Page 55 of The Grand Rise

I nod.

“When you think about him, or say, if someone says his name, how do you feel?”

I drift back into my contemplating hole of confusion.

Not because I don’t know what I feel at the sound of Lance’s name but because the idea of the answer scares me shitless.

Lance

She bailed on me.

Day one, and Scarlet was gone before I could get my ass to the toilet and take a piss.

When Mia came and found me in the gym, telling me she’d be helping around the house for the day, I knew it was because Scarlet had panicked last night and was avoiding me now.

The way she looked at me as she handed the book to Waverley last night was unexpected. She gave me everything in that moment, completely bared, and with our daughter sitting at my feet, being here in this house, and around the table with my friends, my wounds all but crawled back together and fused right then and there.

Later, when Waverley’s cheeks pinked, and she told me that she still sleeps with her night light on and that so does Scarlet, I knew that the open wounds inside of me may have temporarily touched, but they’d never heal and scar.

They’re too deep.

“You surprised me today,” Mia tells me. “You absolutely shouldn’t have weightlifting on the brain, but the fact you got yourself out of bed and down two flights of stairs is impressive.”

“Amazing what a little bit of pain relief can do,” I mutter, continuing up the stairs to the room that Mason showed me to last night. My leg was killing me when I tried to get up this morning. I needed help, truthfully. But then I realised there wasn’t anyone here and an overwhelming need to see this place in all its glory had me pulling back the covers.

I always knew Scarlet wanted to renovate the basement level. The dusty gym, library, and wine cellar hidden below. And with the obvious renovations on the upper levels, I presumed downstairs would be completed, too.

I was right.

The gym is now top of the line with a swimming pool littered with inflatables and a sauna—big enough for a football team.

Mason designed it. I knew it without needing to ask anyone.

I searched further for a while, passing the glass double doors that restrict access to a wine cellar. And another door which, when I pushed it open, gave way to a dance studio.

A pang of something heavy settled on my chest after that, the idea that the library was just gone, after all the memories we’d had in there and knowing how important it was to Scarlet.

“Do you know where the library is now?” I ask Mia as I reach the top step on my ascent back up the stairs. Mia told me she was great friends with Scarlet. She must know.

“I don’t. I’m not sure there even is one. Scarlet doesn’t read.”

I pause, giving my leg a second to just hang mid-air as I rest on my crutches. And to process the bullshit Mia just spouted. “Yes, she does.”

“She doesn’t.”

“Well, she did. And she had a library once, too.” She has one now. There’s no way she doesn’t.

She’d need somewhere to put her mother’s books. Her own collection wasn’t small.

“She never mentioned it,” Mia mutters, carrying on down the corridor toward my room. “You should shower and get your leg elevated. I get the need to not sit around, but you have to give it time to heal.” She waits for me to reach the door, a friendly smile on her face. “I already know you’re going to be a nightmare patient.”

With Mia’s reluctant help fetching me three different weights when I asked, I managed to complete fifteen bicep curls before spots invaded my vision, and she took them from me.

My ribs and chest are screaming at me for it now.

“What would you like for lunch?” Mia asks as I make my way into my room.

I feel her at my back, following me. “Nothing. I’m not hungry.”

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