Blazed

chapter Seventeen





I SAGGED BACK and pulled my hand out of Blaze's. "I have to go."

"What?" He made a grab at me but I stood to evade him. I'd made up my mind and was certain that I'd judged the situation well enough to feel some conviction in my decision. "I thought you were starting to understand."

"I do understand." My fists clenched against the urge to stroke his panic-stricken face. "I understand that there are things you just have to do, but I know from experience that you can't make people do them with you. If I grabbed a knife and started cutting myself again, would you do it with me even if you didn't feel the compulsion?"

His brow furrowed while he stopped to think about a question I hadn't really intended him to answer. But I didn't talk because I was curious to see if he got it. "Yeah, I would. So I understood how you felt." I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. He so didn't get it and he was just saying anything to win my favour. That wasn't the way to do it.

"You can't understand and ruin yourself just by joining in, Blaze. Nobody will ever understand the drive and self-loathing that leads to something like that— to want to do something horrible to yourself just so you feel functional. I would never ask you to do that for me."

"But that's nothing like this!" He sprang up to match my eye-level and dug a hand into his pocket to retrieve a ring— My ring. I might have never known the truth if he hadn't given me that ring. By trying to keep hold of me he'd inadvertently pushed me away but I was grateful for it. "Nothing has to change. This can still happen— we didn't want to rush right into it anyway."

"Okay," I conceded, "there's a possibility that it might still happen one day. I'm tweaked enough to wait for you. I wasted nine years on a hopeless cause before so, yes, I will probably spend my life fantasising about a reunion. But I can't wait with you, Blaze. Do you understand that?"

It shred me apart to see him look so unhappy. He'd really plead his case but he couldn't win, not this time, and for once I was the strong one of us. There was no way back from what had transpired between us and it was doubtful that there was a way forward. We were standing at our impasse but neither of us wanted to be the one who turned away first.

"Emmeline, without you I have no reason to— ... Six years is already far long that I thought she'd—" Blaze averted his eyes, knowing he needed to pick his words extremely carefully. "She's held on so much longer than we thought possible. I don't know how much longer I'd be asking you to wait." And that's when I realised how insecure he was. He didn't think that I would wait for him. He maybe didn't know that he was worth waiting for when he was tearing us apart to do this. He would have done anything not to lose me for any amount of time, but I couldn't stay. I just couldn't. He needed closure as much as I did— a definitive answer to the question that would play on his mind. Is she coming back?

It was up to me to make that choice.

"Let's pretend," my voice came out as a hoarse whisper, "that we didn't have all this baggage between us. Let's pretend that this was normal." I stepped up to him and lifted my chin, pushing up onto tiptoes to brush my lip across his. "Let's try it on for size."

"Emmeline." He kissed me with a pained moan and dragged me down onto the couch, sliding his hands underneath my shirt to touch me, skin on skin. My finger brushed down the line of buttons on his over-worn shirt, then set to undoing them, one by one, so the bronze flesh I'd spent that first week itching to see lay open for me. I loved that he was naturally smooth and hairless, perfectly toned without trying. He was usually so warm to touch, but this time he was cold, almost shivering.

His thumbs hooked into my waistband and pulled my trousers down until I had to shift to kick them off along with my shoes. He lifted just enough to pull his own lower garments down for me to reach and stroke myself across his thick, throbbing penis. He was still hard, even now, still aching to be as inside me as physically possible. This was the only way we understood each other.

I pulled my underwear to one side and let him sink into me. There was an overwhelming sense of relief, regret, sadness and acceptance while I adjusted to his depth. This felt final. This was the last time we'd make love and once it was over, I'd go out of my way to make sure he didn't appear in my life again so neither of us tortured ourselves waiting for each other. He'd be just like every other man who could never match up to Hunter. Nameless. Faceless. I'd deny that I ever fell in love.

The finality made me miserable. Bowing my head, I pulled his against me and cradled it while I fought back the tears. I didn't want to let go.

"Emmeline?" Blaze's arms entombed me by the waist, pawing at me restlessly. "Why does it feel like you're saying goodbye to me?"

The tears came with my sigh. He looked up at me, eyes shining with tears of his own and my chin quivered. Despite being mostly covered, I'd never felt more naked. "Let's make it a good one, okay?"



WE both cried the entire time we were joined together, both of us too scared to jump the precipice that would separate us forever. Wet kisses covered every inch of flesh during something so melancholic even the part of me that drove me to hurting myself snapped. I just didn't have it in me, not anymore. Whatever was left over when Blaze was gone, I would have to rebuild into some semblance of a human. There was nothing left of Emmeline White for me to piece back together because in the time I'd known him, he'd blown it all to hell. I didn't know who I was without him, but that was better than knowing who I'd be if I stayed. At least there was nothing of a husk to hate.

