A Safe Space (Someone Else's Fairytale Book 4) (36 page)

Three days later:

“Missed you at the gym this morning. Everything all right?”

Four days later:

“I’m wondering if I should take a hint here. Did I do something wrong?”

I get this message as I’m brushing my teeth and it fills me with shame. Again, I’ve taken it too far. I’m being rude. It’s eleven at night, so I can’t call him. I send him a text.

Lizzie:
Sorry. I’ve just been really, really busy.

My phone rings immediately and his name pops up.

I spit out a mouthful of foam and answer it.

“I’d say I can take a hint if you’re trying to give one, but clearly I can’t,” he says.

“Sorry.”

“Do you want me to leave you alone? Be honest with me.”

Honest, I think. Can I do honest? My mouth starts moving before my brain can make a decision. “No. I don’t want you to leave me alone.”

“Then what?”

I frown. What do I want? Since I’ve apparently decided to go with honest, I think about what I’d want in my wildest dreams. “I want this to be real.”

“I’m for real,” he says. “What else can I do to prove it?”

“Well, you can explain why you told me Rachel was the one.” I switch off the bathroom light and go into my room, where I climb into bed and pull the covers up to my chin.

“You’re the one, Lizzie.”

“Then why did you say—”

“I was scared. Honestly? I’m still scared. When I was nineteen, if any girl told me I was the one, I’d have run screaming, but how could I possibly want anyone else? You are, without a doubt, my favorite human on the planet,
and
you’re a gorgeous woman. No one’s going to top that. So is that the issue? Have I come on too strong?”

“No.”

“Or not strong enough? I don’t leave multiple messages a day because that seems desperate, but—”

“You also told me I was too young for you.”

“You are too young. Doesn’t mean I don’t want you. It just means that I’m sure you’ll grow out of me long before I’m over you, but you know what? Fine. I still want to make this work. I wish you had a few ex-boyfriends, is all.”

“Because you don’t want to be my first?”

“Because I want to be your last. Because I just want to be done with dating…” He sighs into the phone. “I should probably shut up already, huh?”

You never did any real dating
, I think to myself. “Would you really take things slow with me? I’m not like the other girls you’ve been with.”

“Yeah, of course.” He says it like that was a stupid question. I can hear the undertone of, “What do you take me for? Some kind of molester?”

I rub my forehed with my fingertips. “Okay. Well…”

“You think I may still be the guy I was three months ago?”

“Yeah…”

“All right. I can keep being patient. Are you going to come back to the gym? I won’t be there every morning anymore because I’m gonna start training as a physical therapist, but I’ll be there tomorrow.”

“You’re doing what?”

“I got into a physical therapy program.” He rattles this off like it’s nothing. “So I won’t be at the gym every morning, but I’ll be there tomorrow. Any chance I’ll see you?”

“I didn’t know you were even applying for that kind of thing.”

“Well, I need to find something to do with the rest of my life, you know? So…about tomorrow?”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah, I’ll be there.”

He’s quiet for a moment.

I check to make sure the line is still open.

“So lately, have you been happy?” he asks.

“Why do you always ask that?”

“Never mind. Have a good night, okay?”

“Night.”

The call ends and I can’t bring myself to put my phone on the nightstand. Instead, I cuddle it to my chest. My heart still aches at the sound of his voice. My stomach churns at the thought that I might be missing a real opportunity here. But that night I told him I loved him was the most humiliating experience of my life, and given my career, that is really saying something.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, when Kyra and I arrive at the gym, Devon is at the far end, spotting someone as they do bench presses. He looks up at me, but his wave is very subdued.

I wave back and make it a few steps down the hall before Kyra grabs me.

“So what’s been going on with you two?”

“Nothing,” I say. “I’ve been taking it slow with him.”

She looks back over her shoulder. “How slow?”

“Like you said, I keep him at a distance.” I pull out of her grasp and resume walking, only to have her grab me again.

“How far a distance? You can take this too far, you know?” she presses. “Anyone will give up if they don’t get any encouragement at all.”

“I told him I like him.”

“What exactly did you say?”

This is not a conversation I want to have in public, and she seems to get my drift.

“Consider easing up,” she says in a low voice in my ear. “He looks pretty beaten down.”

I mull that over as I get changed and start my workout. Devon gives me a wide berth, though every time I look at him, he looks back. There’s a sadness in his posture now, and I decide that, at the earliest opportunity, I am going to corner him and give him a hug. He looks like he needs one, and seeing him hurt is painful. I don’t know what else I can offer him, but I can do that much at least.

I never get a chance to even talk to him though. Just as I finish my final set on the weight machine, a girl strides out of the changing room and Devon greets her then helps her start to warm-up. All I manage is to catch his eye and wave on my way out.

Once I’m in my car, I text him.

Lizzie:
Sorry I didn’t get the chance to talk to you. I’ll call you later?

