She should open it. Should read his good-bye, which doubtless included many apologies and would only confirm the very reasonable conclusion she’d drawn: that relationships were just too risky, and they’d both been fools to try. That she needed to be alone, because it was safer. After all, if she’d been alone these past weeks, she wouldn’t have spent last night sobbing until she lost her voice. Wouldn’t have had a reason to.
Chloe put a hand to her raw throat and reminded herself that he’d left, and he’d do it again, and it wasn’t worth the risk, and she never should’ve bothered with a man anyway, not after she’d been so comfortable without one for years.
And yet, she still couldn’t open the book.
She set it aside with the same care one might use to move a poisonous snake. There were more things in the box, hidden by a layer of tissue paper. She ripped it away to find he’d sent her favorite chocolate. Green & Black’s sea salt. Not in a fancy hamper like the ones she knew they offered online, either—just slab after slab of the stuff, as if he’d walked into a shop and bought out all their stock like a loon. The bright blue bars tugged at her heart for precisely 0.002 seconds before she steeled herself against them. This was a good-bye present. Nothing that should make her wistful or hopeful or regretful.
She put the chocolate on her coffee table so it was within reach while she worked. No use wasting it.
The next day, another box arrived, significantly smaller than the first. This time, she was thoroughly confused. It was from Red, there was no doubt of that, but what else could he possibly need to give her? It turned out to be a jar, one with tiny gold stars embedded in the glass. They twinkled when she held it up to the light, and for a second all she could think about was that night in the woods, stars in the sky, little spots of light inside their tent.
And him. Red.
The jar contained a trio of the hair ties she liked, the soft fabric ones that didn’t snag. She huffed out a laugh as she realized what he was trying to do; she never knew where her hair ties were, unless they were on her head. So he wanted her to keep them in a jar. But, she reminded herself, pushing the smile off her face, jars weren’t any use to her. Between her fibromyalgia and the amount she used her hands for work, the strength in her wrists and fingers was usually zero. It was a rare and blessed day when Chloe Brown could open a jar.
She was about to put it back in the box when she realized that it didn’t actually have a lid. Or rather, not a lid that resembled anything she’d ever seen. There was an odd, transparent-looking bubble thing around the opening, and she prodded it tentatively. It gave under her touch. She pushed just a little bit harder. And then her hand was in the jar.
She stared in amazement, her eyes catching up with what her nerve endings were trying to tell her. There was a circular band of cushioning around the jar’s rim that ballooned up to “close” it, but shrank back under pressure to let her hand in.
Maybe chocolate and a letter she refused to read could be taken as a good-bye, but this, she didn’t know how to take. This was something you gave someone to show them . . .
To show them you cared. Or that you loved.
Maybe she should read the note. Maybe it wouldn’t be a good-bye after all. Maybe it would be sheer magic on a sheet of paper, and it would say exactly the right thing—the thing she couldn’t even define, the thing she didn’t know existed. The thing that would erase all the hurt she’d felt and make her brave enough to do this again.
And maybe she’d run a marathon tomorrow. But she wouldn’t bet her life on that, now, would she? So she steeled herself against her heart’s fanciful interpretations, and she put the jar beside the chocolate, and she absolutely refused to open the book.
Days passed and more gifts came.
Boxes of her favorite fruit and herbal teas. A little stuffed cat that looked so like Smudge, she might possibly have cried just the tiniest bit when she saw it. And maybe, perhaps, sometimes, she slept with it beside her. But that didn’t matter, because there were no witnesses.
Next was a guide to New York City, light enough for her to carry, that gave directions using major landmarks and street signs instead of maps. Then there was a tiny, plastic pink chair, studded with little diamantés, that she realized on a bark of laughter was supposed to be Madame Chair. It was followed by a bag of marshmallows, accompanied by a handwritten recipe describing how to roast them with an oven. She could tell he’d tried to be neat with his rounded block capitals, but there was a smudge of sunset-orange paint on the back of the thick, creamy paper that made her smile. He’d drawn goofy little cartoon pictures next to each instruction.
