Someone I Used to Know

chapter Twenty-Two

Declan


Nothing about California was as I remembered it. I’d only been gone three months, but the colors had dulled, the air soured, and the sun was an obvious imposter of the one the Beach Boys had waxed lyrically about. I couldn’t even blame the neighborhood. Even the most kept-up parts of Los Angeles had looked droll as I’d ridden past.

My car jerked to a stop, and I cringed, biting my tongue to keep from cursing the driver. I wasn’t too keen on the new bloke, but Lazarus was busy on another job. The partition cracked, and the grey haired driver peered at me through the rearview mirror. Speculation arched his eyebrows.

“Are you sure this is the right address, Mr. Davies?”

I looked out at the rundown streets and overrun lawns; a crimson door stood out amongst the browns and rusting metals. I smiled.

“Yep, this is it.”

I left my hat and sunglasses in the car. There wouldn’t be any paparazzi lurking about there.

It took two knocks for the red door to fling open. A child stared back at me from the shadowed doorway, her excitement over having a guest fading into suspicion after she’d completed a head-to-toe inspection of my expensive jeans and button-up shirt. Her eyes landed on my face unimpressed.

“Who are you?” she demanded with familiar sauciness.

I grinned, and opened my mouth to answer her.

“Casey, who’s at the door?” A voice I knew shouted from somewhere deep in the house. My guess was the kitchen.

Casey never took her narrowed eyes off me as she yelled back, her pitch reaching an unnecessary volume, “Some man. He won’t tell me who he is. He’s got one of those stretch limousines.”

“Unless he’s got one of those big checks with him, tell him he’s got the wrong house…He’s probably looking for Amanda’s three houses down,” the older woman yelled back, unconcerned.

I rolled my eyes, and gave the little girl guarding the doorway one last look before shouting over her head, “I’ve come all the way around the world to see you and this is the reception I get!”

Heavy footsteps marked the tiny woman’s steps, louder than anyone her size had a right to be. Aurelia turned the corner with a scowl on her mouth and delight in her eyes. Pleasure spilled out of my heart at the sight of my beloved housekeeper, and I was almost sick with it. Happiness can do that to you when you’ve grown so unused to its presence.

“Aren’t you going to let me in?” I inquired, eyeing her Chihuahua-sized guard dog that was masquerading as a nine-year-old girl.

“Casey knows better than to let in strange men that are creeping about.” Aurelia patted the little girl’s dark head. They favored each other in so many ways, I couldn’t even begin to count them. It was like looking at a tiny clone of Aurelia, if you subtracted fifty or so years. The girl did seem to have a little more height working on her side. She was already almost taller than her grandmother.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been called creepy before.”

“Somehow, I doubt that.” She eyed me speculatively. “Well, come in, if you must.”

Without a word, I handed off the bouquet of flowers I’d had hidden behind my back to Casey, then sidestepped her to wrap my arms around the woman I missed every time I opened my fridge to find it lacking a snarky little note about my weight. She let me have my hug, embracing me back with motherly affection.

“I know you’ve missed me,” I assured her with a wide smile.

She rolled her eyes and grabbed my flowers from Casey, dismissing the child and leading us into her kitchen. It was impeccably clean, not that I expected anything less. The appliances were outdated, but somehow, it only added to the cottage-like charm. It was like stepping into a fairytale with the baby-blue cabinets and cream-colored walls. There were no signs of the rundown world residing just outside the windows.

She instructed me to take a seat at the round table in the corner of the room, and I happily took one of the four cushioned chairs that looked like they’d come straight out of a 1950’s American sitcom. I admired the house’s mismatched appeal as she made us tea.

“I’ve come to steal you away,” I announced when I’d run out of things to examine.

“How romantic,” she replied dryly, still busy with the stove. I was a little disappointed she didn’t need a footstool to reach it. I’d always imagined her needing one when she cooked in the kitchen in my old house. It had only added to her mystique.

“Now we both know you’re too good for me...I’m going to lure you back to Australia with an outrageous salary and promises of building you a grand house. It can even be bigger than mine, if that’s what it takes.”

She had a good laugh at that, almost sloshing the teacups off the tray as she walked to the table.

I sipped my cup contently, letting the warm liquid soothe my throat. It was just the way I liked it, and it only reinforced my belief that she was the best housekeeper I could ever have.

“Now, why don’t you tell me the real reason you’re here. You know very well I’d never leave my grandbabies for any amount of money or square footage.”