The sky outside darkened. The perpetual blackness in my lounge was a good physical manifestation of how we both felt knowing that the other was lost. We lay like any other couple while we still could, wrapped up in a tangle of half dressed limbs. I could have stayed there all night, but it was no good for either of us to drag it out.

"I need to go to Daniel's." Blaze mumbled his acknowledgement but tightened his grip around me, face burrowed in the crook of my neck.

"Let me take you."

"I don't thi—"

"Please. It's on my way to..." I leaned back to look at him. "I have something I need to do." Exhausted, I closed my eyes and nodded. I could give him that much if he needed it. I'd already emotionally disconnected from the whole ridiculous affair. I could look at it that way now— I was that bored of feeling bad about it. This was my usual response to taking a man to bed; this was my arctic chill and I was glad it had finally made an appearance. Blaze was now the same as the rest of them, at least that was what I'd tell myself to get through the days.

Reluctantly, I sat up and let the blood slowly trickle back into my legs before I headed for my bedroom to find some fresh clothes. Over my shoulder, I watched Blaze gather himself together and comb some order into his hair with his fingers. Knowing he had a real comb in a drawer in the bathroom, thoughts of coming home to all his stuff made me feel weighted like lead, forcing me to sit down. I couldn't stand to see it all there when he'd never use it again, but I couldn't watch him pack it all up now.

"Are you going to be, um... busy, for long?"

"What?"

"Your stuff..." That was as far as the conversation went, because he hurtled into the bedroom and rammed back into me with his old sexual aggression until I'd ruined yet another bed set and came violently with a garbled string of expletives. Clearly he hadn't gotten the memo that sex stopped after the break up. Ah well, c'est la vie.

IT WAS LATE when we finally pulled up outside Daniel and Jonathan's place. I'd quickly learned that reminding Blaze that he'd be leaving my flat permanently just got me a good f*cking so took full advantage of it. I'd have been a fool not to, since my usual routine was so shot to shit that I was seriously considering his old celibacy habit. Not knowing how I planned to move forward from the moment he drove off, I figured I'd just start playing life by ear, the way I should have been for years. The heartbreak might just have been the best thing that could have happened to me.

Blaze grabbed my hand when I moved to leave the car and crammed the emerald ring into my palm. "This promise still counts."

"Blaze, I don't—"

"Just the promise, Emmeline. You're not bending to meet my demands and I accept that, like I promised. I respect that you're being true to yourself."

"Okay..." I was actually sort of glad that he was giving it back to me. Considering all the truths it had provoked in such a short time, it felt almost like a lucky charm or some kind of talisman.

"I want to give you something. But I'll be clear and say that it's not a commitment, just a promise."

It was never about effectively collaring me or territorialism, just the promise. Not that he had a leg to stand on when it came to judging how I lived my life. By his own notion, it carried no responsibility to be permanently tied to him one day, just to honour a promise to accept myself. I could do that. I could wear it and hold my head up proudly, saying that I'd walked away because it was the right thing to do.

"Thank you. I really am humbled by the thought and effort you put into getting this for me last week. Really."

"You know, it's still Emmyday." I laughed a little through admiration of his tenacity. The corners of his mouth curved up though his face remained sad. I felt bad for being able to find anything to laugh about when he was so low. "It was worth a shot."

"Tell me that you're going to be okay." He looked beyond despair and so dejected it scared me a little. Finally, I could appreciate how it had been for my family when they had to watch me be patched up and tube fed. I could even appreciate why Hunter had been so angry.

"I'm going to be fine, Emmeline. I can't have it my way— I get it. I need to go and do the right thing." Good. I hoped he'd man up and make his wife's last days happy and comfortable, and realise that she needed him to show her some compassion. She was more than just a bank account or a job, she was a victim who needed his care. "But don't think I've given up on you, Emmeline. Not for one minute. We still have plans for Christmas."

"Of course."

I humoured him for the sake of an easy escape and stole one last kiss before I climbed out of the car and watched him drive off. Our paths were no longer entwined, and no matter how brave a face I put on it, I'd be feeling the backlash for a long time. But I was proud of us both for doing the right thing, no matter how wrong it felt in that moment.

