Daybreak (Sorrowsong University, #2) — Chapter no 20

Chapter 20

OPHELIA

Shockingly, and against all the statistical odds, the plane landed. After seven hours—the hardest, most draining seven hours of my life—I find myself in New York.

As a girl who hasn’t ventured outside of rural Scotland much these past few years, I can’t help but find it completely wild.

The buildings are bigger, cars are bigger. The taxis are yellow. The city is a never-ending square grid of fancy looking cafés, hotels, and restaurants.

Bustling pizza joints and leafy green parks. Tacky sports bars and luxury boutiques.

As we make our way across a bridge over a glittering river, I stare out at the dense mass of skyscrapers beyond like I’ve somehow landed on the moon.

No wonder Divya finds Sorrowsong boring.

Rocco sent a driver to pick us up from LaGuardia Airport. Now we’re in the back of a huge black SUV, furnished similarly to the private jet. There’s a small mini fridge at the back that we’ve left completely untouched.

No one has heard from Alex. Not me, not Vin, not Belladonna. The mood in the car is grim and downcast.

Whatever condition his mom is in right now, I already know what he’ll be doing to himself. Heaping more blame onto his already weary shoulders, overanalyzing everything he could’ve done to prevent this.

We’re stuck in a long slug of traffic ten minutes from the hospital when Vincenzo finally gets through to Fleur.

“Vin?” she asks, crackly through his speaker. She’s holding back tears.

“Fleur, where are you?”

“We’re still waiting at the hospital. I only just charged my phone.”

“Who’s we?”

“Alex and I. He’s just checking to see if there’s any update. He wants me to go home to eat and sleep.”

Alex is okay. He’s with Fleur and he’s okay. The relief that courses

through me is overwhelming.

“I’m ten minutes away.”

“You’re in New York?”

“Yeah. Do you want me to drop you home?”

I hear her side of a conversation, hear Alex convince her to go and rest, promise that he’ll call if he finds anything else out.

He sounds strong. Steady and calm.

I doubt that’s how he really feels.

“You can take me home?” she asks, sounding so much younger than seventeen.

“We’ll stay for the night, too,” says Belladonna. “Help the staff with the girls.”

There is so much love in this car. It’s in the way Vincenzo guides Fleur through some steady breaths. It’s in the way Belladonna calls her father to say she won’t be coming home tonight anymore. It’s in the way Jack has spent the entire journey reading up on how best to help Alex and his mom.

I’ve never been struck so hard with it, never had it put in front of me so plainly to see.

Alex is bathed in love, swimming in it. And suddenly I understand his internal battle more than ever. How frustrating it is for him to feel so low with such a support network around him, to have family and friends and

still feel lonely.

It must be so exhausting.

The car stops outside a hospital near Central Park. “Call us if you need anything, okay?”

I nod at Vincenzo, stepping out of the car and into the busy rush of an unfamiliar city. Cars rush by, honking their horns like it’ll make the lights turn green faster. The people hurry around like they have places to be.

For all the trauma in my life, I’ve hardly ever set foot in a hospital.

Before the helicopter crash, my life was very uneventful. Still, everything

looks shinier, newer, more luxurious than the tired hospitals back home. It looks more like a technology store.

I go up to three different receptions, passed around like a pinball. The fourth woman looks me up and down, chewing her gum. “You from the

media?”

“No, I’m … I’m family.”

“You that girl who leaked the article?”

My exasperation reaches new levels. “No, that wasn’t me. But please just let me see Alex.”

“Never really liked Cain Green, anyway,” she says. “Have you got our app?”

“No,” I say, feeling my final shred of patience slither out onto the busy

streets below.

“It’s got a map on it.”

Why must everything be an app? If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. Everything is becoming an app. “Please could you just point me in the right direction?”

It takes another ten minutes, but I’m finally taken to a quieter hallway several floors up. I know I’m in the right place, because a tall, stocky bald guy with an earpiece is in the hallway.

He recognizes me, somehow. “Ms. Winters.”

“Did Alex leave with Fleur?”

He shakes his head and tilts it toward a doorway to his left.

It’s a dim examination room, mostly covered by a paper curtain. I gently push down the handle and step inside. “Alex?”

I round the curtain and find him sitting in an armchair, elbows on his

knees and head in his hands.

“Alex.”

He looks up, and fuck. A sharp pain twists my stomach.

