Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 97364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
“Nashville, I suppose.”
“No. No … he’s not leaving until tomorrow.”
“I woke up to this text.” He holds up his mobile.
I snatch it from his hand.
Theo: Everything is out. Taking off. Thanks for the job.
“What are you doing?” Nolan reaches for his mobile.
I turn my back to him, moving my fingers over the screen. Desperate. Out of control.
Nolan: Where are you? Come back! It’s Scarlet. I love you. I NEED you. PLEASE!!!!!
“Scarlet—”
“Shh!” I can’t listen to anyone speak. The only voice I want to hear is Theo’s. “Come on!” I shake the mobile as if it will expedite his response. My patience is nonexistent, so I call the number. It’s goes to voicemail and says the mailbox has not been setup. “Fuck fuck fuckity fuck!!”
Nolan: Turn around. I’m at the house … our house. Come back to me. I’ll do anything. I’ll go anywhere. PLEASE! I love you … God … I can’t even breathe.
I watch the line at the top. It goes over halfway then stops.
Failed to deliver
“No.” I try to deliver it again, and again, I get the same message. The first message was delivered. He’s avoiding me.
“Scarlet.” Nolan overpowers me, taking back his mobile. “What are you doing?” He reads the texts I tried to send.
“I love him,” I whisper.
Nolan nods. “I see that. He’ll call back.”
I shake my head. “He won’t. He’s gone.”
Nolan sighs, the sympathetic kind that makes me feel like a lost puppy. “Do you need money to get to Nashville?”
My gaze shifts from Nolan’s phone to his concern-etched face. “He’s not going to Nashville.”
“That’s where he told me—”
“No. He’s doesn’t want anyone to know where he’s going. That’s how I know he’s not going there.”
The lines in his face deepen. “I’m sorry. I’ll keep trying to reach him.”
I press my palm to the door, like I used to press it to Theo’s chest. “I want to go inside.”
Nolan unlocks the door and opens it. “Take your time. I’m going to check on a few things in the garage.”
It’s as if there’s something invisible stopping me from going inside. All I can do is stand at the threshold and stare at the kitchen were we shared our first encounter. I can’t believe he said I scared him. All I detected was this instant hatred. Theodore Reed found life in me that I never knew existed, like the gardener who sees a delicate sprout in the otherwise barren soil. I knew it the moment he locked me in my room. Something inside of me screamed, “This! This is what I’ve been missing.”
“Uh … you can go inside.” Nolan chuckles as he walks back toward the house.
I shake my head. “I changed my mind.”
He grabs the door handle. “May I?”
Swallowing the emotion attached to every memory of my time on Tybee Island, I nod.
Shut.
Lock.
Final.
“Need a ride back to town?”
I nod again as a slow numbness encapsulates my body.
Nolan opens the car door for me. “Too many memories?”
I shake my head and get in the car. As he walks around to the driver’s side, the only thought that goes through my head and my heart is: not enough memories.
*
I said I wouldn’t wait for him. I lied. My new profession will be waiting for Theodore. Maybe I need some Tolle or Dyer. Yimin … I need Yimin, but he’s in Shanghai for the next eight months. His niece is taking care of his beach house and my plants while he’s gone. Just as well. I don’t have room for them anyway. However, he gave me his juicer and bags and bags of herbs to brew nasty tea, so there’s that.
Alone. That’s what I am. I came to Savannah to be alone, so why is it such a disheartening discovery that I now have what I thought I wanted?
“Ruby.”
I stop before I even get the key out of my door. Oscar Stone makes my picnic chair look like a throne with his bold presence, expensive suit, unwavering confidence, and black beanie. He made the black beanie an “in” thing long before The Edge of U2 made it his mark. Oscar also makes the peppered goatee look sexy in spite of his age. My dad has always turned heads for as long as I could recognize what it meant to actually turn a head.
He would die before he took credit for my sexual inhibitions, but it was years of hearing women in his bedroom that led me to find sex a mystery I had to solve. Anything that caused a human to make those noises was worth a little research. Sadly, it was just sex for Oscar. My mum was the love of his life, and no other woman, aside from me, has even come close to touching his heart.
“No.” I shake my head. “What have you done?” I jerk the key from the doorknob and shut it before falling back against it.