IF IT WASN'T obvious that Daniel and Jonathan were gay just from looking at them, it would have been obvious from their super-modern and freakishly sterile looking loft. It had a masculine base despite the men who lived there, decorated in only pale blues, pebble greys and black surfaces, with their top line electronics as a focal point in the lounge and bulky black leather recliners for gaming. But their girly side shone through in the large crackled glass vases holding long stemmed ornamental flowers and powerfully feminine canvases painted with oriental scenes of manga girls and geishas in bluescale.

I recognised the artwork; it was mine. Their home was like a living testament to my talent and I was still so proud to see it hanging up on every wall. The fact that they were there when I arrived unannounced like this was proof that they didn't just put them up for my benefit.

Daniel buzzed me into the building and rushed to greet me when I reached his front door. It was a welcome distraction to see him look so casual— barefoot in loose grey jogging bottoms and a University Of London sweatshirt when he so loved to suit up.

"I can't believe that still fits you." I took the glass of wine he'd poured for me from his hand and drained it in one mouthful. "Please tell me you have more?"

"Of course. I was warned." He followed me closely when I walked straight into his kitchen to find the rest of the bottle. I was glad to see the usual set up on his granite breakfast bar; several bottles of Chablis cooling in ice buckets, Belgian chocolates and Chicago on Blu-Ray, my secret shame. Daniel was such a mummy's boy it was disgusting, still receiving an allowance like me but choosing to spend it on little luxuries he stockpiled for occasions like these. They usually came at the hands of Hunter, but a broken heart and wounded ego was what it was and healed the same way however it was damaged.

"No Jonathan?"

"He's working late, but what the hell happened, Emmy?" Daniel refilled my glass while I held it, shaking his head as the wine reached the rim. "Your boss called Chris just after you left work and he called us all to bollock us for letting our guard down. It's been hours and we— ... Oh." He smirked and sucked on his tongue to stifle a laugh. "You f*cked him again, didn't you?"

I hung my head with mock contrition and pouted. "Yes, sir. Yes, I did. A lot."

"Oh Emmy. Never hump and dump."

"I didn't!" Setting my glass down on the breakfast bar, I held up my hands to declare my honesty. "I dumped then humped. Every time I tried to remind him that he needed to take his stuff and leave, he countered by trying to lead me back onto the road to hell like Will o' the Wisp. Getting sacked off by a billionaire's daughter is an aphrodisiac, who the hell knew?" And now I was talking about it to an impartial observer, I was aware that the situation f*cking sucked. That realisation that the only thing that had really made me happy in years had been a lie, and not even one I could bear to hold on to, finally set in now he was actually gone and the only way I'd see him was to hit a search engine, where I'd likely find all the pictures of us together.

Daniel rubbed my shoulder and pulled me by the wrist back into the lounge, where we plonked down onto the hefty leather couch, which was deceptively comfortable. I had my suspicions he'd put me there because it was waterproof. "Did he explain the wife?"

"Sort of..." I left him hanging for a minute, trying to figure out if there was any way to make it sound less awful than it was to, I don't know, defend Blaze's honour a little. There wasn't, so I lifted the glass to my lips and said it quickly before I sipped. "She's rich, dying and he's waiting for the pay out."

Daniel spluttered on his own wine and gaped at me, eyes boggling. "Wow. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I guess. I suppose I'm just being bent over and f*cked by Murphy's Law as usual— 'everything that can go wrong will go wrong'. We were never meant to happen and fate wasn't going to let it. I just know why now." But somehow, I didn't really feel like I'd gotten any closure at all. Blaze would still hang on and I'd still waste myself on 'what if's. What if I'd just stuck it out? What if I'd demanded he leave her? What if he made that choice himself? Would it ever make up for the fact he'd had the ill motive before?



WE sat in a reflective silence for a while. Daniel pulled my legs over his and snuggled into me, letting me rest my head on his shoulder until our glasses were empty again. I could relate to that feeling of having the void filled and watching it slowly drain out again until my purpose was redundant, but unlike that glass, it wasn't as simple as refilling me with any old vintage. Even when I was at the point of suicide, I'd not felt quite so useless.

"Tell me I've done the right thing, Dan."

"You have, Emmy. I admire you for having the strength to do it. I think if Jonathan had thrown this kind of curve ball in my direction, I would have gone along with it and ended up getting chewed up by resentment."

"So why does it feel like a mistake?"

He saved his legs from underneath mine and padded into the kitchen for an ice bucket. "Because you love to love. It's just your nature. There are lovers, and fighters, and you ain't so hot at the fighting. Your love, once given, is selfless and unconditional, and for once you're doing something that's best for you. It was necessary but unusual." He threw the box of chocolates through to me and curled up on a foot stool with his legs crossed like Buddha. "Don't write off love yet. The world is your oyster, Emmeline Tudor— for that is your real name. And you know, while I may not be a huge fan of seafood, I do like having the option to be a pescatarian."