He looks completely broken. And he clearly hasn’t seen any of the texts I’ve sent him, because he looks like he can’t believe I’m here. For the briefest of seconds, I see all the questions he’s too exhausted to ask flit through his eyes. The why and the how and the when.

“You’re not real.”

I squat down opposite him and thread my fingers through his. “I’m real.”

“You’re not here.”

For him, I keep my tears at bay. “I’m here.”

And like he’d been waiting for me without even realizing it, his head collapses forward, face buried in my hair.

The first silent sob that racks his body sends a hairline crack down the middle of my heart, the second splits it into two. I snake my arms around him and use everything that’s left in my tired muscles to hold him together.

“I’m so tired of treading water, Ophelia. I just want to let go.”

I scratch my fingers through his hair. “I know.”

“I’m all out of fight. I don’t want any of this anymore.”

“I know. But I’m here to tread water for the both of us.”

And so we sit like that. Me on my knees, him on the chair. Him falling apart, me holding myself together. Him convinced the world is ending, and me, for once, convinced we have a place in it.

We stay completely still while the sun sets outside, until he’s able to take steady breaths and I’m sure my knees must be bruised. Until he pulls away, runs his hands over my lips, nose, eyebrows, jaw, checking I’m real.

He presses a gentle kiss to my lips. “I’m tired, Ophelia. Not the short-term

kind.”

“That’s okay. I am too.”

He holds me at arm’s length, the ghost of a laugh sneaking inside his next exhale. “You know I love you, yeah?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You look fucking dreadful.”

My laughter echoes around the cold, clinical room. “I think it’d be fair to say I didn’t handle the flight well.” I take in the tired lines around his face, the red tinge to his eyes. He’s beautiful. “You look like shit, too.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Is your mom …” I trail off, unsure what I’m even asking. Obviously, she’s not okay.

“I don’t know,” he says, swiping the back of his hand over his eyes.

“They’ve hardly told me anything. Her heart is weak because she’s been so underweight for so long and the antipsychotics she’s on make it worse and how the hell am I supposed to explain all of this to the girls when I don’t even understand—”

“Hey,” I interrupt, running my hands through his hair to try to catch him before he spirals into a panic. I of all people know not to promise him that she’ll be okay, or that he’ll feel better tomorrow. So I make him the only promise I know to be true. “I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you.”

I reach down to my tired-looking duffel, pulling out a bag of Jelly Babies and dropping them onto the cupboard beside us.

The tiny smile on his lips gives me hope. He drags me onto his lap on the armchair. The heat of his body encompasses mine, his familiar smell like a blanket around my shoulders. “Until midnight?”

“A hundred years from now.”

“I love you,” he breathes, eyes fluttering shut. The line between his brows smooths out, his breathing deepens, slows down. I feel his body relax beneath me as I run my fingers through the mess of his hair. I think he’s fallen asleep. So I hold my breath, and the pee I’ve been needing for hours, content to listen to the steady beat of his pulse.

A doctor in scrubs comes into the room a short while later. She nods at Alex. “Should I come back? It’s positive news.”

Thank fuck. I shake my head and gently wake Alex, rising to my feet.

“She’s been awake for a little while and she’s alert,” the doctor says, before Alex can ask otherwise. His head falls into his hands again, shoulders sinking with relief. I excuse myself to go to the bathroom while the doctor explains everything that’s going on with Elise’s weakening heart.

It’d feel strange listening to it without her permission.

When I come back, Alex is in the hallway.

“I can visit her.”

“Would you rather I stay out here?”

He nods, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I think so. She worries about her appearance. I think she’d like the chance to get changed and do her hair and makeup before she meets you.”

The world doesn’t deserve him.

“I’ll go find us coffee.”

He stares down at me, the muscles in his jaw relaxing just a fraction. His thumb swipes my cheek, like a sculptor adding his final touch. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

I let my lashes drift shut, lean into his caress. “I’m here.”

I’m here, and it feels like I’m exactly where I need to be.

THE CHARGE NURSE was kind enough to let us stay the night, spooning on a too-small hospital bed and surviving off vending machine crisps and energy drinks.

I’m not sure that Alex really gets any sleep, though. Stress radiates off him in waves, to the point where I’m surprised the windows in this room haven’t shattered.

It’s gone ten in the morning when he wakes me up. Someone from the security team brought him an overnight bag, and he’s changed into more casual clothes: a black jacket and loose jeans that have no business looking

that good. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

He traces my bottom lip with his thumb. “Are you feeling jet-lagged?”

