Scythe & Sparrow (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #3)(94)
I take a deep breath. My hand presses over the scar on my side. Sometimes, I’m sure I can still feel the burn of pain beneath my skin. Maybe it’s a phantom ache, one I imagine so I don’t let myself forget that everything that happened was real.
Not that my girls would let me forget about them, at least.
LARK: Good luck tonight, Boss Hostler! Thinking of you! You’ll rock it.
SLOANE: I’d say break a leg … but please don’t.
LARK: We don’t want anything getting in the way of your mad dancing skills!
A photo comes in from Sloane next. The girls are standing on either side of a cardboard cutout of me, a photo they took at Sloane’s wedding where I was pissed drunk at the little pub after the ceremony, dancing with an inflatable dinosaur as Rowan sang “The Rocky Road to Dublin.” I’m not sure whose sunglasses I was wearing, but I liked them, so I kept them.
That T-Rex was the real MVP.
Miss you bally broads. See you in August!
I know that subtle reminder is not what they want to hear. August is still eight months away, and they were bummed that I didn’t make it for Christmas. I just didn’t think I could bear it, being around two other couples, especially not the brothers of the man I love who just … disappeared. Especially not when those brothers have questions that I simply can’t answer, because I don’t know why he left or where he went. Sloane and Lark told me what happened that day in Portsmouth at the bakery after I passed out, of course. The blood. The tears. The hospital. The things he said that I didn’t hear when I was unconscious, clinging to life. How I was saved by his hands.
I slide my phone into the interior pocket of my jacket and then grab my helmet and get ready to leave.
When I pull my door open, Baz is standing there, his fist poised and ready to knock.
“Hello, young sir,” I say with a theatrical bow. “What are you up to?”
Baz shrugs, then holds a white envelope up for me to take. “This came for you.”
“A letter?” I ask. My gaze pans the circus grounds as though the mystery might unravel itself. I pin my attention back to Baz, my eyes narrowing as I take the envelope. “How?”
“Don’t ask me, I don’t know. I just work here.” Baz winks and then he turns and starts jogging away. I don’t know if he’s being honest or spinning a lie—the older he gets, the harder it is to tell. I open my mouth to yell after him, but he disappears between two motor homes before I manage to get out anything more than “but.”
I sigh and turn the letter over. My eyes immediately fill with tears.
I take it to the little folding table and sit down, reading and rereading the handwritten text.
TO: Mayhem
Dorothy, Silveria Circus
Texas
In the upper left corner:
Secret Admirer
Nowhere without you
There’s a stamp in the upper right-hand corner, one from Croatia, but there’s no mark on it from a post office. It takes me a minute to just sit back down at the table and stare at the text. I run my finger over every line of script. I didn’t see his handwriting much when I stayed at his place. But there is only one person it could belong to.
I tear back one slide of the flap and run a finger beneath the top edge of the envelope, careful not to damage the stamp or handwriting as I rip it open. Inside is a letter folded around something. When I take it out, a tarot card falls onto the table.
The Five of Cups.
I unfold the letter, carefully placing it next to the lone card.
Dear Mayhem,
You know more about tarot than I ever will. So bear with me. I might make some mistakes. Lord knows, I’ve made plenty already.
I want to start with the Five of Cups—not to look into the future, but to talk about the past and present, and the regret and sorrow the card symbolizes. I’m so sorry for the way I hurt you. You deserved more from me from day one, and I didn’t think I was a good enough person to give it to you. And when I finally felt like I could be that man, I was forced to let you go. It was the last thing I wanted to do. But it was the only way to keep you safe.
The grief and loneliness represented by this card haunt me every day. There isn’t a moment that goes by when I don’t think of you. And maybe you’ve let us go, maybe you’ve moved on. Maybe this is the only letter you’ll read. I have to accept that possibility might be true. Ultimately, all I want is for you to be happy, no matter what you need to do.
But I am not done fighting for you.
I love you. I’m not letting you go. I never will.
FK
I take a shaky breath, wiping away the tears that trail down my cheeks. Part of me holds on to the anger and loss I still feel at being ghosted, left behind with questions that might never be answered. But another part of me wants to be warmed by the first little bit of light that’s seemed absent from the cold darkness of my heart these last few months.
I reread the letter, over and over until Jim knocks at my door to tell me I’m going to be late for the performance. I do my show and then come back to my trailer and read it again until I can recite it from memory. It’s on my shelf next to my bed so it’s the last thing I see when I fall asleep. When I wake up the next morning, it’s the first thing I grab, touching it just to make sure it’s real.