The metaphor made me smile. Friends and lovers would come and go, but I thanked my lucky stars that I had someone like Daniel as a permanent fixture in my life. Our matching rose quartz bracelets were our promises to accept each other and we always had. In a strange totally crazy way, he was my first love before Hunter but I never had the driving inclination to sleep with him, even though we had given each other our virginities because we didn't want it to be too serious or with someone who didn't deserve it. Maybe that explained why my attitude to sex went on to be so cavalier. If it was, I didn't care. I loved Daniel with all my heart and I knew that the fact I was still around to tell him so gave him a lot of faith and hope.

"How did you get so wise, Dan?"

He frowned halfway through his bite into a chocolate and nodded his head towards a picture of him and Jonathan stood next to their unnecessarily large television. "Because I fell for the wrong man too, except the hot road into hell was the lesser evil in my case." That was true. It had been a massive scandal when their relationship was first discovered. The fallout was ugly. A lot of people lost respect for both men— respect that they were both still fighting to earn back. Of course Jonathan didn't have any mystery spouses hidden in the woodwork. He was just an older superior with a big heart. It made me happy to watch them prove everyone wrong when they said it was a mistake.

"I might be out of line in saying it, Emmy, but I'm glad you met Blaze. Like it or not, you've grown massively as a person because of him. I was scared to leave you on your own for a really long time, but I'm not any more. He's been good for you, even if he has turned out to be a massive bastard."

"He has," I agreed, "so what the hell do I do without him?" How was I ever going to keep myself strong enough to not pick up the phone and call him when I was having a bad day? How could I stop myself from thinking about what might have been when I looked at that ring, which I'd stupidly put back on the same finger? Would I ever stop wondering if he was still thinking about me, and what the hell would I do if he really wanted me to honour our plans for Christmas?

"You live, Emmy. You have us to look out for you. Just tell us what you need us to do to go on living."

"Right now?" Daniel nodded, rolling the stem of his wine glass between his palms while he waited for my orders. "Right now, I really want to watch Chicago and pretend that we don't know all the words."

He grinned. "You got it, Roxy."

LIFELESS GREY EYES stared up at me, leaving only the look of dead panic. I was still smiling when I looked down at her and shoved the pillow back underneath her head. Her features still remained a mystery, but her eyes were just so... there, and I got a sense that they'd propelled all kinds of hate at me before.

She looked so small in that huge bed. One tiny life— what did it matter if she was gone? She deserved to die...


GASPING, I LURCHED out of the bed in Daniel and Jonathan's guest room and staggered across the hallway to the bathroom. It had a been a night of too much wine, too much chocolate and too many musicals to top a day of too much emotional abuse, and consequentially, I looked like shit. My eyes were like huge craters in my pallid face, and my lips were starting to chap again. And so began another cycle of illness.

The guys didn't flinch at the sound of me retching, seduced into a coma by the cognac Jonathan had cracked open when he'd gotten home and heard the miserable tale of my failed relationship. I'd been right there with them in their alcoholic buzz up to a point but never quite managed to shake off that sense of uselessness.

I wished it wasn't so late, or early. It was still mostly dark outside, so I knew it must be in the small numbers of the AM and not really an appropriate time to take a shower. The nightmare had left me drenched in a cold sweat and it made me feel dirty, just like last time. I was vaguely aware that I'd been having a lot of bad dreams recently, but didn't tend to remember them when I'd woke up. They were almost definitely the same one. There was no mistaking that triumphant flare of pride when my eyes first opened— the one I couldn't control but made me feel awful anyway.

With no methods of hygiene available, I slouched back into the lounge to attack rather than drink some more wine. If it made me sick again, I didn't care. I didn't want to be capable of cognitive thought for at least a fortnight, or until scientists could develop an effective way to selectively erase memories like in Men In Black. Whichever came first.

I made the stupid mistake of looking at my phone. The picture of Blaze and I was still the wallpaper, but that wasn't what felt like a dagger in my heart. He'd been trying to call me. A lot. For my own sanity, I dismissed the notification for his missed calls and erased all twelve of his text messages without reading them. If I let myself believe there was a way back, I was likely to take it. I missed him, and my still throbbing muscles reminded me that he'd spent an afternoon making it clear that his place was inside me in every way. It was, and I'd probably feel him there for days, getting lost in the fantasies of how hotly we burned for each other, and how bone-shakingly awesome it would be if we found our ways back to each other.

