I could write, drink, or fuck my way through Europe—and had been doing that exact thing for the better part of a year—and River couldn’t hear me. Somewhere beneath the cold whispers, I knew I couldn’t keep going like this much longer.
My alcohol-soaked brain concocted a plan to rescue my broken heart. Like a puppet guided by someone else’s strings, I staggered out of the chair and made my way to the phone on the small table under Josephine’s smiling face. My fingers fumbled over the receiver.
“Can we help you, Monsieur Parish?” the operator answered in her French accent.
“Concierge,” I said, glancing at my trunk of journals under the window. Years’ worth of my story. Everything that was me was in that trunk, raw and unfiltered.
The concierge came on the line. “How can I assist you, Monsieur Parish?”
“I need to have something sent to America. Immediately.”
We spoke for a few minutes and then I staggered back into the bedroom. JB slept peacefully, his strong body spread out, claiming ownership of my bed, just as he’d claimed my body that night.
Too late, I thought, wandering back to the living area. I belong to someone else. I will always belong to him…
At the striped couch in the living room, the puppeteer cut the strings. I collapsed and pulled a thin throw blanket over me. Shivering, I curled in a ball and fell into oblivion.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Amelia, get back here!” I followed my sister through the front door. “We’re not done talking about this.”
She ignored me. The same silent treatment she’d given me in my truck when I got her from the police station where she’d been picked up for truancy. She stomped up the stairs to her room. I was about to go after her when a sharp pain lanced up my shin. I tripped, catching myself on the bannister.
“Goddammit.”
Someone had left a steamer trunk in the entry. It looked vaguely familiar; maybe Dazia was back for a visit. I rubbed my shin with a curse and started after Amelia upstairs, but her door slammed hard enough to make the house shiver.
“Shit.”
I gave the trunk a kick, anger and frustration boiling up in me. I fought for calm; if they escaped, the grief was sure to follow.
“But the fucking police station?” I seethed and stormed through the house to the den.
Dad was in his chair, having taken the day off from the shop. He’d been doing that more and more lately. A replay of the 2018 Eagles-Patriots Super Bowl game was on the flat screen.
“Dad, we have to talk.” I turned the chair beside his recliner to face him.
“Sure, son,” he said, his eyes on the TV. “What can I do ya for?”
“It’s Amelia. She’s ditching again. The cops picked her up at the mall.”
Dad sat up, his eyebrows rising. “The police?”
“I don’t know what to do with her anymore. I’ve tried everything. I need you to…” Do something. Anything… “Talk to her. Please. She needs you, Dad.”
I needed him too, to come back from wherever he went to escape the grief.
“I will,” he said. “She’s gone too far if the police are involved.” But his eyes were already drifting back to the game. “Look at Brady’s pass.” He shook his head, marveling. “That could be you, you know. It’s not too late.”
I clenched my jaw. “Dad…”
“I know, I know. It’s too dangerous.”
I started to tell him—again—the car accident had nothing to do with why I quit football but didn’t bother. He rarely spoke about the accident and he never mentioned Holden or my non-existent love-life. Out of sight, out of mind.
“Dad, when are you going to talk to Amelia?”
“Soon. Tonight.”