The Watcher Girl(63)
It turned out Rose did find it odd that I stood her up for brunch, and given what I’d told her about Sutton and his wife, she knew something wasn’t right. She called the police immediately, and when they sent an officer to the Whitlock residence, Sutton told them his wife and child had disappeared overnight.
They knew we were together—it just took a while to pinpoint an exact location.
And as for Sutton, he was helping the police the whole time. At least that’s my understanding. I hope to speak to him soon—if he’ll even speak to me. I want to know why. How. I need to make sense of what happened.
As soon as everyone had a chance to hear the full story and give me a once-over to ensure I was fine, I popped a pill to quiet my mind and curled up on the sofa for a thousand-year nap.
The clock above the mantel reads eleven PM.
I slide the blanket off my lap, sit up, and peer into the dim, lamplit space as I get my bearings. My throat is parched, and my neck is kinked from sleeping in a strange position. I rise up to grab a water and make my way upstairs, only I stop when I find I’m not alone.
At the end of the sofa, sleeping softly with her head in her hand . . . is Bliss.
I study her for a moment. At the hospital, she was the first to jump out of Rose’s car and wrap her arms around me. And on the ride home, she insisted she sit in the back, next to me. The instant we made it home, she ran around, fetching herbal teas and extra pillows and lighting a candle she said was supposed to cleanse the bad energy of the day.
Her eyes blink, slowly, as if she senses me watching her, and she sits up, finger-combing her long waves into place.
“You’re allowed to leave my side, you know,” I say.
She smiles. “Sorry. I don’t mean to smother you. I was just worried I’d never see you again.”
I hesitate. This isn’t the first time someone’s taken a peculiar interest in me.
“I appreciate it,” I say, “but I have to admit I’m confused . . . you’ve known me a handful of weeks, but you’re taking this worse than everyone else. Why do you care so much?”
“It’s a conversation for another day.” Her tone is light, but her stare is unfocused, lost in thought. “You’ve had enough excitement for one day, don’t you think?”
I cock my head, examining her, recalling the preliminary research I did on her back when she and my dad first started dating. I do background checks on all his girlfriends, despite the fact that there isn’t much need. They can dig his gold all they want, but he’s smarter than that. His financial situation is locked tight, and it’ll be a subzero day in hell when he marries again. Even if he did marry, he’d require an ironclad prenup.
“I looked you up last year,” I tell her, “online.”
“Find anything good?” There’s a glint in her eyes.
“You didn’t exist until about twenty years ago,” I say.
“Sounds about right.”
“So who are you?” I fold my arms. I don’t mean to be overly defensive to a woman who’s shown me nothing but grace and kindness since the instant we met, but there’s no room in my life right now for crazy.
She pats the sofa, an invitation to sit, but I prefer to stand.
“I don’t often talk about who I was before,” she says. “Because I’m not her. I haven’t been her for a long time. And there was nothing special about me. I was your typical rebellious teenager who couldn’t stay out of trouble for more than two seconds at a time. I hated my parents. I ran away more times than I could count. Everything was always someone else’s fault. I loved making people worry about me—convinced it would prove whether or not they truly loved me. When I was seventeen, I ran off with this guy to prove some kind of point to my parents, I guess. But six months later, they died in a car accident. Gone. Just like that. I didn’t get to tell them goodbye. Didn’t get to apologize for putting them through hell. Spent the next ten years hating myself. Making my life harder than it needed to be. And one day I just . . . woke up . . . and decided I didn’t want to be that girl anymore. The name change was more symbolic than anything else. A blank slate. My old name was Karen Delgado—if you’re so inclined to know. But I can assure you, that woman is dead. Figuratively. Obviously. I know you probably look things up about people online, so you have my full permission. But you’re not going to find anything. That version of me didn’t do anything halfway worth documenting. Now, Bliss, on the other hand . . . she’s moved mountains.”
Bliss places her hand over her heart, lips spreading into a slow smile as she gazes up at the ceiling and gathers in a long breath.
“People change, Grace. They change all the time. You can move out of the darkest part of yourself and into the light,” she says. “Reinventing myself was the best thing I ever did. I’d even go so far as to say it saved my life.”
I don’t know the first thing about reinventing myself—but she makes it sound lovely. Medicinal almost. Like changing your name is akin to taking a pill to fix what ails you.
Bliss exhales, glancing toward the sliding door, where Dad, Rose, Evan, and Sebastian converse under the glow of party lights.
I’m unsure of what to say. I fix my gaze outside, focusing on my grinning father. She makes him happy. Happier than the last few, for sure.
“Does my dad know who you really are?” I ask.