“Is that why I feel like shit?”

He grins. “Could be one of ten reasons. You want to meet my mom?”

“Oh God. I should wash my hair.”

He rolls his eyes good-naturedly. “You two are alike. She won’t care or notice.”

I roll out of bed and stretch my tired arms above my head, hoping to send a bit of life to my groggy brain. I give my hair and my teeth a speedy brush, changing into jeans and one of my dad’s old sweaters. It’s a green knitted number with a hole in the sleeve, and it probably could do with a wash, but I don’t really care. I needed it with me, need to feel close to him.

In a way, it feels like taking him with me to meet Alex’s mom.

“She’s going to be disappointed,” I say, staring at myself in the small mirror above the sink in the examination room.

Alex appears behind me, hands settling on my waist. “She’s going to see

what I see.”

“Which is?”

“The greatest thing that ever could’ve happened to me.”

I spin away from the sink to face him. “My dad would’ve loved you.”

This makes him smile. I so rarely bring them up around him, around anyone. It’s a wound that still feels fresh. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. He liked rugby, too. All sports, really.”

“Did he watch you swim?”

“All the time. He was a chef. He loved cooking for us, so I was a very mediocre, twelve-year-old swimmer eating like I was two weeks out from

an Olympic gold.”

His eyes are glittering with amusement. “Wow. So cooking isn’t genetic, huh?”

“Fuck you, Corbeau, you’ll be grateful for my burned toast one day.”

His hands tighten over my hips, pulling me flush against him. “Oh, I bet. He must’ve been a great man, to raise such a wonderful daughter.”

“Oh, well …” I’m staring at my feet, cheeks flaming for no real reason.

“That’s kind.”

His hand links with mine. “Come on.”

I wait outside a hospital room in a different hallway, watching Alex

crack the door open. “Maman?”

I can’t hear the quiet reply.

“Ophelia is here, but no pressure.”

Another reply, too soft-spoken to hear.

“Your hair looks good, Mom.”

I hear her ask for a concealer, watch Alex shoot me a knowing look before vanishing inside for a moment. I pick at my nails, nervous.

I’m underwhelming.

I imagine things she might ask me. Where have I traveled? Nowhere.

What are my grades like? Just scraping passes. What are my career goals?

Haven’t got a single one.

Alex calls me in, and I peek one eye round, like that’ll save me from my terror.

I feel like I already know the woman in the bed. Not just from magazines my mom had when I was growing up, but from the way she shines through Alex.

Though clearly unwell and so, so frail, Elise is exactly as beautiful as she looks in pictures, even in her current surroundings. She’s in a white satin gown that she must’ve gotten from home, her hair brushed to a soft shine.

“Hi,” I croak, floating in the doorway like someone who’s never socialized in her life.

“Ophelia,” she replies, and I don’t know how someone can squeeze so much warmth and so much welcome into seven little letters, but she manages it. Her accent is heavy, like that tiny hint of French that runs through Alex’s.

Something about her pulls me forward. She’s safe and kind and smiling at me like Alex does. Her eyes are glittering pools of pale green, just like his. “You look so wonderful.”

“I look like I’ve been electrocuted. Twice,” I say, sinking into the chair beside her bed. She holds out her hand for me to take, laughing softly. Her fingers are cold and thin beneath mine.

“You don’t. Not at all. And nobody ever looks their best after a long flight.”

“I don’t know how Alex flies so often. I was convinced we were going

down the whole time.”

“Are you staying a while?”

I look up at Alex. We haven’t discussed it. I have no idea what my plans are. I only have three more days of underwear. I have no idea if he wants me to meet his sisters, if Fleur would even let me into their home without killing me.

“I hope so,” is all he says, looking at me with so much emotion in his eyes. Yellow happiness and red passion and the fierce blue of his

unwavering loyalty.

I love it when he isn’t gray.

“He was lost without you.”

“Mom.”

“You were!”

“I think we had to take some time apart to work through some stuff for ourselves,” I say, enjoying the feel of my hand in hers. It eases my mother’s absence and makes it so much worse all at once.

Alex steps outside to take an urgent work call, and I scoot my chair closer to the edge of the bed so I can show Elise some photos of the clothes I bought at the charity shops with Colette. It seems to take her mind off things, at least.

Elise is easy to talk to. She doesn’t ask me any of the questions I’d worried about. She asks me how my time with Colette was, how swimming is going, whether I’d like a cup of tea.

