And then it just came out. Poured out of me.
“I love you, Arya Roth. I’ve loved you the entire time. From that first day at the cemetery, when we were kids. When everything around us was dead, and you were so alive I wanted to swallow you whole. When you put that little stone on Aaron’s grave so he’d know you came to visit. I loved you that day, for your heart, and every day after that. I never stopped loving you. Even when I hated you. Especially when I hated you, in fact. It was agonizing, thinking you’d forgotten about me. Because Arya? There hadn’t been a minute in my life when I hadn’t thought about you.”
There was a moment—a fraction of it, anyway—when I thought she was going to concede. Finally cave in to that thing between us. But then Arya stepped backward, readjusting the strap of her shoulder bag, her head tipped up defiantly. “I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“Being partly responsible for your decision to quit. Because it doesn’t change anything.”
She wasn’t partly responsible. She was wholly responsible. But there was no point in pointing that out, because now that I’d quit, I knew I should’ve done that years ago. Regardless of her. When you do something right, you feel it in your bones.
“Yes, it does.” I smiled. “It changes one fundamental thing, Arya.”
“And that is?”
“Now I can chase you however much I like. Because your dad’s case means jack shit to me, and you know damn well I don’t give that much of a crap about getting disbarred, seeing as I just quit. It’s on, Ari. I will win you.”
“I’m not a prize.”
I turned around and walked away. “No, you’re not. You’re everything.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
ARYA
Present
While the city slid into a colorful spring, a vast black hole formed in my parents’ penthouse.
No word went in and no word got out. The Roths had vanished, disappeared from the face of the earth.
My mother was the one I tried repeatedly. I felt compelled to look after her, now that I knew my father had emotionally abused her. She was unreachable via phone, email, or text messages. As for my father, I never tried to contact him again after the string of scathing text messages he’d left me the day he’d gotten convicted. His ability to cancel his emotions toward me like they were a streaming-service subscription proved that said feelings had never really been there.
Finally, after seven days of radio silence, I made my way to the Park Avenue penthouse. As I took the elevator up to the last floor, a tug of worry pulled at my stomach. I realized they might not even be there anymore. What if they’d moved? My parents owned the property, but there was no way they could keep it with the amount of money they had to pay after losing the case. I had no idea what the stipulations were. How much time they had to come up with the money. I suppose Christian could’ve given me answers to all these questions, but I couldn’t ask him. Couldn’t make any contact with him. My defenses were already spent, my mental core raw.
After stepping out of the elevator, I knocked on the door leading to my childhood home. I didn’t know why, but for some reason, I did the secret knock Dad and I had used when I was a kid.
One rap, beat, five raps, beat, two raps.
There was silence from the other side. Maybe they weren’t there. I could probably call one of my mother’s country-club friends and ask if they’d given them a new address. I was about to turn around and leave when I heard it, coming from the other side of the wooden barrier between us.
One rap, beat, five raps, beat, two raps.
Conrad.
I froze, willing my feet to move. The traitorous things had taken root in the marble floor, refusing to cooperate. The soft click of the bolt unlocking chimed behind my back. A chill ran through my spine. The door opened.
“Ari. My sweet.”
His voice was so syrupy, so placid. It transported me back to my childhood. To playing tic-tac-toe in front of a pool in Saint-Tropez. To him butchering a braiding job, making my hair look like I’d gotten electrocuted. To us laughing about it. The memories flowed like a river inside me, and I couldn’t stop them, no matter how hard I tried.
Dad wrapping an arm around me, kissing my head, telling me it would be okay. That we didn’t need Mom. That we made a great team all on our own.
Dad dancing to “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” with me.
Dad assuring me I could get into any college I wanted.
Dad buying a baseball bat when I turned sixteen and got pretty overnight, because “you never know.”
Crumbs of happiness, littered in a lifetime of pain and longing.