Scarlet Stone, page 23
Losing the will to live cannot be understood until—it happens. It’s not that the pain is too much; it’s the ability to feel anything has been suffocated by the pain. It’s literally mind-numbing. Complete detachment from life and reality.
My name is Scarlet Stone, and on the day Oscar was arrested, he told me to remember that letting go takes far more strength than holding on.
Later—when? I don’t know, just later—Theo comes back into the bathroom and opens the curtain. I hug my knees, feeling more numb than ever before. My lips have to be blue.
“For fuck’s sake …” He adjusts the water and squirts shampoo in my hair and all over my body. Then he scrubs me down as the warm water begins to erase the chills.
I’m wrapped in a towel and carried to his bedroom where he lays me on the mattress and dresses me in a long-sleeved T-shirt and boxer shorts that he has to roll over at the waist several times and even then they slide from my hips.
The man with remnants of my heart embedded in the bottom of his black boots on the floor a few feet away squats in front of me as I hug my knees, resting my chin on one of them. I stare at the frayed hems of his jeans brushing along the top of his bare feet. Theo has pretty feet. Does he know that? I bet it’s from walking in the sand and swimming in the ocean everyday. I would tell him that, but I’m done talking. I’m done caring. I’m done worrying. I’m just … done.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Theodore
My mother was shot in the head at close range. We didn’t have an open-casket funeral for her. My father took his own life two weeks later. We didn’t have an open-casket funeral for him either. Braxton Ames confessed to murdering my mom, but when he decided he couldn’t handle prison anymore, he fabricated some story about being coerced into confessing to a crime he didn’t commit. He knew the evidence against him was weak to begin with so I had no doubt that when the judge granted a retrial, he would go free.
It’s not right. It’s not fair. A man cannot take away my whole life and then walk. I cannot live knowing that he is enjoying freedom while my parents reside six feet under. Everyone has a calling in life. This is mine. Seeking revenge—justice—for the death of my parents is my calling.
But …
The woman before me could quite possibly kill me before I get the chance to avenge my parents’ deaths. Loving her hurts … Some days I swear it hurts worse than the loss of my parents. Today is one of those days. I’ve said the unimaginable and done the unforgivable. And now I’m the one with the knife lodged into my heart. With every look she twists it a little deeper.
Every time she refuses to eat.
Every time she refuses to drink.
Every time she refuses my touch.
Every word. God … the words. She’s obliterated me with words.
It’s not just the words; it’s how she says them. Her voice, the vacant look in her eyes. It’s that she means them. I can’t find an ounce of life in her expression.
“Drink.” I lift her head and tip the glass of water to her mouth. She doesn’t even blink. She also doesn’t fight me. I keep tipping the glass until she drinks the last drop of water.
Show me some fucking life.
She hasn’t been here that long. The woman before me is not suffering from starvation or dehydration. She just fell in love with the wrong guy. It’s true—I am worse than the cancer.
“I’m leaving. You’re not tied up. Your purse is over there on the floor. Your car keys are in it. The guns are not in your trunk anymore.”
Please leave.
Save yourself.
Hate me. I need you to hate me so that you can let me go.
Then go …
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
My name is Scarlet Stone and kids make fun of my name. I don’t understand what’s wrong with my name.
Scarlet
Theo leaves. I collapse onto the mattress and close my eyes. When all the life inside is gone, there is nowhere to go except in dreams. What happens when dreams die? What happens when the mind can’t find any more stories? What happens when thoughts die before they ever truly form?
Time passes. Minutes? Hours? My mind can’t make sense of it. I stopped counting: minutes, seconds, breaths.
“Goddammit! Why are you still here?” Theo is so mad at me. Why is he mad at me? I love him. I’m his song.
“If I find you passed out, when I find you passed out, I’m not calling for an ambulance. If you want to kill yourself, a gun would be a helluva lot easier.”
“You have to leave! Open your eyes.” Pain. There’s so much pain to that voice. I can hear it, but I can’t feel it. I can’t feel anything. I like not feeling anything.
Fuck you, cancer.
I pull the trigger.
Nothing.
“I take your life. You don’t get the fucking choice. Do you understand?”
Calloused hands grip my face. I fight the heavy weight, the bright light, and blink open my eyes.
“You,” I whisper. “You take it.”
Theo’s forehead wrinkles, eyes squinted. “Take what?”
“My life.”
His jaw clenches and I see something I never thought I’d see—tears. They fill his eyes like he’s choking on his next breath. “Jesus …” He presses his forehead to mine, squeezing his eyes shut, and his tears fall onto my face and become mine. Silent sobs wrack his body. “I can’t take your life …” The words rip from his throat. “So, fuck you…” more tears “…because you’ve already taken mine.” He grips my face harder. “You’ve ruined the man I need to be…” more sobs “…You’ve turned me into a fucking failure because all I want to do is this.”
Theo kisses me, slow at first, then more urgent. I don’t kiss him back. I can’t. Everything is still too numb—my lips, my hands, my heart.
His mouth moves to my cheek, my jaw, my neck.
Nothing.
