Page 33 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

Okay. Okay. I opened my mouth to say something but my mind was curiously blank, and my lips felt numb, so I shut it again. I got it. Isogot it.

Actually, there didn’t seem to be anythingtosay.

I looked around the kitchen, and out into my tiny backyard where the trees were strung with white lights to make it look like a fairyland. A couple of the lights had burned out; I needed to replace them. The vase of flowers on the table in the dining alcove were wilting; I’d have to pick up some fresh ones tomorrow. I looked everywhere except at Wyatt, because I didn’t want to see in his eyes what I was afraid I’d see. I didn’t look at him because…because I just couldn’t.

The silence in the kitchen was thick, broken only by the sounds of our breathing. I should move, I thought. I should go upstairs and do something, maybe refold the towels in the linen closet. I should do anything other than just stand there, but I couldn’t.

There were arguments I could make. I knew there were. I could explain things to him, but somehow all of that was beside the point now. There were a lot of things I should say, things I should do…but I just couldn’t.

“I think you should go home.”

That wasmyvoice saying those words, but it didn’t sound like me; it was toneless, as if all expression had been drained away. I hadn’t even been aware I was going to say anything.

“Blair—” Wyatt took a step toward me and I stumbled back, out of reach. He couldn’t touch me now, he absolutely shouldn’t touch me, because too many things were tearing me apart inside and I had to deal with them.

“Please, just—go.”

He stood there. Walking away from a fight wasn’t in his nature. I knew that, knew what I was asking him to do. This was too important for me to finesse, too vital to my life for me to risk it for some cosmetic fix that would go only skin deep. I wanted away from him, I had to get away and be completely by myself for a little while. My heart was beating with slow, hard thumps that hurt all over my insides, and if he didn’t leave soon I might start screaming from the pain of it.

I took a shuddering breath, or tried to; my chest felt constricted, as if my heart had got in the way of my lungs and wouldn’t let them work. “I’m not giving back your ring,” I said in that same thin, flat tone. “The wedding is still on—”Unless you want it canceled.“I just need some time to think. Please.”

For a long, agonizing minute, I didn’t think he’d do it. But then he wheeled and left, grabbing his suit jacket on the way out. He didn’t even slam the door.

I didn’t collapse to the floor. I didn’t run upstairs to throw myself on the bed. I just stood there in the kitchen for a long, long time, gripping the edge of the countertop so hard my fingernails were white.

Chapter

Fourteen

Eventually, moving slowly, I checked the doors to make certain they were locked. They were. Though I hadn’t been aware of the extra beeps, Wyatt had also set the alarm system on his way out. As angry as he was with me, he was still careful with my physical safety. The realization hurt; this would be easier if he showed some lack of concern, but he didn’t.

I turned out all the lights on the first floor, then laboriously climbed the stairs. Every move was an effort, as if there was a disconnect between my mind and body. I went to bed but didn’t turn out the lights, just sat in bed staring at nothing as I tried to order my thoughts.

My favorite coping method is to concentrate on something else until I feel ready to deal with the important stuff. That didn’t work this time, because my whole world felt filled with the things Wyatt had said. I was battered by them, suffocated by them, crushed under their weight, and there were simply too many of them for me to handle. I couldn’t isolate any one thought, nail down any one issue—not yet, anyway.

The phone rang.Wyatt!was my first thought, but I didn’t grab for the receiver and answer the call. I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk to him just yet. In fact, I was certain I didn’t. I didn’t want him to muddy the water with an apology that would just gloss over the bigger problem I sensed, and that was assuming he thought he owed me an apology anyway, which was a big assumption.

I picked up the cordless phone on the third ring, just to see if it was him calling or someone else, and the Caller ID showed that weird number from Denver again. I set the phone down without answering it. The ringing cut off after the fourth ring anyway, as the answering machine downstairs picked up. I listened, but didn’t hear a message being left.

Almost immediately the phone rang again. Denver again. Again, I let the machine get it. Again, no message.

When the third call followed closely on the heels of the second call, I got pissed. Obviously no survey-taker would be calling after eleven p.m., because that’s a guaranteed way to not get your questions answered. I didn’t personally know anyone living in Denver, but, hey, if someone I knewwascalling, why not leave a message?

Wyatt had said the number and Denver location could be because someone was using one of those prepaid phone cards, in which case I guess someone I knew could be calling, trying to wake me up. I’d even seen a short item on the local news about phone cards, that the rates were so cheap some people were using them for all their long-distance calls. I might not know anyone in Denver, but I did know people who lived in other places, so the next time the phone rang, I answered it.

Click.

A minute later, it rang again. The Denver number showed on the phone.

These were obviously crank calls. Some piece of punk slime had learned these phone cards weren’t traceable and was having fun. How was I supposed to concentrate on Wyatt with this almost constant ringing?

Easy. I got up and turned off the ringer on both my bedroom phone and the phones downstairs. This way the punk slime would still be burning money and minutes, and I wouldn’t know a thing about it.

The calls were so irritating that they had succeeded in breaking through my numb misery. I could think now, at least well enough to know this problem was too big for me to make any sort of decision tonight. I needed to think things through, one issue at a time.

Because writing things down helps me get things ordered in my mind, I got a notebook and pen and settled in bed with the notebook braced against my upraised knees. Wyatt had made a lot of accusations, both direct and indirect, and I wanted to think about them all.

I wrote down the numbers one through ten, and beside each number I wrote a bullet point, as I remembered them.

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