all right at all.
“I’m going, all right?”
“No.” And then, finally, his desperate mind settled on a solution. A possibility. A hope. “I can show you,” he said. “I can show you that this is worth it. That you don’t need to be afraid because even when I fuck up I’ll make it better.”
“Red—”
“You are perfect for me, Chloe,” he said, determination stiffening his spine, strengthening his voice. Finally, his real self returned. He stepped into his confidence like a well-worn leather jacket. “I know you and I want you and I need you. We can do this. I’ll prove it to you.”
“You can’t, Red.” Her voice shook on his name. “This isn’t . . . Relationships aren’t supposed to hurt.”
“Life hurts,” he said fiercely. “It’s unavoidable. But I know the difference between torture and growing pains.”
She didn’t reply. She’d probably walked away, fed up with him rambling like a fanatic, but that was okay. He was okay. He’d made his decision and he’d stick by it: she meant too much for him to let things end like this. Maybe they’d end anyway, no matter what he did, and he’d have to come to terms with that—but not before he’d tried to fix things. Not before he’d done everything he could to earn her trust. To prove that he was there to stay, to show her he was working on himself. For her. Whatever it took.
He stared at her door for a moment longer, pretending she was still on the other side. He told her absence a secret: “I love you.”
Then he left. It was time to prove it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chloe wanted to believe that Red’s whispered I love you had been simple desperation—another last-ditch attempt to change her mind, to fix everything that had just shattered between them. But the thing was, if she hadn’t been pressed against the door, listening to him as her stung heart held her back, she wouldn’t have heard it at all.
Had he meant it? Was it real? Maybe it didn’t matter either way. Because no matter what he felt, no matter what she felt, he’d still ripped her open and shattered her insides just by walking out the door.
No one should be able to do that to her. Not like that. Not anymore.
So Chloe didn’t allow herself to cry when he was gone. Instead, she got to work.
Her body stiff and robotic, her physical pain at the very back of her mind, she sat down at her desktop computer, grim-faced, to finish his website. She would tie up every loose end there was between them, and then . . . then, she would wait until the end of her lease and move out. She’d be the one to disappear on him. For the first time, she’d be Chloe Badass Brown who walked away from all the dangerous emotional tangles that threatened her.
The thought brought a vicious smile to her face, but it wasn’t the kind of smile that made things better. If anything, it made her feel worse.
It took hours to finish the site. By the time she was done, her stomach cramped violently with hunger, her knuckles screamed with the agony of overuse, and her rigid, aching back brought tears to her eyes. She was hurting herself and she knew it, but she didn’t have room to regret it. As she fired off her last email to Red, the only thing she could feel was relief.
She’d be so much better after this was done. After she brought all these messy feelings, this imperfect, uncontrollable connection, to an end.
She kept the email short.
Red,
Your website is complete and ready to go live. I’ve attached all the information and instructions needed. Please remember to change your administrative passwords in order to remove my access.
Chloe
There. She waited for the pain to fade. Instead, it doubled, a thought hitting her hard: What if Red hurt like this, too? What if he was lost and struggling, still shaken by his earlier loss of control? What if he needed her and she’d turned away?
Chloe shut down her computer with a sharp click of the mouse, and cut off each treacherous mental question just as firmly. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. This was for the best.
She hoped.
* * *
She saw the n
otice the next day, on the building’s bulletin board. She almost dropped the post she’d come to pick up.
Superintendent Redford Morgan was leaving next month.
The words were like a fist to the gut. She’d been trying so hard not to remember his words through the door, promises she couldn’t bring herself to believe. So much for that. But she was glad—definitely glad—that he’d decided to listen to her and move on. Good for him. Good for her. Good for them both.
Chloe was shaky and distracted all the way back to her flat. Her thoughts were so busy, she almost didn’t notice the cardboard box waiting on her doorstep. She kicked it, in fact, the toe of her shoe bouncing off it as she went to put her key in the door. And somehow, the moment she saw it, she knew it was from Red.
After all, it couldn’t be anything she’d ordered—in spite of her mild dependency on internet shopping—because it was sitting right outside her front door, rather than in the post room. It had no address, either: just a word scrawled on top in black. She told herself it was some kind of care package from her parents, because they’d been known to do things like this. She could imagine her dad chuckling to himself as he left it by the door. But then she bent to pick it up and read the word scrawled on the box: Button.
She felt like a sack of useless bones after yesterday’s exertions, so she dragged the box into the hall rather than trying to pick it up. Then, once safely inside, she sat on the floor and stared at it and tried not to feel anything at all. It didn’t work. There was a hole in her chest the size of a lovestruck heart. This must be some sort of good-bye.
Good. The quicker he left, the quicker she’d never have to feel this way again.
Inside the box she found a notebook, its cover a beautiful iridescent gold. She opened it to the first page, saw lines and lines of Red’s distinctive scrawl, and slammed it shut as if she’d come across the devil’s Bible.