Chapter 34 #2

My bedroom is empty. The king-size bed has the highest thread count sheets money can buy, with decorative pillows that are ugly as fuck as the focal point, but there’s nothing to ground it, so it sits out of place next to nightstands that are never used.

The closet holds tactical gear, suits, and workout clothes all folded with neatly squared-off corners.

There’s not one row of comfortable clothes that Clover could wrap around herself. There’s nothing soft in the entire place.

Clover needs softness.

I almost smile, envisioning Clover’s chaos here. Brightly colored cardigans littering every nook and corner. Weighted blankets tossed haphazardly over each chair.

There’s none of that life here.

I walk through my space like a ghost haunting his own life.

The living room looks like a magazine spread for bachelor pads. Expensive leather couches fill the space. Have I ever even sat on them?

There’s a glass coffee table that’s never once seen a coffee ring. Walls that the designer painted a tasteful gray stand completely bare. No photos. No art. Nothing that suggests someone has lived here for years.

The kitchen is worse. Granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, not a single dish in the sink—I don’t even know where they are. Clover has brightly colored hand towels hanging from her stove and a hook beneath the sink.

They never match.

I open the refrigerator to find bottles of water and protein shakes that never expire. The pantry is empty except for a bag of coffee that probably belongs to Sterling.

Clover would line these shelves with cake mixes and jars of something pickled provided by someone on R&R Road.

Crossing the hall, I turn to my office but stop in the doorway. This was always my favorite room.

And it’s all because of the bookshelves that line the space.

I’d forgotten about the bookshelves.

They’re the only pieces of furniture in this entire apartment that hold any personality. The only things with character, with wear, with evidence of actual human interaction.

And the one directly behind my desk is filled with her books.

Every single one of Clover’s novels. First editions, most of them.

But also new versions with special covers I never opened but for some reason felt compelled to purchase when I saw them on Amazon.

They sit like perfect relics because I gravitated toward my dog-eared, spine-cracked paperback so many times that the pages have gone soft.

Comfort. Regardless of the content, something about her voice brought me comfort every time I read her words.

I bought them without knowing why. Read them without understanding the ache they left in my chest. Kept them when I threw everything else away because something in me couldn’t let them go.

Because something in me has always remembered her.

I pull her first book from my shelf. Forgotten Scars. The story of two childhood friends separated by tragedy, finding each other again against impossible odds.

Aunt Vivi bought it for me the day it released. I didn’t understand why she forced a buddy-read on me, watching me like a hawk, but by the second page, I felt something I couldn’t explain. I didn’t set it down again until I had read every word.

Clover was writing about us. She was always writing about us.

I sink into the desk chair, the book cradled in my hands, and stare out at the apartment I’ve been calling home.

Except now I see it for what it really is—a holding cell, a place to wait until my life returns.

Fuck.

Clover has always been my life.

How do I move forward without her?

My phone rings, and a new guilt clings to my ribs when I see Roman’s name on the caller ID.

“I’m fine,” I say in greeting.

“You sound like hell,” he says, but relief is in his tone too. I’m sure if I checked, I’d have at least a dozen missed calls from him. “Clover needs you, Valen.”

“She needs people who haven’t hurt her.”

“And yet, she only wants you, even though you left.” That painful little fucker in my chest sits up and begs. “She wouldn’t be asking for you if there wasn’t an ocean full of love under all that pain. You’re being a selfish fucking prick, blocking her out like this.”

“I’m protecting her,” I shout, spinning in my chair only to come face-to-face with a…snow globe. My one and only impulse purchase ever. It was from the hospital gift shop. It had caught my eye when I was released, and I knew someone close to me would love it—I just couldn’t remember who.

I cradle it in my hands now. The giant tree in the center stands tall and proud. The word hope is carved into the trunk. I bought this for her. She’s always been my hope and happiness.

“Punishing yourself for something you unknowingly did as a child isn’t protecting her, Valen, and it doesn’t bring them back either.”

“I’m not punishing myself.” The words are out before I can process the lie.

“Then what the fuck are you doing? Sitting in an empty apartment, refusing to see the woman who’s been waiting for you to remember her for fucking years? That’s not protecting her, V. That’s protecting yourself.”

Another knife. Another slice. Another wound I’m responsible for.

“She can’t heal with me there,” I say quietly, the admission laying me bare. I’m weaker than any of us knew. “Every time she looks at me, she’ll remember what I did. She’ll remember that I’m the reason she grew up needing safety measures and steel-enforced doors.”

“You don’t get to make that decision for her,” he says, anger tipping each word.

“I’m not making a choice,” I say flatly. “I’m giving her space to think, to recover, to come to terms with the lies she’s been running from. I owe her the respect of time to process without pressure.”

I turn the snow globe upside down, then twist the little knob. “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” plays from a tiny speaker.

Happiness. We’ve all been searching for it our entire lives.

“It’s not fucking pressure if she wants to speak with you,” he yells. But his words hit a brick wall because I can’t take my eyes off this little glass ball in my hand.