Page 53 of Dark Notes

Without you

You left me with fucking

Silence

There’s no music to this song

Because the notes have all gone away

There’s no words left to sing

Without you

Everything

Has begun to fade

I’m left with

Silence

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

JAGGER

Journal Entry

I’ve started talking to you like you’re here. You’re not.

Fuck, McKinley. I know you’re not here. Yet every time I walk into my house, all the air leaves my lungs and it hits me all over again. You’re not coming back to me.

PART TWO

Three Years Later…

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

MCKINLEY

A year in the hospital did me good. I learned a lot about abuse, and about myself. I’m not the same woman I was. Two years after being released, I have gone on with my life and, if the pictures are any indication, so has Jagger. I still think about him every day, but it’s not nearly as painful as it once was. My therapist calls it healing. I still deal with the guilt for everything I put him through, but I’ve learned that, at the time, I didn’t see things clearly. I hope he is as happy as I am now. He deserves the world, and I don’t believe for a second that he’s waiting for me. Women fall to his feet on a nightly basis, and after what I put him through, I can’t blame him for moving on. After all, that is what I asked him to do. Besides, my therapist is right. Living in the past is a dangerous game.

I open the door to my apartment after my day of work is done. Mia will call me soon, and we’ll talk on the phone. She used to come and see me, but she doesn’t anymore. She has her own issues now, and she does what she can to stay as reclusive as possible. I don’t judge her, because we all have our demons, and she was supportive of me, so now it’s my turn. Now, I really get how hard it is to watch someone in pain.

Opening my door, I step inside with a smile on my face. I have no idea why, but the scent of cinnamon makes me smile. I buy myself cinnamon scented pine cones every year during the Christmas season, which, of course, starts in October if you askthe stores. I won’t complain, because it means I get to enjoy my favorite scent for longer.

I walk to my bedroom to get changed after my day working in a hospital. My clothing always comes off before I do anything else, because hospitals have tons of germs. I whip off my shirt, and the second I step into my room, decorated in various shades of purple, I stop in my tracks. Am I going insane? For real, this time? I swear I’m staring at Jagger, laying on my bed, hands behind his head, feet crossed so leisurely. I’m imagining it. I must be.

I stand holding my shirt, staring with an open mouth in utter shock.

He chuckles. “I said I would wait a hundred years, but I didn’t know how difficult it would be.”

Holding my shirt in front of my chest, I ask, “How the hell did you get into my apartment?”

“Oh baby, we live in a shitty world, and nobody does anything for the right reasons anymore. It’s all about money. I paid off your lease, and asked for the key, since I’m helping you move.”

I shake my head, as if I can knock sense back into my brain.

“What?”

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