Page 100 of Sweet Chaos

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I turned my head at the sound of Margot Woods’ voice and suspected she’d been talking for a while. “What’s that?”

“I said that you need to get out of my house right now or I will call the cops,” she repeated, her voice rising a few octaves, the shrill sound cutting through the peace and calm of this June day.

“I’m leaving. I got all the answers I need.”

She huffed, her heels clicking behind me as I strode to the front door. When I was on the other side of it, I turned, putting my hand on the wood to stop her from slamming it in my face. “I remember why I came.”

Her lips pursed, and her head tilted, curious despite herself. Sienna looked more like her mother than Scarlett did. Same nose. Same bone structure. But Sienna’s face was more expressive, her eyes not as dull and vacant.

“Your daughters love you. And from where I’m sitting, they’re the only good thing in your life. Start acting like a fucking mother before you lose them too.”

Her eyes flared but it was hard to tell if she was angry or not. Her face gave nothing away. It was so Botoxed, nipped and tucked, it looked like a mask she wore rather than actual human skin. It was sad as fuck. Vacant and empty, like her life. Who got all dressed up in designer clothes, hair and makeup and nails perfect, only to sit around—alone—in this mausoleum she called a house?

“Who are you to tell me anything?” Her eyes roamed down my outfit and she sniffed in disapproval, her nose in the air. “You’re still a no-good punk. What did my daughters ever see in you? The very idea of you makes me sick.”

I removed my hand from her door and it slammed in my face just as I’d suspected it would.

“Still causing trouble?” a man asked, hedge clippers in his hand, a smile on his face, more weathered than the last time I’d seen it, but the smile was the same. This man always had a smile and a kind word for everyone. Quite a gift, one I was starting to appreciate more and more.

“Hey Pedro.” I shook the hand he extended, his warm palm calloused and dry from all his years of working outdoors. “You good?”

“Yes, sir. Everything is good in my world. I have a new granddaughter now.” He pulled up a photo on his phone, pride and joy in his eyes as he showed it to me. “That makes three grandbabies for me. Two boys, one girl.”

“Good for you.”

“Family is everything.” He glanced at the front door then shook his head and sighed. “Too bad some people don’t know that money can’t buy happiness.” He glanced at my G-Wagen. “You finish the college?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“No more cleaning the pools for you, huh?”

“Nope.”

“I’m proud of you, Dylan.” He nodded, smile still firmly in place, his teeth so white against his suntanned skin. “You did good.” And with that, he got back to his gardening duties and I drove away, laughing to myself. Pedro barely knew me, yet he’d sounded genuinely proud.

I drove through town, past all the boutiques and restaurants and surf shops on the main street and past the pier and The Surf Lodge, its weathered wood getting a fresh coat of paint, and I wondered if Jimmy would be proud of me or if he would have hated that I’d stooped to conquer, that I’d played dirty to get what I wanted. I’d never know the answer to that but for all of Jimmy’s Zen and sage advice, he’d been a fighter too. And I thought he would have been cool with it, knowing that the cause was a good one. It was what I chose to believe, anyway.

I didn’t know what more I could do to show Scarlett that I loved her, that I would do whatever it took to make her happy.

Come back to me. Come back.

But she didn’t come back.

She fucking left my ass.

35

Scarlett

Four Months Later, Hanoi

These past few months had been eye opening. I had somehow managed to mend my heart just a tiny bit—although the stitches holding the seams together were crooked and there were times the pain took my breath away. The children I’d met and worked with have helped take my mind off of Dylan, even for just a short while. I learned that even with a broken heart, I’d been able to give a little of what’s left of it to these kids who had nothing. Sometimes you had to work through the pain and I tried—so hard. All I could hope for was that the work I’d done and the love and care I’d shown them would help them realize that they were worth something.

The future was unclear, and I wasn’t sure when I would find my new normal, but I had learned a lot about myself. I wasn’t my father’s daughter. Money meant nothing if you didn’t have love. Showing you care and giving a piece of yourself to someone in need was priceless. It also helped me realize what Dylan must have gone through when he was younger. When you came from nothing, you felt like you were worth nothing and seeing these kids who barely had enough food to eat, who oftentimes had no one to take care of them, made my heart ache for what he went through.

After what had happened with Sienna, I knew that my choices destroyed her. I didn’t know that she’d ever forgive me, but all I could do was try my hardest to prove to her that I never meant to hurt her.

I stopped walking, and all the noise from the motorbikes zipping past and the voices and laughter from the sidewalk tables outside the noodle shop and the raucous cheers from the bar next door, quieted. The pedestrians crowding the sidewalk and the streets clogged with mid-afternoon traffic ceased to exist.