She missed him. She missed him so much that she was starting to hate him.
She found the gold notebook and held it in her hands and tried to make herself open it. She knew it wasn’t a good-bye. It was almost certainly an apology, an explanation that he’d panicked.
The problem was, Chloe had panicked that day, too, and she hadn’t stopped ever since. Dragging herself out of this confusing, teary fog of fear didn’t feel impossible, but it did feel daunting. As if she might not manage it alone. As if she might get lost in the dark. She could only think of one person who could shine a light on her murky thoughts.
She put the notebook down and grabbed her coat.
* * *
Gigi’s attic yoga studio was warm enough to make Chloe slightly drowsy, as was the low, gentle music and the smooth hum of the instructor’s voice. “Breathe in for me . . . and out. In . . . and out . . .”
Chloe found herself following those instructions as she waited awkwardly on a beanbag for the class of one to finish. She hadn’t realized what a jittery mess she was until she’d gotten in the car to drive over here. She’d ended up calling a taxi instead.
“One more time . . .” the soothing voice said. It came from Shivani, a depressingly happy, confident, and glowing woman in her midfifties who swanned about in sports bras and leggings and did inhuman things with her spine. Not ripping-it-out-and-beating-aliens-with-it type inhuman things, though. More like particularly impressive bow poses. She stood at the front of the room, opposite Gigi, who was also wearing a sports bra and leggings and had, beneath her fine, crepey skin, better abs than any of her granddaughters. Sigh.
The class wound down. Gigi and Shivani chuckled softly to each other as if their mutual flexibility, fitness, and, presumably, inner peace were some sort of hilarious inside joke. Then they hugged for several long, sweaty moments, murmuring things in each other’s ears. If Chloe allowed herself to think about it for more than five seconds at a time, she would have to accept that Gigi was 100 percent banging her yoga instructor and had been for about the last seven years, which was why Chloe did not allow herself to think about it for more than five seconds at a time.
“I’ll see you later, Chloe, love!” Shivani called out as she left. She wasn’t leaving the house, of course. No, she was just going downstairs to give Chloe and Gigi some privacy, and also to start Gigi’s wheatgrass, chocolate, and Baileys smoothie, the perfect predinner tipple. Apparently.
“So, darling,” Gigi purred, producing an electric blue silk wrap from thin air and slipping gracefully into it. She came over to the beanbags where Chloe had been waiting patiently for the past half hour. Or, to be truthful, where she’d been waiting sullenly and with a slightly frantic air. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
“I just thought I’d pop by.” Chloe attempted to say this airily, but the words hit the professionally distressed wood floor like six lumps of lead.
Gigi arched a brow. “You, a woman who has not driven voluntarily since 2003—”
“Slight exaggeration, Gigi.”
“—were moved to get into your car, tootle out of your beloved, filthy, gray city—”
“I got a taxi for the safety of the public, actually.”
“—and scurry through the house like a sneaky little mouse to avoid your parents and Eve—”
“I did not,” Chloe l
ied hotly.
“—because you felt the urge to pop by?” Gigi pursed glossy lips. When had they become glossy? Had she just applied makeup by psychic command? “Darling, as the children say, don’t bullshit me.”
“Ah,” Chloe muttered, “my loving grandmother.”
“Your impatient grandmother who wants her smoothie and her Shivani. I know how you get, Chloe, my love. Save us both the trouble and spit it out.”
Perhaps those words were a spell rather than a suggestion, because they worked. Words tumbled from Chloe’s lips before she could overthink them, convince herself to keep them inside, or even arrange them into something deceptively dry and apparently unimportant. “When you love someone, Gigi—someone who doesn’t have to love you back—and they might hurt you, and you might hurt them, and anything could go wrong, and it already has, how do you know that it’s, erm . . .”
“Real?” Gigi suggested. But, disturbingly, Chloe had no questions on that count. It hadn’t even occurred to her to ask.