He releases another sob. My heart tries to feel it, but it can’t. It’s too late.
“Don’t … don’t do this.” His mouth covers mine again.
Nothing.
I should cry. I’ve waited so long for him to give me this. I blink.
Nothing.
Pushing away, he kneels by the mattress, sitting back on his heels. He rips off his gray beanie, exposing his closely buzzed hair. His hands cover his face, shoulders curled inward, body shaking. “No … no … no… Scarlet …” He whispers my name like he’s using his last breath to say it.
I gasp as if his last breath is my first. One blink and tears run down my face. My heart drums with so much pain … pain that I feel.
Theodore Reed has never said my name. Not. One. Single. Time.
Until now.
Inch by slow inch, I bring myself to sitting on the edge of the mattress in front of him. My hands wrap around his wrists. He sucks in a shaky breath and holds it as I pull his hands away from his face. When he releases his breath it’s everything.
“Scarlet,” he whispers again.
Chills. I never thought it was possible for someone to whisper life back into another person. I was wrong.
He swallows hard. Eyes red. Cheeks stained with emotion. “Live for me.”
Love?
Hate?
It’s love. Love wins.
Biting my quivering lips together, I nod once.
Theo cradles my face. I cradle his.
He kisses me. I kiss him.
He tears at my clothes. I tear at his.
He moves down my body, bringing it back to life one kiss—one bite at a time. My back arches as my hands move to his head. I curl them into fists, finding nothing to hold. I miss his hair.
Sucking in a sharp breath, my fingers clutch the sheets next to me instead. His tongue drags between my legs so…
Very. Slowly.
I feel my pulse right where his tongue stops.
Feeling.
I feel again. His name lingers on my lips, but I don’t have the breath to bring it into existence. There’s too much emotion in my chest. Breathing is its own feat.
He nips and sucks at my flesh all the way up to my lips again, thrusting his tongue into my mouth, claiming all of me.
The swollen head of his cock teases between my legs. What if it’s a dream? What if I’m dead?
I have to know if this is real. “Hard…” I breathe as he sucks the sensitive skin along my neck “…unforgiving…” I pant “…or not at all.”
His forehead drops to the mattress above my shoulder as his hands hook behind my knees. Pulling my pelvis off the mattress, he drives into me. Hard.
I cry out, pinching my eyes shut.
“It’s the only way I know how,” he whispers in my ear between labored breaths.
*
My lips press to his chest, relishing the warmth of his flesh against mine, our limbs tangled, the sheets twisted in chaos. The physical questions have all been answered with sex. But … to exist in this world together, we have to acknowledge emotion and reason.
I wanted to die, and for a moment in time, I honestly thought he wanted me dead too. Some things—certain emotions—cut so deep they become physical wounds to the soul. They bleed into the next life. Words can’t heal. Time can’t erase. At best, love can make them bearable.
We took each other to the breaking point, and I don’t know about him, but I think I actually broke. I resented every breath my lungs took, every blink, every heartbeat. I found peace in not wanting to exist. The darkness no longer felt cold. The pain evaporated.
“I need you,” I whisper.
Theo kisses the top of my head.
“I need you to help me not need you.”
He pulls back to look at my face, his head resting on his folded arm, confusion a roadmap on his forehead.
My fingers pinch my bottom lip, tugging at it gently. I feel as much confusion etched in my own face. This is so hard to articulate. “I want to beat this cancer for you … but I need to beat it for me. I’m living for you at the moment because I …” Tears sting my eyes. Rolling my lips together, I blink them away. “I’ve lost the will to live it for myself.”
This is the lowest of all lows. Admitting I don’t want to live. I’ve never felt so weak, so pathetic, so nothing.
The pad of his thumb catches my tear before it gets away.
“I need you to teach me to walk again. Show me how to live with you, not for you.” I shake my head, swallowing past the remnants of my pride. “I thought I had it. On Tybee, I felt peace, strength, grounded, unafraid. The cancer started to shrink. I was happy. I was different, and I loved the new me. I loved life.”
His thumb brushes my cheek again like its sole purpose in life is to catch every piece of me to do what he does best: put things together—put me back together.
“But then you left, and I started to fall apart. That’s when I realized everything I did on Tybee was tethered to you and the farther you were from me, the more I unraveled. I was the bird who built my nest in a beautiful oak tree. I was so proud of my nest, my home. Then a storm came along and knocked down the oak tree.”
“I’m your tree,” Theo whispers.
I nod.
His thumb moves to my lips. There’s so many unspoken emotions in his expression.
“Scarlet …”
My name. Will the day ever come that my name passing his lips doesn’t bring tears to my eyes?
My name is Scarlet Stone and kids make fun of my name. I don’t understand what’s wrong with my name.
I didn’t recognize the man who threatened to kill me, and I don’t recognize the man before me with so much regret in his eyes. The muscle in his jaw ticks and his nostrils flare on a long exhale like his silence is the only thing holding him together.
There is nothing I can do to take away the things he did to me. Nor is there anything I can say to make it okay.
