It was Vinnie. His head tilted to the side as he examined my face, as if he was listening to someone speaking into his ear. I smiled at him, always feeling such sorrow for this man and the demons that plagued him. A man clearly lost in life’s intricate maze. I raised the glass to my lips, needing the numbing effects of the alcohol, when Vinnie said, “They don’t blame you.”
My hand froze around the glass. He nodded at what I presumed was his hallucination of Pearl. Vinnie took a deep breath. “They don’t blame you at all.”
“Who?” I asked, feeling Arthur move behind me. He curled his arm around my waist and pulled me back into his chest, as if he knew I needed his steady frame to keep me from falling.
“Your mates,” he said with as much ease as he talked about anything else. My heart thundered in my chest.
“My mates.” Numbness tried to smother me, to protect me from more pain. But I pushed it back. I wanted to hear this. I needed to.
“They know it’s not your fault,” he said. “They just wanted you to know.” Vinnie stared back into the fire as if he hadn’t just carved my chest open and offered me something I thought I could never receive—forgiveness from my deceased friends.
A lifeline.
“And my dad?” I asked, knowing Vinnie never really saw the dead but taking the rope he offered anyway. I knew it was his illness, the hallucinations. Yet I so desperately wanted to believe it to be true that I pushed for more. “Hugo?” Arthur gripped me harder at the mention of Hugo. But he didn’t need to be jealous. I hadn’t loved Hugo in the romantic sense. But I’d loved him as a friend, as my family. I’d never wished him any harm.
Vinnie cocked his head, then looked at me blankly. “I don’t hear them.” My stomach sank.
“Come on,” Arthur said, clearly seeing exhaustion pulling me down to despair. He guided me to our room and took the whisky from my hand and placed it on the bedside table.
He undressed me, but my thoughts were elsewhere. As he removed my clothes and slipped his t-shirt over my head in place of my nightgown, I asked, “Do you ever believe him?” I let my attention drift to the door, and the living room beyond where Vinnie was no doubt still sitting. “That he talks to the dead?” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “That he just spoke to Freya and Arabella? That they …” I inhaled deeply. “That they don’t blame me. That they wanted me to know.”
Arthur stripped off his clothes. When he remained in only his boxers, he stepped closer to me. He put his hands through my hair. “I gave up a bloody long time ago trying to figure out what Vinnie was all about. So I say believe whatever the fuck you want, princess.”
“But do you believe him?” I treaded carefully when I asked, “About Pearl. Do you believe he truly sees her, or is it really just a hallucination born out of mental illness and the stress of loss?”
Arthur’s teeth gritted together, and I knew that the deaths of his sister and mum was one demon he had yet to confront. I knew from Betsy that it was the one part of his life he never talked about. Ever. Couldn’t talk about. Refused to—always had.
“I think Vinnie believes she’s real, and that’s all that matters to him. Keeps him from going postal. I know he has an illness—it’s been verified by a truckload of doctors.” Arthur shrugged. “But Eric’s always believed Vin sees something else, sees what most people can’t. Sees something more.”
“He didn’t see my dad and Hugo.”
“It’s not a foolproof gift, if it even is a gift.” Arthur handed me the whisky again. I drained the glass, then let him lift me into his bed. He wrapped me in his arms and I shut my eyes, letting the grief I had pushed away for so long try to drown me again.
I had to face it.
But as the waves of grief and guilt crashed over me, I held on tightly to Arthur, trusting him to keep me safe. I held on as I replayed my loved ones’ deaths so vividly in my mind. Then I thought of Vinnie’s words: They know it’s not your fault … They just wanted you to know …
Freya and Arabella didn’t blame me. I felt that truth in the depths of my heart. I’d felt the truth of it when Vinnie had met my eyes with unwavering faith and told me so, a message to my guilt-ridden soul from their mouths.
Vinnie hadn’t known of my breakdown at the warehouse. He hadn’t known that I had broken my heart to Arthur and let the pain I’d been fighting for weeks finally consume me. He hadn’t known, yet his message was so timely it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.