Page 70 of Debt of My Soul

Two beats pass and the stare between us lingers. But then Fleur shoves past me, her shoulder barging into my bicep as she steps through the door to stride away.

Once I’ve used the bathroom, I follow the voices coming from the kitchen and end up propping my body against the doorjamb to take in the scene.

Fleur stands at the kitchen counter, piping bag in hand as she dollops white cream on top of flaky puff pastry. A watery smile lifts away the sadness I encountered minutes ago, but it doesn’t erase her swollen eyelids or still wet lashes. My grandmother twirls around her and wipes her hands on her apron while my grandfather sips his coffee and flips through the mail on the table. Past him, the ducks in the pond parade about as if caught up in the twilight zone of happiness.

Annoyed, I shake my head at the warmth that hovers over my chest, but it’s quickly chased away with a single text message from Blitz.

Make sure that old lady of yours is ready for tonight.

Chapter 28

Fleur

My eyes are gritty.

After I sat down with Mrs. Northgate to let her know I’m temporarily staying with Liam and won’t be at work for a while, I found myself sobbing on the phone with my parents. Of course they think it’s entirely because of the farmhouse fire that demolished all my possessions and hard work in a single night.

When they ask if I’m coming home, I tell them no. That I’m staying at a friend’s cabin and I’ll be there until I can figure out a more permanent solution. I don’t mention Liam, and I don’t tell them about Adam. Pretty sure the only information I was able to offer was that I lost my phone in the fire—which isn’t a lie.

To give myself credit, the tears didn’t start until my mother’s did. When she mentioned the trials I’m going through and how they break her heart—it made my own clench with an indescribable ache. Chris was the first major trial in recent months and now this.

I suppose when you’re a mother your heart hurts when your children suffer, so I can imagine her tears were for me, in solidarity. However, they triggered the floodgates, and Iburied my face in my arms at Mrs. Northgate’s table while she massaged my head. I didn’t even have it in me to be embarrassed.

I’d gone to the bathroom to clear my mind. First with several snaps of my rubber bands and then with an entire box of tissues. The cubed box was decorated in a giddy watermelon print that made me want to crush it into a ball.

The cream puffs Mrs. Northgate made for an ill friend gave me an easy distraction. However, Liam’s lingering stare while we topped the last dozen with delicious cream quickly scrubbed away any moment of peace. His eyes tracked my every movement around the kitchen to the point I began to feel self-conscious. Maybe I had cream on my face or crumbs in the corner of my lips. But when I swiped at my face several times, my hand came away with nothing. Were it not for the ding of his phone, I’m sure I’d have never gotten relief from the intensity. His eyes dimmed as soon as he opened it and he rounded me up to go.

I didn’t want to leave. More tears flowed as Mrs. Northgate gave me a long, comforting hug and a pan of lasagna to reheat.

Those welled tears pooled, finally releasing when I got in the truck, and my head feels as though it’s been smothered in sand. A pricking sensation makes me want to pluck out my eyeballs.

“Were you able to speak with your parents?” Liam’s voice shatters the roar of the truck, and I nod, unable to look at him.

I count the houses as we pass the neighboring community before riding through town. A little boy runs around his front yard, a young chocolate lab chasing his heels with a stick in its mouth. I smile at the simplicity.

Another couple embraces in a hug, standing by a smoking grill in their driveway. Ribs? Chicken? What side dishes will they have? I play over the details of their dinner and imagine what it would’ve been like to cook a meal with the true love of my lifeinstead of the imposter husband seated next to me or the fraud of a man I gave nine years to.

What if I was cherished? What if the man I was with would rather cut off his arms than wrap them around another woman? What if the man I was with demanded nothing from me instead of using me to make a statement? Then maybe I could have a life like the couple in the driveway.

We pass several familiar road signs, and I straighten from my slouch, turning to Liam. “Can we go down by the farmhouse?”

Liam winces, and I realize it’s bold of me to want to see the charred remains of the house. But I want to see it before I’m sequestered away amongst the woods and in a one-bedroom cabin.

“Is that really a good idea?”

I shrug, my eyes moving over his beard and past him to the fields outside his window. They’ve started harvesting the crops already.

He doesn’t press me anymore and I’m grateful. We make the left-hand turn down my road. Because it truly was mine as the farmhouse shared it only with hayfields and oak trees.

As we approach, the outline of blackened wood and a crumbling chimney inked in ashy soot stand out. The heap of the remaining farmhouse clashes against the pure blue sky without a cloud of white to offer a reprieve.

Liam slows at the base of my driveway and before he’s fully come to a stop, I yank open the door and hop out.

“Fleur!” Liam yells, but it gets lost in the breeze that whips behind my tangled hair. I run toward the house, slowing with each step I get closer.

It may be a trick on my mind, but I swear I inhale a pungent breath of burned wood. Memories of the raging flames assault me, and I run my toes into the front steps of the porch, the only portion that remains.

I close my eyes, chew my lip, and reach for my wrist to pluck away what I can’t control, but as I pull back Liam’s voice interrupts me.

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