My brother didn’t react. “I haven’t seen you this low in a long time…so I assumed.”
Was my agony that obvious?
“You told her?”
I shook my head. “Damien did.”
He bowed his head slightly. “That’s even worse.”
“She told him about me, I think in the hope of burying our mutual grievances so she and I could be together. That just makes it so much worse, that she was willing to fight for me.” I pressed my hands to my face and just sat there, imagining how that conversation backfired and exploded in her face.
“I’m sorry, Heath,” he said quietly. “What are you going to do now?”
“I’ve tried talking to her…she wants nothing to do with me.” I gave her a few weeks of space so she could calm down, let the initial flame lower to room temperature, but when I saw her at the bar, she was the same. She wasn’t just hostile—but indifferent. That was the worst part, watching her burn white-hot then become an arctic winter. “All those feelings she had for me…just died.”
“What kind of feelings?”
“I told her I loved her… She never said it back. But she implied it.”
Now Balto’s hard expression softened entirely, giving me a look he’d never shown me before. He actually felt terrible for me, actually felt the pain I felt.
“But that wasn’t enough for her. She said what we had was never real…not if it was based on a lie.”
He dropped his gaze and stared at the floor.
I did the same, sitting in the painful silence, wanting my brother to comfort me even though I already knew there was nothing he could do for me. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Heath, I don’t think there is anything you can do.”
I opened my eyes. “Don’t say that to me.”
“You know I’ll never tell you what you want to hear. I’ll tell you the truth. That’s my job.”
I raised my head and stared straight ahead. “She said she hates me, that she wishes she hadn’t warned me and fucked up Damien’s plan…that she wishes I were dead for what I did to her father.” That hurt the most, to hear her say those things and mean every word, to wish everything we’d had never happened at all.
“You did a pretty terrible thing, Heath.”
I closed my eyes in a grimace. “I was a different person then. And come on, don’t make me feel worse—”
“But I find it hard to believe she really means that.”
I opened my eyes and looked at him.
“Maybe she means them in the moment, but I don’t think she means it literally. She doesn’t strike me as the kind of person to wish death on anyone…especially the man she loves.”
“Loved,” I whispered.
He gave me another remorseful look. “I think you should give her space. A lot of it. And maybe…someday…you can try again.”
“I don’t want to wait until someday. I want her now.”
“Well, I just don’t think that’s possible,” he said. “This woman was in a deep and emotional relationship with you, then heard something so terrible. Of course, she feels betrayed. Of course, she feels foolish. Her mind is in shock. The initial anger is so potent that it’s masked all of her other feelings. Her shell is hard, her guard is up. She’s not who she used to be…because this was so traumatic for her.”
God, I felt like shit.
“You have to be patient…and wait.”
That meant she would sleep with other men. I’d sleep with other women. I’d have to live a numb existence until I could get her back, to finally come back to life and feel emotion once again. “I really don’t want to do that.”
“I know, Heath. But that’s how it has to be. You knew this would happen.”
“Yes,” I snapped. “But I never expected…” I rubbed my hand across my chest. “I never expected it to hurt this fucking bad, to feel so goddamn lost, to feel like…I’ll never be happy again.” I dropped my hand.
Balto was quiet for a while, taking a deep breath like that description was painful.
“And now Damien is coming for me. I don’t know what to do about that.”
“Wasn’t he always coming for you?”
“Yeah, but now that I hurt his sister, I know it could happen any minute. And now, I can’t kill him. I can’t hurt him. I can’t do anything. It’s like fighting with both hands pinned behind my back. He’s not going to go away.”
Balto sighed quietly.
“If I kill him, she really will never forgive me.”
“So, no matter what, you lose.”
“Yeah…” If he killed me, I’d lose Catalina forever. If I killed him, I’d lose her forever. The outcome was the same no matter what I did, unless I really did take her advice and flee the country. But I wasn’t going to do that.
“You could hire someone else to do it.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Then you could buy him off.”
“There’s no amount of money that will change his mind.”
“Then give him something else he wants.”
I couldn’t think of anything.
“He doesn’t want to pay you, right?”
“I already released him from the obligation.”
“Alright, then give him his independence.”
My mind started to consider the idea, to wonder if that would be enough to change his mind. “And if he said yes, then what?”
He shrugged. “Buys you some time…”
I turned the corner and walked down the hallway, my fingers wrapped around the green stems of the sunflowers I’d just picked hours ago. Tied with a single black ribbon, they were together in my grasp, smelling like her hair, bright like her smell.
I stopped in front of her door, feeling the connection with her grow stronger in my chest just from being near her. My eyes moved to the crack under the door, seeing the shifting blue light from the TV in the living room. She probably sat on the couch, drinking
