No Love Allowed(54)

His world threatened to crumble around him at her words. All because he had let love in. He was so sure she felt the same way. The painting she had given him and the paintings in her art room said so. “D, I’m here for you. Let me be here for you.”

“No.”

Two letters that made up the saddest word in the world. It sounded so much like go. It hit him straight where it would hurt most. His heart. Eyes stinging, he backed away from her room.

Not paying attention, he bumped into the kitchen table and knocked over one of the chairs. Bending quickly, he righted it as the first tear fell. The hopelessness in her voice was what pushed him to run out of the house, not bothering to acknowledge Angela’s presence beside the open front door. She must be happy, getting what she wanted, he thought. Didi didn’t want him in her life. She didn’t want him.

A new wave of hurt assailed Caleb, crushing his insides. The ground no longer felt solid beneath his feet.

Stumbling to his car, he opened the door and sat inside without starting the engine. He let the tears fall, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white.

Breathing hard, he found himself starting the car and driving until he reached the Parker Estate. Not bothering to remove the key from the ignition, he stepped out and ran all the way to his room.

Once inside, he paused, fingers combing through his hair. His eyes darted from place to place in search of his luggage, until he remembered where he had left it. He hurried to his closet and pulled down a suitcase and a backpack, then threw both onto the bed. Then he began yanking shirts and pants from their hangers on the rack. Only the essentials. He figured he could buy whatever he needed as he and Nathan went along. The most important thing was getting far away from Dodge Cove. Away from—

“Caleb, what is the meaning of this?” JJ asked indignantly, entering his room.

Good. He needed his father to be just as pissed off as he was. “Did you know?”

“Know what?”

“When you had her investigated.” He glared. “Did you know she had bipolar disorder?”

Instead of answering Caleb’s roiling anger with his own, JJ sighed. “Of course I knew.”

“And you didn’t bother telling me sooner?” he roared, barely suppressing the urge to break something. Instead he stuffed shirts into the backpack.

“You ran out of my office before I could. Then the accident happened, and you refused to speak to anyone. . . .”

Caleb gritted his teeth to keep from saying anything more when his father’s words trailed off. Did the man have no paternal instincts left? So what if he hadn’t wanted to speak to anyone at the time? His father should have pushed his way in. Caleb envied Didi and the love her mother had for her as his fingernails dug into his palm. The pain inside his chest was too much for him to register anything else.

He bowed his head to keep his father from seeing fresh tears and whispered, “If this is love, I don’t want it.”

“Why are you packing?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” He left the mess on his bed and moved to his dresser where his passport was. “Nathan and I are leaving for Europe. I’m staying over at his house until then to finalize our plans.”

“Caleb.”

He shrugged off the hand his father had placed on his shoulder and returned to his packing. “There’s nothing more you can say. I’ve done everything you asked. I’ll see you in a year.”





Twenty-Five


DIDI MARKED PASSING time by her mother venturing into her room for food and meds. She must have been doing it in between jobs, because this was the most she had seen of her mother in a while. Didi’s latest dark period must have been a doozy if her mom was keeping close watch. She remembered snippets, but most of that time stretched out in a blur spent in the oblivion of sleep.

Caleb had left. Like he promised he would. Why he had come to her house that day still confused her. For a guy who didn’t believe in love to say that he might be falling in love with her? His confession the night of the accident had sounded so true it must have been a lie. She’d probably misheard him, because she remembered nothing else afterward . . . not until her mother had brought her home a groggy mess from all the antipsychotics and antidepressants they had pumped into her system at the hospital. She didn’t ask about the bills, and her mother didn’t say anything. Didi spent most of her time in a tar pit so black no light could penetrate it.

She pushed her head out of the mound of comforters she had been under. Judging from the smell, she hadn’t showered in a while. Her hair stuck to her scalp in a ratty mess. The nail polish Natasha had painstakingly applied the night of Caleb’s birthday was chipped in several places. Just like the fantasy. It had been fun while it lasted. Landed her in the psych ward, but it had been worth it to be a part of that world. She’d eaten great food. She’d worn beautiful dresses. She’d met new, interesting people who had made her think not all of them were rich pricks and spoiled bitches. Although Amber/Ashley definitely belonged to the fake-bitch side. But that was all over now. Back to her regularly scheduled program.

Caleb’s parting words during one of her more lucid moments in the dark hole came to her as she forced her eyes open.

“I’m here for you,” she mumbled, curling deeper into the dent her body had made in the mattress from not moving out of the fetal position she found most comfortable. She waited for the nausea that came with staying in bed for an extended period to ease.