I didn’t bother denying it. I’d have been ecstatic if she’d agreed, but I’d known it was a long shot.

“What do you know about love, Aurelia?” I said, getting right down to business.

“I’d much rather hear what you think you know about love.”

“Well, that’s the thing. I think I don’t really know anything about it all,” I admitted. “I think my job has skewered my perspective, so I’ve come to ask for an outside opinion.”

“Who’s the girl?”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. She’s gone. My concern lies more now with what that means for the rest of my life.”

“Who’s the girl?” she stubbornly repeated.

“I just told you she’s gone. Why does it matter who she is?”

Aurelia huffed. I pitied little Casey. I could only imagine the lifetime of irritated huffs that waited for that little girl.

“It matters because every fool in your generation is convinced they’re in love. You all have single handedly destroyed the novelty of God’s most rare and extraordinary gift with your fickle ways…How am I supposed to know if you really love her, if I don’t know who she is through your eyes?”

“Adley Adair,” I said her name for the first time in months, the words bitter and fresh at the same time. “Her name is Adley Adair.”

She gave me a look that clearly said that wasn’t going to be enough.

“She’s horrible, really.” I stared down into swirling brown colors inside my teacup. “She has this whole martyr complex. It’s unbelievably annoying. There is no in-between with her, something is either right or it’s wrong; no gray, only black and white. And she can be so wrong sometimes – most times, actually – but she can’t see it, not until it’s on her terms. It drives me crazy. She drives me crazy.”

“Well, you definitely love her,” she stated plainly.

My jaw dropped. “How can you say that after everything I’ve just said? I’m not even sure I love her anymore.”

“You see her for who she really is, past all the disillusions most people get tangled up in when they think they are falling in love. You accept her flaws, and you love her just as much because of them as you do in spite of them.”

“How can you know that?”

She took my cup away from me so I had no choice but to look at her. I felt like a five-year-old getting their racecar snatched because they wouldn’t pay attention.

“I don’t…but you do. That’s why you’re sitting here with me right now…You’re practically begging me to tell you to go get her, to not give up, to make her see that she’s in love with you too. You’re just looking for an excuse to tear out that door and chase her down.”

“I am not!” I couldn’t possibly be so pathetic. “Is that what you think I should do?”

“No.”

“No?”

“If you love someone then you should set them free.”

My face pinched so tightly I almost couldn’t see. “I came to you because I wanted real advice, and I knew you wouldn’t bullshit me. I don’t want a cliché.”

“There is a reason that sayings become cliché, Declan,” she scolded, sounding exactly like what I imagined a grandmother would sound like. I’d never had any of my own. My mother’s parents were estranged, and my father’s were long dead by the time I was born. “People repeat them over and over again because they’re true.”

“You think I should just stop loving her?”

It was her turn to narrow her eyes at me in an almost glare. “If you can just ‘stop’ loving her, then you never really loved her at all. Love doesn’t work that way. If you ever truly love someone, then it never goes away. It can become something else. There are all different sorts of love. It can even become hate – a thin line and all that –And, really, hate is just another kind of caring.”

“So if I love her, I will set her free and just trust that, eventually, she’ll come back to me?” I was trying not to play the role of a petulant child, but she was right; she hadn’t told me anything I wanted to hear.

“That’s one part of the cliché that I have to admit, I don’t always agree with…The point isn’t that you’re letting her go so she’ll come back to you. The point is you love her more than your own selfish desires. You love her enough to let her have her own definition of what your love meant. People can love each other without it meaning that they’re meant to be. I’m sure you’ve seen love like that before.”

I had.

Cam and Adley loved each other like that. I wanted her to be mine – just mine – but a piece of her would always be his, some part of her would always love him. They weren’t meant to be together though. Not anymore. But it didn’t mean they stopped loving each other either.

Maybe, that was all that was meant for Adley and me, too.

Maybe that was just who she was. She was the girl who went through life picking up pieces of men’s hearts, collecting them like people collect stamps or shot glasses, all the while giving little bits of herself away in the process, until there was nothing of her left at all.

Whether I liked it or not, she owned a piece of me, but in the process, I’d gotten under her skin. I owned a piece of her, too, and that, in the least, made it feel worth something.

“So if she never comes back? If it’s really over?”

“Then let her go. It doesn’t mean your love for her means any less.”

“And if she comes back?”

“Then make her fight for you. Make her prove it to herself that she really wants you…Anything worth having is something that’s worth fighting for.”