“There are no words for what I’ve done to us—to you.” Sorrow deepens in his eyes. “You will be my greatest masterpiece. I will build you with the strongest materials. Nothing will be rushed. Even if it takes a lifetime … every little detail will be perfect.”
No human has ever said “I love you” as poetically as Theodore Reed just did.
He ducks down and brushes his lips over mine. “Scarlet,” he whispers with choked words. “I am so … incredibly…” his voice cracks “…incomparably … infinitely sorry.”
My lips part when his tongue brushes along the seam.
“I will spend a thousand lifetimes making it up to you.”
*
After I drift off to sleep, Theo retrieves my stuff from the hotel and brings it back to his flat. In the morning, we lie silent in the emotional rubble. I slip out of bed; we share sad smiles. What’s left to say? I grab some clothes.
“Scarlet?”
I stop before rounding the corner to the bathroom. Without turning back toward him, I just listen.
Nothing.
He may live. I may live. We may overcome this. But … part of us died. Every day will be a test to see if we hit our tipping point. Did the cancer of revenge and lies take too much? I hope not. Theo doesn’t have to say any more. I feel the same fear that’s in his voice.
“I forgive you,” I whisper. It’s impossible to forget. This is all I can give him. It may feel like nothing, but it’s all I have. It’s something.
When I get out of the shower, he’s in his room loading all the weapons back in the trunk. I pause a second to admire his body, no shirt, beautiful ink, dark jeans, and the minimal hair on his head and face. I do miss his hair.
“Now what?” I ask, draping my bath towel around my neck.
He locks the trunk and turns, taking a seat on top of it, hands folded between his legs. “Food. I show you where I grew up. Maybe we happen upon a horse or two and I teach you how to ride.”
Can we step over the remnants of destruction and move forward? I smile because Theo is trying to lay the foundation for the life I never even imagined. I think it could be a good one.
My smile falters. “And Braxton Ames?”
He blows out a long breath. “I have no direction right now. I’ve spent years feeding on rage, existing in an aftermath of regret, living for revenge. If I let Ames walk … then what?”
I shrug as I straddle his legs and drape my arms behind his neck. “Then us.”
His brow wrinkles with what I know is pain. Asking him to choose us probably feels like he’s letting his parents down. I don’t want him to let them down. I want him to let them go. This is not a life, and Theo is too young, too talented, too loved to not have a life that’s worthy of rock-star status.
With a slow nod, he whispers, “Then us,” like he’s searching for the true meaning of those two words.
There may never come a day that he can completely let go. I think revenge is a very animalistic part of human behavior that is ingrained in all of us from birth. Even on a very basic level of a mother’s instinct to protect her child, humans have that capability. And like certain animals, we can tame it, control it, but it never completely goes away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Theodore
The smile on my face screams pathetic schmuck. For a brief moment in time, I forget that inside I’m still at war. Is it—can it be—possible that I got it wrong? Is my purpose the woman before me? Because I seriously cannot stop grinning. The Scarlet Stone on Tybee was a glimpse of the woman who insisted she have her own horse to ride—the woman who rode it with such command it made my dick hard, the woman now hugging the gentle giant, giving me the can-we-keep-him look.
“Say goodbye.”
“I want to steal him.” She gives me a Cheshire cat grin.
If anyone else said that, I would laugh. Something tells me, if given the chance, she could steal that thoroughbred. I don’t give her the chance.
“I have something else you can ride.”
Two perfect eyebrows perk. “I’m listening.”
“Maybe we leave the horse and steal a riding crop.”
She kisses the horse and struts toward me with purpose. “Leather riding boots would be fun too.”
My fucking zipper is about to bust. “They would.”
“Meet me in the truck, Mr. Reed.”
She brushes past me.
“Where are you going?”
“To steal a riding crop.”
Hooking my finger through the belt loop of her jeans, I tug her toward me then flip her little body over my shoulder.
“Hey!”
“Shh. You’re going to scare the horses.” I smack her ass.
She fights for all of two seconds before her body goes limp. I love her surrender.
I cut her back.
I held a knife to her throat.
I threatened to kill her.
Yet … she gives me everything. Why, Scarlet? I will never fully understand how you do it.
Her hands tug at the back of my shirt, inching it up until I feel the warmth of her lips on my skin. Ambling to the truck with the best part of this world hanging over my shoulder, I close my eyes for a few breaths. Can a hundred and fifteen pounds of sexy, sass, and stubbornness save me? I swear to God … I think it’s possible, and I have no idea what to do with that possibility.
I unlock the truck and ease her from my shoulder, setting her in the seat. She grabs my shirt and pulls me to her lips. There’s no one more undeserving of this moment than I am. Scarlet likes the idea of Karma. Not me. Karma would never give this woman to me. It will be fine with me if Karma dies in a cosmic accident before my name comes up on her Scores to Settle List.
Pulling back, I try to hide the fucking fear that’s eating me up inside. The moment I surrendered to her was a drop-all-weapons-raise-the-white-flag moment that’s left me scared shitless—completely vulnerable. “I’m—” I can’t even speak past the fear. It’s a living thing pulsing in my throat.
Her hands press to my cheeks. “You’re forgiven.”
