Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
“Yes, same. Lu, you can grab my stuff.”
The other couple gave me a short list before they headed to the kitchen cloaked in an air of haste. I didn’t blame them. The atmosphere in the hallway was thick with tension vicious and ugly.
Darcie glared as Ash and I walked up the staircase.
He didn’t say a word to me until we’d reached the landing and moved past the twisted runner, and could no longer be seen from downstairs.
A glance back, a pause, then he was looking directly at me.
I expected anger, even a repeat of Darcie’s venomous sting, but his shoulders sagged, his face . . . sad. Just sad. “I loved Bea. God, how I loved Bea.” Throat muscles moving, eyes blinking rapidly. “But I also love Darcie. We’re about to have a child.”
He jabbed a finger into the air toward me, but . . . there was nothing powerful about it, not like when he spoke of Bea. As if he was playacting what was expected. “I asked you to keep an eye on her, and you do this? Jesus, Luna.”
Hell no. Ash might be acting the concerned husband out of guilt at his continued love for Bea, but Darcie wasn’t going to snake out of this by playing the victim. And no way in fucking hell would I allow her to smear Bea’s name with impunity. “Is that what she’s told you all these years?” My nails cut into my palms. “That Bea hung herself?”
“I never asked.” His hands trembled as he shoved his hair back once again, the strands abused golden silk. “I didn’t want to know. I’ve always preferred to imagine her fading away in a drug haze. Beautiful and bright and happy.” His voice caught. “Just falling asleep and never waking up.”
“Bea didn’t do drugs.” She’d only ever done lines that one time and no one else knew about it.
“Nothing hard; the odd joint. Usually with Kaea.”
“That doesn’t count.” I wasn’t into drugs, but I wasn’t preachy about them, either—because I’d battled my own vices. Wine, beer, vodka, there’d been a time I’d have overdone any poison that’d blur the edges of my world, make me feel more normal, less like an error in the code.
A year into my time at university, during a weekend when Kaea, Vansi, and Aaron were all away for reasons I couldn’t remember, I’d woken to find I’d smashed every glass item in our kitchen, and that my feet were bleeding and studded with glass.
I should’ve gone to the emergency room.
Instead, I’d sat on the floor of our bathroom and used my makeup tweezers to pull the glass out shard by fine shard. I could still remember the sting of the antiseptic I’d wiped over the torn-apart flesh in the aftermath, the smell of iron rich in the air, and the crunch of glass as I swept it up.
I’d gone cold turkey for six months after that, and never again dropped that far into the abyss. Not even during Vansi’s bachelorette party. Because blurring the edges wasn’t as important as maintaining control. I hadn’t shared the incident with anyone, had just spent the rest of the weekend hobbling around charity shops finding replacements for our mismatched glassware.
No one had noticed.
“I just liked the mental image.” Ash’s confession was raw. “Imagining her slipping away in peace. It brought me comfort. Now that’s gone forever.”
I felt for him, but not enough to shroud the truth. “Bea did not hang herself.”
“Fuck it, Luna. Please. I’m begging you, don’t pick at that wound. You saw how Darcie was after Bea’s suicide—mad with grief.”
Again, a flatness below the apparent emotion. Or perhaps I just wanted there to be, wanted him to be loyal to Bea, to be the devoted lover Bea had believed him to be, rather than Darcie’s human-shaped doll.
“There was no logic or reason to her actions,” he added, “so don’t look for those things.”
Swiping out an arm to cut off any words I might’ve said, he shifted on his heel to walk into their bedroom. “I’ll meet you back here in a couple of minutes.”
I moved mechanically to grab my daypack, putting into it my laptop, wallet, and house keys. Everything I’d need if I had to leave the estate in a hurry. I also threw in a fresh set of clothes, plus some extra warm layers to share with Vansi, and was done.
I headed to Aaron and Grace’s room.
Ash was crouched by the floor runner when I returned to the hallway—but had stayed far enough back that there was no chance of disturbing it. “It’s too close to the stairs,” he murmured. “I would’ve noticed if it was this close to the stairs. I pull the damn thing back all the time when we visit, but Darcie refuses to get rid of it because her mother bought it.”