Her question was far more difficult. “How do you know that it’s safe? How do you know that it’s worth the risk?” Please tell me it never is. Please tell me that I did the right thing. Please tell me I didn’t abandon Red right back and that we’re better off apart.
No. Please don’t.
Gigi regarded her for a long moment with those beautiful, maddening eyes, framed by smile lines that proved what Chloe already knew: despite her habit of telling her grandchildren not to frown, laugh, or otherwise emote for fear of wrinkles, Gigi had never let anything stop her from living life to the fullest.
Finally, the older woman said, “You’ve asked me two very different questions in one go, Chloe, and I hope you don’t think they’re at all the same. Love is certainly never safe, but it’s absolutely worth it.” She produced an unlit cigarette and twirled it between long, elegant fingers. Since Gigi wasn’t wearing a head scarf this afternoon, her chic crop of white coils on display, Chloe had absolutely no idea where the Marlboro had been hidden. Her knickers? Up one nostril? In an alternate dimension she accessed at will? God only knew.
After a moment, Gigi spoke again. “I fell in love at sixteen with a scoundrel of a man who impregnated and abandoned me, which of course led to my parents kicking me out of the house because I’d set a poor example for my sisters. My caring for your—well, for your grandfather, I suppose—didn’t do anything to fix the fact that he was a pathetic, nasty little man who wasn’t worthy of the love I gave him. And his many flaws, unfortunately, didn’t stop me from adoring him. After all, when it comes to love, it’s not a person’s flaws we’re looking at, now is it?” She smiled wryly, but Chloe couldn’t quite bring herself to smile back. “Love isn’t safe, as that story proves. But is it worth it?” Gigi raised her arms in a typically grand gesture, and Chloe knew she wasn’t indicating the mansion they currently sat in, so different from the tiny family home Gigi had been kicked out of, but the people who lived inside it. “I have your father. I have you girls. And, of course, I have my top-ten hit, ‘Hey, Mr. Dick Junior,’ which, if any lawyers or journalists happen to come sniffing around, has what, darling?”
“Absolutely nothing to do with one Richard F. Jameson, whom my poor, dear grandmother has never even heard of,” Chloe recited obediently. “But, Gigi, I . . . Well, you might as well know that I’m talking about Red.”
“Gasp,” Gigi murmured.
Chloe glowered. “I suppose I’ve fallen in love with him,” she said, which was the least embarrassing way she could phrase I love Redford Morgan like a man-eating tiger loves soft and fleshy upper arms. “And I think he might . . .” She cleared her throat and straightened her spine, accepting what she should’ve known from the start. From the moment he’d called her name through the door. “He loves me, too,” Chloe said. Because she felt in her bones that it was true. “But we hurt each other, and now I feel trapped in this endless hesitation because, well—what if we keep doing it? What if we keep making messes? I’ve always felt like I’m the kind of person who . . .” She smiled, even though it wasn’t funny. “I’m the kind of person who hurts. Too much.”
“No,” Gigi corrected calmly. “You are a woman who, in a life filled with pain, came here to ask about love.”
Those words hit Chloe like a perfect, chiming chord, the kind that reverberated through her very soul. They were true in a way that spoke to her. True in a way that made her take another look at herself. “Yes,” she murmured slowly. “I suppose I am.”
Who else was she? Red always called her tough. He called her a badass. She agreed, because, physically, she was. But emotionally? She’d always been so afraid. And yet . . .
She was the woman who’d come here to ask about love.
She was the woman who’d decided to change her entire life with nothing but a list.
She was the woman who survived, every single day.
She was Chloe fucking Brown, and she was starting to wonder if she’d been brave from the beginning. If she’d just needed to love herself enough to realize it.
She supposed, as the knowledge dawned in her like a sunrise, that she must love herself right now. And it felt good.
* * *
She went home and opened the notebook.
