Midnight Lily(58)

Maybe you don't even know me? Do you feel that way? You must.

No, no.

Lily. I'd found her, and I'd watched her walk away. What else could I have done? Tackle her? She'd wanted to leave. She'd looked as if she was going to collapse. But truthfully, I'd only allowed her to leave because I knew her name. Lily Corsella. Her name was Lily Corsella and her grandmother was Bianca Corsella. Her family owned Whittington. Holy f*ck.

And she was mentally ill? She'd been hospitalized? For a year? I didn't know what to do with that, didn't understand. My mind was still reeling. I loved her. God, I did. I still loved her. If I'd had any doubt before tonight, seeing her in front of me, feeling a wild surge of joy as if she'd suddenly come back from the dead—which in essence, for me, she had—took away any and all question about the depth of my feelings. Her mental illness—that was why she thought we couldn't be together. She'd spent the last year in a hospital and she thought . . . what? That I'd have looked down upon her for it? Why would she think that after what she knew of me, of the battle I'd been fighting the entire time I'd been in Colorado? Of the battle I might fight for the rest of my life.

She'd looked so hurt when I had told her I'd wondered if she were real. Sitting here now, alone in my apartment, I wondered how in the hell I ever could have questioned it. Her eyes. Those violet eyes. Even I couldn't have dreamed up eyes like that. I ran my hand through my hair, letting out a grunt of frustration. What did I do now? A million questions swirled through my mind.

The ding of my phone interrupted my chaotic thoughts. Jenna. I felt terrible about Jenna, but Jesus, how was I supposed to handle that situation? Seeing Lily had hit me with the force of a hurricane. I'd driven Jenna home right after that, not offering her much of an explanation other than I'd met Lily when I was in Colorado, and she'd disappeared. I hadn't known what happened to her and seeing her there was a shock. I'd told Jenna the whole situation had given me a headache, and I just needed to be alone. Which wasn't a lie. My head was throbbing in a way it hadn't in a year. Still, the crushed look on Jenna's face had left me feeling like a complete and utter *. I threw my phone aside. I'd answer Jenna in the morning when I could come up with a better explanation—when I knew what to say to her.

Pulling out my computer, I again looked up Augustine Corsella, specifically looking for information about his family. Now that I knew what I was looking for, I was able to narrow down the search and came upon a few scraps I was able to piece together: he was survived by his wife Bianca. Augustine and Bianca had a daughter named Rachel. There was one other name attached to those names on the people search sites I looked at—Lily Corsella. Rachel must be her mother. I couldn't find any information about her father. And she went by her mother's last name . . . I had to assume her father wasn't in the picture for some reason or another.

Unfortunately, the only address I found for any of them was an address near Telluride. Shit. They were here in San Francisco. Her grandmother had said she was taking her home. How was I going to get her address? Okay, I'd worry about that tomorrow. I had several ideas. Hell, I'd call a private detective if I had to. Lily was not going to disappear again.

I went back to trying to find information on Lily's mother. That seemed to be at the heart of the mystery. Why the hell am I not getting answers directly from you, Lily? After clicking around for another fifteen minutes, I was able to confirm that Rachel Corsella was deceased. There wasn't very much information about her. I couldn't find anything about how she'd died. But she was definitely dead. So Lily had been . . . what? Keeping her alive in her mind? She had been living at Whittington, in that dusty, deserted house of horrors, imagining her mother was there with her, walking alone through the woods day after day, finally finding me. God, Lily. I shut down the computer, finding it too difficult to continue trying to fill in the many blanks without Lily's explanation. I owed it to her to hear the story from her lips. And she owed an explanation to me, dammit.

Everything you know of her is a lie. It was Lily living a lie.

I clenched my eyes shut. No. I refused to believe our feelings for each other were a lie. I had been sick, too. Possibly even sicker than Lily. And yet, I loved her. That had been real. It was still real. No one would convince me otherwise. Not even myself, not again.

I set my computer aside and then stood up, rubbing my palms on my jeans. I was antsy and still had a headache, but all I wanted to do was run across town to Lily. But I really had no idea where she was. Helplessness coursed through me, causing my gut to twist painfully. What if she did try to disappear? What if her grandmother took her somewhere I couldn't find her? No, no, her grandmother was obviously trying to protect her—misguided intentions or not—she wasn't going to hide her away somewhere. I had let them leave tonight, just walk right out. I'd let them leave, and I had to believe that my actions had soothed her grandmother's mind. Plus, they were here in San Francisco. If her grandmother imagined I was that much of a threat, surely she wouldn't have agreed to put Lily in a nearby hospital. God, she'd probably been less than thirty minutes from me this whole time. All those nights I'd sat alone in my apartment or walked the streets aimlessly, ending up in odd places, consumed by misery, hearing her voice in my head as if it were drifting to me on the wind . . . and she'd been a few miles away. I'd dreamed of her, over and over, visions that twisted and turned and caused me to wake up in a cold sweat, swearing her scent hung in the air all around me like a benediction. And all that time, she'd been right within my reach.