She pulls back and looks up at my face, her blue eyes filled with tears. “I was wrong about everything.”
“No,” I whisper. “You said I wasn’t invested that night. And you were right. I wasn’t. I wasn’t invested in anything. Not the job, not JD, not the business, not even you. So I had to let you go, Blue. Because you deserve better than that. You deserve the kind of love that has no conditions. You deserve the kind of love that’s free. You deserve devotion. So I left so I could find a way to give you all those things.”
And then I reach into my pocket and pull out a remote control. “Click it on, Blue.”
She reaches for the little white plastic with a blinking red light. “What is it?” She looks up at me with total trust and I smile.
“My investment.”
And then I press her finger and the lights come on.
We are everywhere. Our faces paper the wall, lit up like the angels we wanted to think we were, and not the demons we know we are.
Me. JD. And Ark. Three people who stumbled on each other in the rain.
Us in the tub, the mist obscuring our faces, but not our intentions. Us on the terrace, their hands between my legs, my mouth open in a moan you can hear through time and paper. Us, us, us. Everywhere.
I walk down the row of photographs, studying each one, remembering the day they were taken, the smile reluctantly coming forth with each passing moment. “We were in love, weren’t we?” I ask Ark.
“We still are, baby. We still are.”
My chin trembles and when I look he nods, as if to reaffirm this declaration yet again. He places a hand into the small of my back and urges me forward. I take small steps so I can see each picture. Most of them are in black and white. We are nude. We are kissing. “There are more of JD and me than with you.” I sigh. “You always forgot the tripod.”
“I know,” Ark says. “But I don’t make that mistake anymore.” I give him a weird look as we take a step into the darkness. The end of the line of photos. “I can’t afford to let the moments slip by. So I take pictures every day. I want to record every change.”
And then he reaches for the little remote in my hand and clicks it one more time. The opposite side of the room lights up, only the photos on that wall are not of us.
They are of a little girl.
I know who she is the second I look into her blue eyes. But even if I didn’t recognize her, the charm in her smile gives it away.
“Her name is Paige.”
Blue stares at my six-year-old daughter. JD’s daughter.
“Her parents went to jail, and since JD had me listed as next of kin on all his legal papers, they let me adopt her. She’s my whole life, Blue. She erases all the mistakes.”
Blue walks up to the largest picture and touches my little girl’s face. “She’s beautiful.”
“She looks just like him, don’t you think?”
Blue nods and then she turns. “What happened? I run that night through my head every day. Why? Why did he do that?
I can only shrug. But it’s a copout and I know it. You’re invested now, I remind myself. “He was sick, Blue. He was sick since the day I met him. Manic-depressive. Bipolar, whatever you want to call it. And the guilt he had…” I shake my head. “He’s the one who heard about the baby-sellers. He’s the one who made Marie go work for them to pay for his drug habit. He’s the one who handed the baby over. She disappeared the same day as the baby. And I can only assume they are the ones who killed her, but we just don’t know. JD said she killed herself because he made her sell the baby. He couldn’t live with the guilt.”
Blue walks over to me and I wrap her up in my arms. “I couldn’t save him, but I could save Paige by getting her back. I could save you by walking away and letting you figure out who you are and what you want. And I could save myself by walking away from that life and starting this one.”
“I love you,” she says.
I swallow hard and step back half a step. “Then stay with me, Blue. Let me love you back the way you deserve to be loved. You don’t need me to save you. I don’t need you to save me. She doesn’t need us to save her.” I motion to Paige’s picture on the wall.
Blue hesitates, and then looks me in the eyes. “JD was right and you were wrong, you know.”
“I’m wrong a lot. But please don’t hold it against me.”
She smiles and places her small hands on my rough cheeks, pressing against my skin. And then she rises up on her tiptoes and kisses me. “You were wrong about the motto on your back, Ark. Everything should come in threes. Especially us. Because one is where it all starts. Two is only halfway there. But three…” She rises up to kiss me again and then she whispers, “Three was always our perfect ending.”
I hold Blue’s hand and lead her over to the elevator. She draws in several deep breaths, betraying her apprehension. But I squeeze her hand until she brings those blue eyes up to meet my dark ones. And then I kiss her. Our mouths come together—hesitantly at first, then with more passion. I slide my hands up along her face and fold her into my embrace. She pulls back, resting her head on my chest, like she’s listening for my heartbeat.
“I miss him,” I say. She nods her head, but her back shakes from the silent sobs. “But Paige… she helps. You’ll see.”
We ride up to the top and the doors open into my penthouse apartment. Paige waits with the housekeeper in her pajamas. You only have to look at her to know that JD is still here with us.
Paige stands up and does this little curtsy, turning on the charm she comes by naturally. “I know you,” she whispers.
Blue stares at her, her sadness receding before my eyes. And then she wipes her tears and smiles. “I know you too,” Blue replies back in her own hushed voice. “I know you too.”
And that’s how we start it. Our new life together.
One little girl.
Two soulmates.
And three mended hearts.
I’m a believer now. I can see it with my own eyes.
Everything should come in threes.
Read other books by JA HUSS