The Boy Who Has No Redemption (Soulless 8)

I shook my head. “For the last ten years, you know how many times I’ve thought about either one of you?”

The lower lid of her eyes started to fill with more water than she could hold.

“Zero.” I turned around and continued to walk to my car. “And after tonight, I’ll think about you zero times until I die.”

“I don’t believe you.”

I made it to the car and opened the door. I gave her one final look before I got inside. “And I really don’t care, Tabitha.”

2

Emerson

The weekend passed, and I didn’t hear from Derek.

I hoped he would text me and apologize. I hoped he would call and apologize. I hoped he would end up at my doorstep and apologize.

It didn’t happen.

The wedding came and went…and I had no idea what happened with that.

I still had no clue what happened at the rehearsal dinner. Why was he so angry at Kevin that he would punch him in the middle of a party? And was Tabitha the woman who was standing there? What did she do? How were the three of them related?

Derek never told me, so I didn’t know.

Instead of giving in to the turmoil, I told myself that Derek just needed space, that he would come around on his own, that this separation wasn’t permanent. He was just under a lot of stress, and he snapped.

He would come back to me.

I would be angry with him.

He would apologize.

I’d forgive him.

And then it would be over. I’d get him back.

That was what I continued to tell myself.

Lizzie asked me if there was something wrong, and I told her I wasn’t feeling well because I ate something bad. My mom was supposed to watch Lizzie on Saturday night, but I told her I wasn’t going to the wedding because of the food poisoning. So, I pretended to throw up in the bathroom so they would believe me.

But I didn’t want them to know the truth, especially if Derek came back.

On Monday morning, I was so sick that I thought I actually might have food poisoning.

As with every workday that we drove together, he stepped out of the building when he saw Ronnie’s SUV and walked to the vehicle with his satchel over his shoulder. He opened the door, took a seat, and then opened his bag to pull out his work.

Ronnie looked at him in the rearview mirror. “Morning, Mr. Hamilton.”

Derek ignored him.

Ronnie pulled onto the street.

I continued to stare at Derek and waited for him to acknowledge me.

He didn’t.

As if I wasn’t even in the car, he worked like I didn’t exist.

I spent my time working in his corporate office and handling the never-ending work that piled up there. I brought him lunch like always, dropping it off and not getting a reaction from Derek. Sometimes, I worked in his other office and organized his papers, but he still didn’t acknowledge my existence.

The entire week passed that way.

Lizzie was out of school for winter break, which was a relief because I didn’t know what to say to her. Her tutoring sessions were over, and I wasn’t sure how to break the news to her. She lived for those sessions, was motivated to reach for the stars.

But he never mentioned it.

When the week was over, I got scared.

Really scared.

I hoped Derek would snap out of it, that he would come to his senses, that he would realize he’d behaved irrationally and he loved me as much as he always had. But that didn’t happen, and he gave no indication that he even missed me.

It hurt…so fucking much.

When ten days came and went, I decided to try to talk to him. He was alone in the warehouse, sitting on a stool at the workbench as he worked on the new rover. There was no talk about the failed rocket, but I was certain it hadn’t left his mind, that it ate away at him every single night while he tried to go to sleep.

Perhaps his mind was full of so much stress that there wasn’t room for me anymore.

I approached the table and waited for him to acknowledge me.

He didn’t.

“Derek?” I kept my voice low and easy, making sure it didn’t come out emotional and broken.

“Yes?” He didn’t lift his chin to look at me.

It was so disrespectful. It was like we were six months in the past, when I’d first started working for him and hadn’t proven myself to him. It felt like he’d built a time machine and brought us to a period when neither one of us was happy. “Can we talk?”

“About?”

My eyebrows furrowed as he continued to treat me like shit. “I mean so little to you that you won’t even look at me?” I was hurt, but my angry tone masked that well.

He closed his eyes and gave a sigh, like I was his mother bugging him to do his chores. Then he straightened in the stool and looked at me, wearing the same cold expression he always wore, like I was Jerome or Pierre…someone that he didn’t love with his whole heart. “What?”