Maybe I had handled it wrong. Maybe I should have just been happy to have had the chance at all...

"Hi, this is Blaze. Obviously you're calling at a ridiculous hour and I'm sleeping so leave me a message and I'll call you back when this man's brain opens for business."

I called five times before I gave up and told myself that I needed to cut my losses. He's been upfront in telling me that he couldn't get attached and obviously had a damn good reason. This was never meant to get serious; it was always supposed to just be both of us getting our end away, and he was going to realise that too. We'd just gotten swept up in the drama, but in a few days, this would all look much better. We might even be friends again one day. Purely platonic friends. Another notch in my 'platonic penis' belt.

I sat and drank for hours, but didn't really feel like it was touching my sobriety. When the early rumble of traffic started to move outside, I sneaked out as quietly as possible with my sights set on a secluded café that kept stacks of books that people had left behind. Failing that, I'd buy a new book. I wanted to get lost in someone else's woeful romance.

When I'd sourced my caffeine fix, I tried to distract myself with as much banal bullshit as possible to clear my mind before I started reading. I logged into my email account on my mobile phone and went through the tedious task of deleting all the junk mail. Depressingly, that left me only with emails from Hunter with various 'URGENT' titles. Idiot. He thought anything was urgent when it came from his mouth/fingers. I counted through all the change in my purse, taking out the copper change for the charity box. That was my good deed for the day. It was around the time I was sorting through my old receipts that I was reminded of the last time I'd declared a good deed done.

A faded black and dog eared business card covered in gold font stared up at me from between the scraps of paper. A business card for one Calloway Ryan of New York— the sexy suit from Oxford street. What was it with these gorgeous men and their equally as impressive names? I hadn't made good on my promise to call him and I still had his money clip...

And then I found the creased wedding invitation from Hunter stuffed into a credit card compartment. That invitation to Japan was still open. I knew the language, had the money and could contact the right people...

Or I could swallow my pride and throw myself into the lava pits. The moment I looked at my phone and saw Blaze's face staring up at me was the same moment my mind was made up. I could sit around moping or I could start to make some big changes in my life— productive this time. I'd been offered so many opportunities and never taken advantage of them, and running away was my forte. It was my tendency to build bridges to replace those I'd burned, but now it was time to rebuild some of those that weren't completely destroyed.

I felt invincible when I made the call I swore I'd never make. He sounded shocked but pleasantly surprised when he answered, his voice bright, so I knew I hadn't woken him.

"Emmeline, are you alright?" I wasn't, not quite yet.

"I'm... Look, I know this is unexpected and I probably have no right to ask, but—"

"Just tell me what you need. I'd do anything for you, you know that."

"I need your help."

Calmly, I explained my plans and justified them completely so he had no reason to think that I was acting on a whim. He agreed that what I wanted was sensible and not unreasonable. We decided to meet in the café I was in to discuss the finer details and set a solid plan for the foreseeable future.


WHEN THE TAXI arrived to take us back to the flat, I left Emmy White behind with my half-drunk cup of coffee. I left her there with all my behaviours and predispositions that had made me become such a weak person. I left her with my morals and my idea of what was 'right'.

I left as Emmeline Tudor, mega-mogul's daughter and heiress to billions, and my life had just begun.

To be continued...


Note from the Author

So here I am, on the day of my twenty-fifth birthday, sending this tale out to you. Of all of the books I’ve written, I think BLAZED reminds me the most of my friends.

I don’t think any of my close friends have a good firm history of mental health. They all have something that makes them a little broken. From borderline personality disorder to depression to pathological liars, I’ve had it all in my life one way or another.

And they are all beautiful. My bitches; you are my Big Bang. Nobody could ask for a better bunch of friends who cry hard and laugh harder. Your loyalty to your fellow f*ck-ups goes above and beyond.

Thank you for the alcohol. Thank you for the coffee. Thank you for the dry wit and sarcasm. Thank you for humouring me when I drivel on about my books. Thank you for being my secular circle of social rejects, nay, my coven. And thanks for the memes. Seriously.

I also have to end some serious kudos out to my hardcore fan Lou Turner, who’s got a lot of people to join in the craziness, and Louise Ebdon, who’s given me some pretty wicked compliments.

And of course, thanks as ever to my proof-readers, Michelle and Lindsay.

You have all played a part in my ability to look back over being twenty-four and honestly say ‘last year kind of rocked’.

Now if I could only find one of these fabulous fictional men of mine for real and make it big by twenty-six.