It had been on her coffee table, shiny and golden, comforting and terrifying, for almost a week now. She grabbed her fake Smudge for moral support, then briefly wondered if she should call Annie for real moral support. But no—Annie was horrible at answering her phone, and while she would call back eventually, Chloe needed to do this now.
She needed him. And he, she rather thought, needed her. Time to find out.
She opened the book. His handwriting was careful not-quite-chaos, so very Red that she ran fond fingers over the letters. Then she told herself sternly to stop mooning and read.
Dear Chloe,
You might have heard that I’m quitting my job. That probably seems like I’m leaving you, but I’m not. I gave notice the day before our camping trip because being with you and being your superintendent seemed like a bad idea. This job was safe for me, but I want you more than I want that safety. And anyway, partly because of you, I don’t think I need that safety anymore.
You’ve done a lot for me, and the fact that all I’ve done in return is hurt you . . . well, it makes me feel like shit on a basic level, but then I feel extra shit, because oh my God, Chloe, I love you so fucking bad. I’ve been wondering if I should say it like this, after what happened. But this might be the only chance I get, and I need you to know because it’s the truest thing about me. Chloe Sophia Brown, I am so in love with you. And I want to prove it, because that’s what you deserve. I want you to trust me again. I want to make you smile until you forget how it feels to cry. I want you to know I’m not going anywhere.
And, since you’re the expert planner, I decided to take a leaf out of your book. I made a list.
Get Chloe Back
Lure her with food and presents.
Wait outside Annie’s house; nick Smudge.
Learn how to use a PlayStation. ✓
Paint in front of windows, shirtless. Maybe naked. Might traumatize residents/get arrested, but I think she’d like it.
Take charge of all buttons so she can wear real cardigans if she wants to.
Use my bloody Instagram account. ✓
Continue therapy. ✓
Love her, always, no matter what. ✓
I already started on some. I’m hoping if I work through the list, eventually I’ll get you back. If it’s all wrong or you want something else or you have this burning desire to tell me what a dick I am, feel free. Call me. Come over. Open your curtains and give me the bird. Please. I miss you.
We can do this. If you don’t trust me on that, trust yourself. Because you must know you can do anything you set your mind to.
Yours,
Red
Chloe read the letter three times. Only when one of her tears plopped onto the page, drowning the d at the end of h
is name, did she rip herself away from the words. She looked up at her curtains, drawn tight as a shield, and her eyes narrowed. Bright, glittering power surged through her, and for the first time in a while, she felt alive. Impatient. Determined. Demanding. She stalked over, ripped them open, and winter darkness appeared before her.
Winter darkness and a stubborn square of light.
A familiar figure stood behind the window across the courtyard, his sunset hair hanging over his face, his chest bare to reveal corded muscle, bold ink, vulnerable skin, and vitality. He was bent over a canvas, as always, but a second after she opened the curtains, he stilled. Then slowly, slowly, turned.
She didn’t hide.
The distance between them made it difficult to see that feline, springtime gaze, but she felt the moment their eyes met. An electrifying shiver rushed through her body. He faced the window fully, put his hand against the glass, and she had the oddest feeling that this was one of those moments in life that could amount to everything or nothing. Could be a transformation or a regret. This was the sort of moment that reckless, exciting women experienced—
No. No. This was the sort of moment she experienced, lists, worries, razor-sharp shyness and all. Bravery wasn’t an identity so much as a choice.
She chose him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Red used to think that fucking up was his specialty—but after fucking up with Chloe, he hadn’t let himself think that anymore. Because if it was true, he’d lost her forever. And if he’d lost her forever . . .
No. Not an option.
So Red had decided that his new specialty was fixing things. After all, he’d known from the moment love hit him like a truck that he couldn’t shove it at her and hope for the best. He’d known she’d need more, that he’d have to make her understand everything in his heart, that he’d have to give her a reason to trust him. And so, he formulated his plan and he wrote his list. Then, since he’d handed in his notice to Vik and time was flying, he’d pulled himself together and gotten down to business.