Ruthless Creatures (Queens & Monsters, #1)(11)

I feel a twinge of dismay at the way I treated him this morning. I was so embarrassed to be caught in my wedding dress, and so surprised to see him instead of Sloane, I’m afraid I was a bit of a bitch.

“So what was in the box he brought over?”

“Painting supplies. Oils and brushes. The weird thing is that I don’t remember ordering them.”

Sloane looks at me with a combination of sympathy and hope. “Does this mean you’re working on a new piece?”

Avoiding her searching eyes, I pick at my salad. “I don’t want to jinx it by talking about it.”

More like I don’t want to make up a lie, but if I tell her that I’m still not painting but I somehow ordered myself art supplies without remembering I did, she’ll drive me straight from lunch to a therapist’s office.

Maybe Diane Myers was right: I’m living in a bubble. A big fuzzy bubble of denial that’s disconnected me from the world. I’m slowly but surely losing touch with real life.

Sloane says, “Oh, babe, I’m so glad! This is great forward progress!”

When I glance up, she’s beaming at me. Now I feel like an asshole. I’ll have to slap some paint on an empty canvas when I get home just so I’m not consumed by guilt.

“And you did so well at the consignment shop, too. Not a tear in sight. I’m very proud.”

“Does this mean I can order another glass of wine?”

“You’re a big girl. You can do whatever you want.”

“Good, because it’s still The Day That Will Not Be Mentioned, and I’m hoping to be blacked out by four o’clock.”

The time I was supposed to be walking down the aisle on this date five years ago.

Thank god it’s a Saturday, or I’d have a lot of explaining to do when I toppled over reeking of booze in the middle of teaching class.

Sloane is distracted from whatever disapproving statement she was about to say by her cell phone chirping. A text has come through.

She digs her phone out of her bag, looks at it, and grins. “Oh, yeah, big boy.”

Then she looks up at me, and her face falls. She shakes her head and starts to type. “I’ll tell him we need to reschedule.”

“Him who? Reschedule what?”

“It’s Stavros. We’re supposed to be going out tonight. I forgot.”

“Stavros? You’re dating a Greek shipping tycoon?”

She stops typing and rolls her eyes. “No, girl, he’s the hottie I’ve been telling you about.”

When I stare at her blankly, she insists, “The one who showed up at my yoga class in tight gray sweatpants with no underwear on so everyone could see a perfect outline of his dick?”

I arch an eyebrow, sure I would have remembered that.

“Oh, c’mon. I’ve told you all about him. He’s got a place right on the lake. Three hundred feet of private beach. The tech guy. Any of this ringing a bell?”

Zero bells are ringing, but I nod anyway. “Right. Stavros. Gray sweatpants. I remember.”

She sighs. “You so don’t.”

We stare at each other across the table until I say, “How early does early-onset Alzheimer’s kick in?”

“Not this early. You’re not even thirty yet.”

“Maybe it’s a brain tumor.”

“It’s not a brain tumor. You’re just kind of…” She winces, not wanting to hurt my feelings. “Checked out.”

So Diane the blabbermouth was right. Groaning, I prop my elbows on the table and drop my head into my hands. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. You endured a major trauma. You’re still getting over it. There’s no correct timetable for grief.”

If only there was a body, I could move on.

I’m so ashamed by that thought, my face burns. But the ugly truth is that there is no moving on.

The worst thing about a missing person who’s never found is that those they leave behind can’t really mourn. They’re stuck in a perpetual twilight of unknowing. Unable to get closure, unable to properly grieve, they exist in a kind of numb limbo. Like perennials in winter, lying dormant under frozen ground.

It’s the unanswered questions that get you. The terrible what-ifs that gnaw at your soul with hungry teeth at night.

Is he dead? If so, how did it happen? Did he suffer? For how long?

Did he join a cult? Get abducted? Start a new life somewhere else?

Is he alone out in the woods, living off the land?

Did he hit his head and forget his identity?

Is he ever coming back?

The list is endless. A one-sided, open-ended Q&A that repeats on a loop every waking hour, except you’re only talking to yourself and the answers never come.

For people like me, there are no answers. There is only life in suspended animation. There is only the slow and steady calcification of your heart.

But I’ll be damned if I’ll let my best friend calcify with me.

I raise my head and say firmly, “You’re going on that date with gray sweatpants.”

“Nat—”

“There’s no reason both of us should be miserable. End of discussion.”

She gazes at me with narrowed eyes for a moment, until she sighs and shakes her head. “I don’t like this.”