Page 82 of Icing Hearts

I tell him everything. Everything starting with her mother’s funeral until now. He tells me some things, too. Very important things. Things that would have changed everything if I had just gone to him in the first place.

When I hang up, I’m shaking, maybe convulsing. Everything could have—should have been different. It’s all too much. Too many realizations, epiphanies. Too much sinking regret for one night.

I shove my hands through my hair and dig them into my lap. I look down and see matching tufts sticking out from between my fingers, and I realize I’ve pulled it out of my head. But I felt nothing.

My chest heaves, faster and faster. The sorrow and sickening feeling of being too late are poison in my stomach. They fight for release, and I know I can’t hold it together much longer. I have to get out of here. I have to leave. I have to go somewhere. Somewhere no one will hear me. Bother me.

The crank of a hand towel dispenser echoes in the empty bathroom. I scrape the crunchy paper down my face and walk.

Walk through the lobby.

Past the pool.

Run down the stairs to the beach.

Sprint toward the water.

Waves crash around me. Cool water swirls around my ankles. And I scream. Scream. Scream. Until my lungs give out, I scream. Let the poison leech from my body.

But it’s not enough. I crumple to the sand, relishing the way it grates against my bare knees and forehead. On the next scream, everything goes silent aside from a ringing in my ears. So I pound the sand with my fist, an outlet for rage, and despair and all the other wildly overwhelming emotions surging through me. When my right arm tires, I switch to my left until I’m sweating and gasping on the sand.

I should have known. There were signs. Signs I missed. Or didn’t want to see.

I’m far from composed, but I must go back. There are promises I need to make. Things to undo and do that I should have done before.

Chapter 50

Clara

“I’m going to fix this,” he whispers from his spot kneeling beside the bed. Upon seeing Tory’s puffy, bloodshot eyes and mangled hair, I spring up on my knees and pull him by the shirt onto the mattress.

Tears spring anew as our fingers interlace. I don’t miss the thick, sandy, half-dried blood on his knuckles. “Tory, what did you do?”

“Doesn’t matter.” He takes my face in his hands. “Please, let me fix this. I want to fix this. Please. I promise, I’ll make it better. I’ll fix it, Clara. Please,” he says frantically. The pleading in his voice, his face, in the tense set of his muscles, is palpable. And it’s heartbreaking. I didn’t anticipate this side of sharing my secret with someone. Dealing with and processing their response to my hurt wasn’t even on my radar until I see the agony etched across the most solid person I know. The person who never loses control, unless it’s a calculated decision.

“Tory, you can’t. You can’t fix it,” I tell him. The disappointment stretches his beautiful features taut with anguish.

“Why not?” he wails the words, raking his hands through his hair.

“It already happened. I’m too broken.” The tears stream down my face, paths memorized from years of practice.His match mine.

“But I could have done something. I could have stopped it. I could have. I’m too late. I’m too late.” One bloodied fist presses against his mouth so firmly I’m sure his teeth are slicing his lips. The indents will be there for days. “Why can’t anything ever be easy for us? There’s always something,” he tells the walls. I shake my head in response. I don’t have anything else to say. I’m not even entirely sure what he means. He must mean us as in the two of us pursuing something romantic. Because he can’t possibly think that his life is difficult.

“I’ll never forgive myself.”

“You have to.”

“He could have killed you.”

“He didn’t,” I say firmly.

“I’m sorry I woke you.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“You’re a good liar, Clara. Always have been,” he says, more calm now.

“I prefer to think of myself as an Academy Award-worthy actress.”

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