Page 37 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
Con turns to me. “I just fucking know.”
Before he walks off with her drink, I pull him back. “Will she stay tonight, do you reckon?”
“Why?” He grins. “Your bedroom open for business?”
“Piss off,” I scoff. “I don’t know.” I shrug helplessly. “I just want her here?”
“Course you do,” he grins. “But yeah—she’ll stay.”
Connie goes over to her, she takes the cup. Doesn’t say anything, though. She probably would’ve if I wasn’t here so I make it less awkward and go into my bedroom.
I don’t sit or lay down, I can’t. I’m pacing back and forth, waiting for something—I don’t know what.
My stomach twisted up seeing her in that way, knowing I’ve put her there. If I hadn’t left, she wouldn’t have met Digby therefore she wouldn’t be sitting on Connie’s sofa crying over him. But then again, she might’ve? Crying over me instead of him and I think that hurts me way more.
There was no other way me and her could’ve had a possible happy ending if I didn’t go away. I wasn’t going to stop. It wasn't in me. I would’ve kept on going until one day, I didn’t wake up and that kind of leaving would’ve left a wound so big in her that she wouldn’t have healed.
A little while later, Connie knocks on my door, walks in, sighs heavily and drops down onto my bed.
“She’s a mess, Arth.”
“I know.”
He gives me a look—more of a glare, really. “But don’t go in there thinking you can fix it all, mate. It’s not your mess, remember?”
“Fair enough,” I shrug. “Digby isn't my mess but she sure as shit is and I will do anything I can to fix what’s gone wrong for her,”
He swallows a bit nervously. No one wants me to go there with her because they think I’m still unstable. Back then, in school, that would’ve been a fair statement but not now. If I can change it, I will because she didn’t deserve this.
“Just don’t start sticking your nose in, yeah?” He tells me, stretching his arms above his head.
I nod but he doesn’t buy it.
“Alright,” he gets up. “I’m gonna go bed.”
I watch him leave my room and the second I hear his door close, I’m straight out of mine and into the living room.
Phoebe blinks a few times, eyes locked on my chest.
“Hello.”
Nod my chin at her. “I’d ask if you were alright but you’re not are you?”
She pouts her lips, looks upwards. “Nope.”
I think the issue is that we know each other too well. We’re connected in ways that no one else is. We can’t marry other people while still giving each other the looks we’re giving right now. Her eyes bore deep into me like she’s seeing the last six years flash right in front of her. I used to say that her eyes were like mirrors, too good at reminding me of when I’d fucked up. That mirror is shattered. All I can see is my face, disoriented in a thousand shards. They never looked like that, not even on the worst of days. Part of me is starting to think that leaving her hurt her more than if I was to stay.
Phoebe hates change. I know she does. She once cried when I told her that our dinner reservation was at eight instead of seven because she’d been prepared all day to eat at seven. She’s calculated in her own way—not a sick way. She just knows her own brain too well and thinks no one else on this planet will ever understand her or think in the same way she does but she’s wrong.
I know her.
I know her brain.
I’ve folded myself into every crevice.
I walked in there at five years old and engraved my name.
“I’m just exhausted, Arthur,” she tells me.