“I knew you were good for him from the very start,” she says, smiling down at my lock screen when I’ve finished showing her all the random pictures in my camera roll so that I don’t have to think of a new conversation topic.

I stare at the photo, taken last December. A blurry selfie outside the Nightshade mansion, snow gathered on our eyelashes, windburn on our cheeks. “Sometimes I think he’s really extraordinary, and I’m …”

“Don’t you dare say you’re ordinary.”

“A mug of hot chocolate is my idea of a big treat. Walking to the corner store is a day out.”

That makes her laugh. “You’re extraordinary, Ophelia. Don’t fall into the same trap I did, don’t let them make you believe that it’s wealth or fame that makes a person. It’s what you do in the quiet moments.”

I think back to my last quiet moment. I think I spent it balancing a tube of Pringles and my phone on my stomach. “I guess so.”

“He started drawing in color again.”

That has my head snapping up. “What?”

“After he met you. He started drawing in color again, not just black and white.”

I think back to the sketches I saw when I first met Alex. Messy, chaotic, often repetitive. Always in black charcoal.

And then to the first time he drew me, in bright orange pastel. To the artworks from the life drawing class: colored portraits in muted pastels.

“I didn’t know that.”

Her hand squeezes mine, her heavy-lidded gaze soft and sleepy. “Makes

you seem quite extraordinary to me.”

“He’s very talented.”

She glances at the door, like she’s checking Alex is still on the phone. “I won’t last forever, Ophelia. These past few months, right as my mind is making a little progress, I can feel my body giving up on me.”

My swallow is thick, nostrils burning. “I know.”

“Josie is almost eight, Charlotte ten,” she says, like it’s something I might not know. “If I died tomorrow, Alex would …”

He’d be the only parent figure in their life. “I know.”

“I know raising children is not what anyone would want in a relationship at twenty-one.”

“It’s okay. You don’t need to worry about that,” I reassure her. “The girls aren’t a hinderance. They’re a learning curve, maybe. An adjustment for me to make, coming from a tiny family. But I wouldn’t be with Alex if I was planning to run the second things get difficult.”

She gives me a watery smile, eyes conveying more gratitude than words ever could. But she has it wrong. It’s Alex who’s saving me, no matter how much it looks like the other way round from the outside. Every second that Alex keeps breathing is a promise of the happy ending I’d long given up on.

He’s the salve to the four-year-old ache in my chest. He’s the hope of a family. He’s complete and utter acceptance of me, as I am. No changes necessary.

Elise falls asleep to the backdrop of rhythmic beeps from the machines beside the bed. I stroke her hair and tell her about anything I can think of, doing a crossword aloud until Alex’s voice interrupts me.

“She loves you.”

I glance up, cheeks turning red. I hadn’t realized he was there. “I love

her, too. Was your call okay?”

“Yeah, just boring.”

“I miss my mom,” I say, quietly. I don’t know why her and my dad are so heavy on my mind today. My mom cheated on my dad. She cheated on

him with the wrong man, a heinous man.

But I miss her all the same.

“Does it ever not hurt?” he whispers, quiet enough that his mom can’t hear him.

I want Alex to have honesty from me, not the it’ll get easier that everyone churns out on autopilot. “It always hurts. The shock of it, the unfairness. It’s ridiculous … like a movie you’ve seen a hundred times and yet you still think this time it might end differently. Every day it’s like … maybe my dad will be flipping pancakes at the stove when I go downstairs, and all of this will have been some bad dream.”

His palm settles on my shoulder, gently rubbing the tense muscles there.

“It’s cliché, but it doesn’t get easier. You just get better at managing it. It doesn’t hurt any less, but the pain doesn’t scare me as much as it used to.”

When I tip my head back to see him, his smile is soft, grateful. “I can

handle that.”

“I’ll be right there with you.”

He drops a kiss on my forehead. “Do you want to go back to my place?

You can shower, eat a decent meal, sleep in my bed.”

“Who is home?”

“The girls will be home in the evening. And the housekeeper, the nannies, the chef, and the security guys.”

I do a terrible job of concealing the worry in my voice. “All six of them?”

His sigh tickles the top of my head. “Fleur will cool off.”

“She shouldn’t have to. Home is her safe space. I don’t want to infiltrate that and make her feel she can’t be there. Especially right now.”

His hands move to my hair, scratching my scalp in the way that he loves. “I’ll give her a call and ask her what she thinks of you staying over.”

I’d like that, but I keep my hopes down.