Lovegame(109)

I don’t even know what to say, except I want it off me. I want it off me right now.

But Ian’s still here, looking at me with dark eyes filled with concern. I can’t stand it. Can’t stand him looking at me like he cares. Can’t stand the pain I can see written on his face. Can’t stand even being in the same room with him.

There’s one thing I have to know, though. One thing I have to ask before I go upstairs and wash this whole nightmare off of me once and for all.

“Did you know?” I ask. “When you decided to take the Vanity Fair interview. Did you know that Liam Brogan had once been my bodyguard?”

I’ll say this for him. He doesn’t flinch from the question. Doesn’t try to look way. Doesn’t even try to lie. Instead, he looks me straight in the eye and says, “Yes.”

I nod, take a few seconds to assimilate the answer I already knew was coming. Then I point to the door and order, “Get out.”

“I will,” he promises. “But you have to listen to me first. You have to let me make sure you’re okay—”

“I don’t have to do anything.”

“I can’t just leave you like this.”

“I’m not your problem to worry about anymore—if I ever was. Besides, I’ll be fine.”

I move past him and open the door, wait for him to pass.

He doesn’t move. “Damn it, Veronica. Let me help you clean up. Let me take care of you. Let me do something—”

“Oh, I think you’ve done enough, don’t you?” It slips out and I want to kick myself for letting him see, even for a moment, how much I’m hurting. But then I decide to hell with it. It’s not like he doesn’t already know. “What did I ever do to you to deserve this?”

“Jesus, Veronica—”

“Did you ever care about me or was it all just part of the plan?”

“Of course I did.” He grabs me, his hands wrapping around my upper arms as he looks straight into my eyes. “I do care. I love you, Veronica.”

I lash out, slap him across the face. “Don’t say that. Don’t you say that to me. Not now. Not after everything that’s happened. Don’t you ever say that to me again.”

His face crumples. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry you got caught? Sorry you can’t write your book? What exactly are you sorry for, Ian?”

“I’m sorry for hurting you.”

“I don’t believe you.” I push him and he stumbles back, stumbles out the door onto the porch. “I don’t believe for one second that you know what it means to be sorry.”

And neither does my mother.

Before he can say anything else, I shut the door in his face. Lock it. I even set the security alarm for good measure.

Then I walk back up to the third floor. I don’t go in the Picasso room—I’ll never go in that room again. Instead, I walk to the Warhol room. I start toward the bathroom, toward the shower as I’m still covered in blood, but as I do my gaze falls on the picture of my mother hanging in the center of the room.

Rage, pain, sorrow…they all slam through me like a wrecking ball. And I break wide open.

I rip the picture off the wall, throw it on the floor. Stomp on it until the frame breaks. And still it’s not enough. Still I feel like I’m suffocating.

I look around wildly, then grab a fountain pen off the desk in the corner and stab it through the canvas again and again and again. I don’t know how long I do it for, don’t have clue how many holes I poke through the world-famous painting. Enough that my arm is tired when I finally stop. More than enough that it’s nearly unrecognizable between the tears in the canvas and the ink scattered across it like blood.

I stare at what I’ve done for long seconds—stare at her graffitied face, her vacant eyes—until my skin crawls. Then I walk into the bathroom, turn on the shower and step under the freezing cold spray. The blood runs off my body, turns pink as it mixes with the water and slowly swirls down the drain.

I reach for the soap, pour it all over my body. And scrub. And scrub. And scrub. Only when I’m clean, only when I can look down at my naked body and see my skin and not the blood, do I do what I’ve been afraid of since this nightmare began. What I’ve been afraid of for far, far too long.

I shatter.





Chapter 31


Don’t say that.

I don’t believe you.

Don’t say that.

I don’t believe you.

Don’t say that.

Don’t say that.

Don’t say that.

Veronica’s words echo in my head as I make the hour long drive from Houston Hobby airport to the Huntsville correctional facility.

They wash over me again and again, just as they have every day—every hour—since I walked out of her house two weeks ago.

What did I ever do to you to deserve this?

I slam my fist against the steering wheel and try to block out her voice. To block out the blankness of her face, the devastation in her eyes.

It doesn’t work. Nothing works. It hasn’t since I walked away from Veronica. No, not walked away. Since I let her push me away.

I don’t believe for one second that you know what it means to be sorry.