Lost and alone, with no one to slay the dragon.
A burst of fury whips through me and I grab the ice bucket off the dresser and hurl it across the room. It makes an unsatisfying thud against the thin drywall and cheap paint.
“Goddamn you, Jackson Steele,” I shout. “God fucking damn you.”
He’d lied to me, by omission if not outright. Acted like he didn’t even know Jeremiah Stark when I asked him about it after the LA Scandal website fiasco. And maybe I could believe that tonight was just one of those first-meet coincidences if I hadn’t seen his face and overheard their conversation. But I had, and Jackson’s is a face I know—they’ve known each other for a long time. And they are obviously more than just casual acquaintances.
God, how could I have been so stupid? I put my trust—all of my trust—in that man.
And so help me, I actually believed I was falling in love with him.
No. Damn me, I did fall in love with him, and that’s why this hurts so much.
I love him, or at least I loved the man I thought I knew.
And now, somehow, I have to manage to survive losing him all over again. Because I know now that the man I have fallen in love with is not the man who exists.
“Shit.”
The word sounds hollow, and I grab my phone to dial Cass, then end the call before it connects. It’s not her company I crave, but the ink.
Except how would I mark myself? What I feel is too big, too personal. Too damn much. And unless she can rip my body open and tattoo my heart, I don’t think there is any mark she could put on me that would help even out the pain that I’m feeling.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I throw myself on the bed and I squeeze my eyes shut and will myself to cry. And yet still the tears won’t come.
I can’t even have that small relief to ease my pain.
Instead, I lay in the bed, lethargic and numb, and watch television as I fight the sleep that is determined to drag me under. Infomercials. Sitcoms. Bad animation.
Hour after hour until the dark, grimy window turns light.
Then I stumble from the room, my skin tight and my eyes grainy, and walk to the lobby for the complimentary breakfast of cold pastries and lukewarm coffee.
I sit at the cheap plastic table and sip coffee for over an hour. There is a newspaper at the place setting across from me, but I do not read it. There is a television playing one of LA’s inane morning programs, but I do not watch it. I just sit and stare and slide into myself, losing myself in my head in a way I haven’t done since Jackson laid out his proposition at the premiere.
Since then, I haven’t wanted to fade away.
Now, I can’t think of anything I want more.
Unless it’s to have back the Jackson I thought I knew.
God, I’m being maudlin.
Disgusted with myself, I shove to my feet. If I’m going to be depressed—and I think I have every right to be—I’m going somewhere more pleasant than this ugly motel lobby.
I go ahead and shower in my room, then change into a pair of sweatpants and a City of Angels T-shirt. I’d bought both from the small gift and snack area behind the reception counter. Not overly fashionable, but it blends better than my cocktail dress.
I get the clerk to call me a taxi, and once again I avoid home. Instead, I have the driver take me to the one place I have always gone when things go sideways for me in this city. The place where I would go to walk or sit or read on the weekends after my “sessions” with Bob, and where in high school I would go to escape the mean girl taunts. Where I sometimes even came just because I wanted to see something beautiful. The Getty Center.
The taxi drops me at the bottom of the hill and I get on the tram with a flood of tourists. I’m grateful it’s a Saturday. I want to be lost in the crowd, and camouflaged among the T-shirts, jeans, and ball caps that mark the out-of-town visitors.
The entire center is amazing, from the museum to the research facility to the tram that whisks people all around the complex. I have probably walked every square inch of this place at some point in my life.
Today, I choose the plaza and sit beside the fountain facing the rotunda.
I don’t think too much about why, but part of me knows that it is because the perfection and flow of this incredible building reminds me of Jackson. The center is a masterpiece of architectural beauty, a work of art in and of itself, and I am not sure if I came to bask or to torture myself.
I have no idea how long I sit there, the familiar numbness sliding back into my bones. All I know is that I’ve tuned out the world. And so when I hear him, it’s through a tunnel, and from a very long distance.
“Sylvia?” His fingertips brush my shoulder. “Sweetheart, I’m here.”
Jackson.
His voice, his touch, his scent.
I shift in my seat and look up at him. He looks raw and more ragged than I feel. I have at least showered. Jackson still wears the suit he’d put on last night, though his collar is now open and the tie has been shoved into a pocket where it peeks out in a small splash of red.
“I don’t want you here.” It’s a lie. It’s the absolute worst of lies, because I do want him. But not like this. Not with the games and the deceit and everything he kept hidden.
“What you think you know,” he says, “you don’t.”
“You fucking liar,” I say, my words low and measured. “I needed something real to hold on to, and you were an illusion the whole goddamn time.”
“Sylvia—”
“Was this always about Damien? About Stark International?”
He shakes his head. “Damien is the reason I said no to the Bahamas project. You’re the reason I said yes to Santa Cortez.”
I say nothing. Because what the hell is there for me to say?
“When this started,” he continues, “I wanted to hurt you. You’d left me. And to make it worse, I thought you’d gone to Damien. And so help me, I wanted payback. I wanted to make you weak. To make you wild. That first night? I planned to make you need me so badly that I was like air to you. So fucking essential that losing me would destroy you.”
I clench my jaw and hug myself, forcing myself not to spit out the acknowledgment that he has damn well achieved what he set out to do.
“And then, when I was your whole goddamn world, I was going to leave you. To have my revenge in the knowledge that you were burning in anger and loss.”
I lift my head so that I can see his eyes. I expect to see triumph. Instead, I see regret. I see tenderness, too, and because of that, I stay despite the almost overpowering urge to spring to my feet and run.
“But all of that changed, Sylvia. I would rather die than hurt you. I thought I was strong; I’m not. I thought I was brave; I’m not. Because where you are concerned, I have no strength to leave, and even the thought of losing you breaks me completely.”
“I guess you’re going to have to get used to it,” I say. “Because you’ve already lost me.”
“Sweetheart—” His hand closes over my wrist and I rip it away.
“You lied to me. After everything I’ve told you. After all of myself that I’ve given to you. You fucking lied to me.”