Hell on Heels(41)

I said nothing.

Walking to the front door, I yanked it open. “Goodbye, Dean.”

He leaned in to kiss my cheek and I pulled pack, making him wince.

“This isn’t over.”

I slammed the door on him.

I was the worst kind of lover. The kind that could surgically remove themselves from your life without a moment’s notice and no hesitation, leaving you to haemorrhage blood in every place my lips touched.

It was the only part of me I let them keep, the memories.

I severed affection like an infected limb. Sacrificing one for the majority.

I was like all wounded people, ruthless and calculated, with efficiency in self-preservation.

I wasn’t whole.

I was made of borrowed parts, little pieces of those I’d loved along the way that I claimed as my own.

I was patchwork.

“Let go, Charlie bear.”

Closing my eyes, I leaned against the wall. “I’m trying.”

“Forgiveness isn’t weakness.”

“I’m not ready,” I said into my empty apartment.

“You will be.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”





Eight Weeks Later



“Don’t you think the water will be cold?” I called out to him as we ran down the porch stairs.

He laughed in the way I knew meant he found me amusing.

“You’re always so scared, Charlie bear.”

I threw my towel at the back of his head. “Am not.”

He ducked. “Are to.”

I ran, but he was always so much faster. Picking up my towel, he waved it around in the air. “Catch me if you can, ya big wuss!” he yelled.

“Give it back, Henry!” I chased him down into the sand.

He whipped the towel at my legs and I screamed in the way only little sisters do. Jumping into the water, he waded out with my towel above his head. “Come and get it then.”

He loved to tease me, to push my buttons.

I dipped one toe into the ocean water and jumped backwards. “It’s too cold for swimming!” I wailed.

“So what?” He shook his head at me, bemused.

I stomped my feet in the hard packed sand. “So I’ll freeze!”

Henry laughed. “It’s just water.”

I frowned but remained standing at the water’s edge. “I don’t want to be cold,” I pouted.

He waded in deeper, up to his ribcage. “You have to live a little,” he told me, shaking his head. “Life’s not that scary, Charlie bear.”



“Are you all right?”

I pulled my gaze from the window and smiled at Beau. “I’m better then all right.”

“Good.” He squeezed the hand he had on my knee and I rested my head on his shoulder.

We were on our fourth date, driving along the Seawall that surrounded Stanley Park. It was too cold at this time of year for anyone to be on the beach, but still I found my memories there.

I missed Henry.

I missed him all the time.

The weeks that had passed had been busy ones. We wrapped up both the Weizmann fundraiser and the party for Caroline Clarke at work. We were now ramping up in preparation for the holidays. Leighton and I had also decided on ten days in Mexico this year, much to Morgan’s dismay, and Kevin decided he’d join us.

We only had to make it through the rest of December first.

I’d seen Dean nearly every workday in passing at my building, but in all the times I saw him, we never spoke. Maybe he was waiting for me to apologize, or maybe he was giving me space to come to terms with everything he’d told me. Maybe I was still too embarrassed about what I’d let happen. Either way, I’d kept my head down and my mouth shut, hoping the problem would solve itself.

We were a war. Not at war, but the very war itself. Two people dancing around each other, armed to the teeth and never knowing when the other would stumble across a landmine and blow it all to shit.

Yes. Dean and I were unfinished business, no doubt.

That aside, the man next to me, I continued to grow fonder of. Beau never ceased to amaze me. We’d been to dinner at the revolving restaurant on our second date, and he’d taken me to see the Vancouver Canucks play the Detroit Red Wings at Rogers Arena on our third date.

Each time together, he made me feel special, cherished, and like I was normal.

He didn’t see a damaged person when he looked at me.

Though sometimes, like tonight, I’d find myself thinking of Maverick. He seemed to have taken a hiatus from my dates with Beau. I hadn’t seen him since that night at the theatre, and it had always been Jason on protective detail ever since. I sometimes wondered where he was, or if he’d been there and I simply hadn’t noticed.

It perplexed me why it mattered, but often I tried not to examine those thoughts too closely.

“Did you enjoy the lights?”

I felt his head lay down to rest on top of mine. I smiled into the dark interior of the town car. “They were beautiful. I had a wonderful time.”

Every year, as Christmas approached, the train in Stanley Park would host the Bright Lights. It was romantic, although the snow had yet to fall and it was unlike any date we’d shared thus far. It seemed more intimate. We sat curled up on the train with a blanket in our shared laps and hot chocolate in our hands, while the train took us through the park showcasing some of the most exquisite Christmas light displays in all of Vancouver.