Page 60 of Saint
My words were fractured as I stood in front of the woman who’d taken possession of my heart stuttering and stammering like a bitch.
In synchronistic fashion, we both heaved our next breaths. “I’m saying you don’t have to concern yourself with the arrangement anymore. I don’t want to do this anymore, Tori. I can’t.”
Even as I spoke the words, I couldn’t connect a shred of truth to them. And much like her heart, her face and voice fractured, too.
“What do you mean, Saint?” She winced.
“In this bag, you’ll find the million in cash that I promised you seven months ago.” I motioned to the duffle bag near my feet. “We don’t have to pretend anymore. You can… return to your life and forget that I ever came into it. You can forget me. You can drop the mask of concern about me. And don’t worry your pretty head, Beauty. I made sure you’re safe. You can return to the–”
“–Ugh!”
My speech was interrupted by grunts and growls paired with the collision of slender hands shoving into my chest as Victoria grimaced. Like a rainbow, she was always beautifully transparent and variegated with her emotions. She had no problem putting them on display. Again and again, she shoved into me with all the hundred fifty pounds of might in her possession. Her little hands balled into fists as they collided with my chest. Again and again, they attempted to gain access to my most prized possession.
“What do you mean you can’t do this anymore? Huh?” She gritted as she frowned and shoved into me. As we stood out on the patio, the evidence of a pending storm loomed overhead. Her straightened hair whipped in the wind, nearly covering her face. I’d seen her angry, but at present, she was livid.
“You can drop the act, Victoria. Take the money and go.”
“Who the fuck is pretending here, Saint? Return to what life after you’ve planted yourself so deeply in it? I don’t have anything to return to!”
Between her words came the downpour of frustration and disappointment in the form of tears.
“Victoria, you’re a wonderful, beautiful, successful woman. You have an entire world that existed before I came along–”
“And you’re a part of that now! Saint, what are you doing, love? Why are you doing this?”
I’d never witnessed her broken, yet here I was, slamming the vessel in her chest into thousands of pieces. Our end was met where it began, on the beach. And despite the irony, there was no poetry in the fact. Only pain remained. Dr. Gibson had neglected to inform me how agonizing love could be.
“I don’t do this! I don’t grovel. I don’t beg, and yet here I am, humbled and hurting because you felt something and freaked out?” Victoria pointed to me accusatorially as she sniffed and frowned. There were so many emotions playing on her face that it was difficult to keep up. “Really, Saint?”
My fucking toes curled.
“This wasn’t part of the recipe of what we were cooking, Victoria.” I shifted my gaze elsewhere because her eyes held far too much truth. Her pain was mine. A reflection that I didn’t wish to see.
Watching her crumble was like poison seeping through my veins. I didn’t dare watch her cry. It tightened my chest, like the marionette strings she claimed over it. But this was different than the willful hold I’d surrendered to her. This was pure, unadulterated pain. I wanted something real and profound. I’d located it but found difficulty determining if it was genuine. There were a million reasons for it not to be. That was my problem.
“Tell me you would be here if it weren’t for the money.” Sniffing my own tears away, I begged her to make a fool of me.
“Saint, I–Listen.”
Her inability to grant me the words I needed to hear left me fragmented. I needed the affirmation she couldn’t provide. I needed to know that her loyalty no longer had a price. Shaking my head, I relinquished the last of my strength.
“Just take it, Tori.” I shoved the duffle bag in her direction, and she scowled like I’d attempted to throw acid.
It was better to cut my losses now than to wait until we’d logged a year, and she was packing her shit, and I was hurting at the prospect of her disappearing from my life. It was better this way. This was damage control.
“No,” she sniffed. “We cooked something better. Something real. I know this arena is outside your purview of specialties, but Saint, please hear me out.”
“Victoria, take the money and go.” I couldn’t stand to be this person, to feel this impossible pain. I needed her out of my face and out of my space so that I could grieve in peace.
“Fuck you and your money,” she groused, wearing the disgust I’d delivered on her frame like battle scars.
Away, she turned, leaving the final memory of her behind in the form of lavender and rose. The scent lingered as her frame drifted away from me. Violently, her dress whispered against the wind, all of it leaving my head in a tailspin. As she stumbled through the patio opening away from me, the bag with a million excuses not to love me remained unclaimed.
Victoria
The number gracing the screen of my phone caused an involuntary twitch of my facial muscles. Already, weeks had breezed by while I continued to ignore my friends following the brunch incident. I would eventually forgive them, but I wasn’t sure when that time would come. Even with me and Saint’s stalemate, their words were still felt. They’d been reaching out nonstop, but I wasn’t ready to extend the olive branch.
Now that things had gone awry with Saint, the urge to ignore them had slightly waned. Admittedly, it was still fuck those bitches, but I missed my girls. Swallowing my inflated ego, I pressed the button to answer the call.