His response arrives five minutes later.

Devon:
Okay. Talk to you soon.

That’s something at least. I drive to the studio, return to my chair of torture—as I’ve come to think of it—put on my headphones, and start recording lines. I record line after line after line as the morning stretches on. Our midmorning break is brief, just long enough for me to guzzle down a bottle of water, and then I’m back in that chair.

Lunch comes with a call from Delia, and I spend the whole time on the phone with her, hashing out details for my next album and possible tour dates, taking bites while she’s talking. When I finally hang up, I’m back in the torture chair, and the entire afternoon, I spend doing screams and laughter and gasps of fear. I’d have thought that they’d only need one of each of these, but given what they’re paying, I give them as many as they want.

The midafternoon break gets taken up by a call from Julian, so when I am finally done with work, I decide that, rather than call Devon, I should just go find him. When I check at the gym, one of the other trainers tells me that he’s gone for the day, so I program the new address he gave me into my phone and drive to his apartment, which is much nicer than where he used to live.

The complex is three stories high, with white stucco and controlled entry. As soon as I step up to the front door, though, a woman in the lobby sees me through the glass and lets me in.

“Are you Lizzie Warner?”

“Yeah, hi.”

“Can I have your autograph?”

“Sure.” I pull a pen out of my purse and sign the back of what I think is her phone bill. Then I act like I’m in a hurry so that she lets me go.

Devon’s apartment is number twenty-seven, so I head up to the second story and make a circuit of the hallway before I finally find it by the elevator. Leave it to me to go the long way around.

His door has a brass knocker that I try, but it doesn’t seem to make much noise, so I also knock with my knuckles for good measure.

The door opens inwards to reveal a woman I’ve seen once before in a Facebook photo.

Rachel Schofield.

At the sight of me, her eyes go wide with horror. And guilt.

I feel like I’ve been shot through the chest with a harpoon gun.

“Who is it?” Devon calls from the other room.

“You don’t want to know,” she answers before I can speak.

I back away then run for the stairs. I don’t dare wait for the elevator.

“Rache?” says Devon.

“Um, you should probably put some clothes on,” she says.

I burst through the door to the stairwell and nearly fall down a flight of stairs. A wild grab at the banister saves me from a broken neck. I stumble down the stairs as fast as I can.

As I sprint across the lobby and out the front door of the complex, I can’t help but wonder,
If I’d returned one more phone call or been faster with one more text, could I have prevented this?

A flashbulb pops across the street.

Crap. I’ve been sighted.

I smack right into my car, palms first, then fight to get the door open. I don’t let myself cry as I drive, and I try not to obsess about every other car, even though any one of them could have paparazzi shooting my picture. I all but hold my breath and keep a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

Once I’m back at my apartment complex, I pull through the parking garage gate and try to relax. I ride up the elevator with my eyes screwed shut and my arms folded so tight across my chest that I can only breathe in short gasps. The distance between the elevator and my place feels too far. Why does it have to take so
long
to get home?

When I fall through the door into my apartment, I find it empty. I want to talk to Kyra, but I’m crying too hard to be coherent, so I lean back against the front door and slide down it until my butt hits the tile. Then I pull my knees up to my chest and sob. With each breath, it feels like a gaping wound in my chest rips wider. I should be safe here, but I still feel exposed.

My apartment intercom rings, but I can’t answer it. Not while I’m like this. It’s probably just the paparazzi harassing me anyway.

It rings again and again.

Then my phone rings. I cover my ears and shove it away from me so that it slides across the floor. There’s no way I can answer more questions about my publicity plans for the next four months or whatever. I can call whoever it is back tomorrow.

My apartment intercom rings again.

Why is everyone descending on me now?
Because they saw me vulnerable
, I think. And they’re being sharks, all excited at the smell of blood in the water.

The intercom falls silent, and I lean my head back against the door. At least, I
tried
to prepare for this. I knew deep down that I couldn’t trust Devon. Still, I’d let myself hope, and just like with my last visit to my mother, that hope left me wide open to get hurt. Again.

I’m so tired of pain, of having nowhere I can retreat and find sanctuary from it all. I’m tired of living my life in full view of a world of strangers, with so few friends to turn to.

I wipe my eyes with my hand and take a deep breath.

“Rache?” I hear in the hallway. Devon’s voice.

I freeze.

“Rache, listen. I’m gonna give you her number and you’re going to explain to her that… What? No. Huh? No, she knows about Mackenzie… Yeah… She didn’t hunt me down. She had my address because I gave it to her… It’s not a secret from her anymore. I told her what happened… Well,
she’s
the girl I was telling you about so… Stop laughing, all right? I need you to call her and… Are you even listening? Come on. I let you stay with me so you can afford to take your kids to Disneyland. You could do this
one thing
for—” He bites back a swear word and mutters to himself.