Losing You (Stars On Fire Book 4) (19 page)

“What are you doing here?” he asked, sitting down next to her.

“He’s gone, Tom. His things . . . they . . . they’re gone too. I don’t know what to do. I just know I need him.”

“He needs help . . . and hopefully this means he’s getting it.”

“Yeah, my brain knows that, but my heart needs to know he’s okay. My heart needs to know that he still loves me because right now it doesn’t feel like it.”

“Liz . . .”

She probably sounded like a big baby. With a sigh, it was time to pull up her big girl panties.

After one more inhale of Marc’s scent.

“Did you just smell his pillow?”

“Yes,” she answered in a mix of a cry and laugh . . . which pretty much came out as a very unladylike snort.

“You are one weird chick, Elizabeth McCullough.”

“The weirdest,” she agreed, pushing herself up and off the bed.

“Did you eat today?”

“No,” she replied as Tom stood up as well.

“Why don’t you head down to your car and I’ll make sure it’s all locked up here? Okay? Then we can go grab some food.”

She nodded and gave him a small smile before going to her Jeep to wait. About five minutes later, Tom came through the front door—the pillow tucked under his arm.

“Here,” he said, jumping into the Jeep. “Thought you may need this.”

Through her tears, she smiled. “You’re the best.”

“Don’t you know it,” he said, winking at her. “Hey, you forgot this on the floor,” he added, handing her the phone. “Hope you don’t mind, but I made a couple calls while I checked the house. I forgot mine in my truck. So . . . food . . .”

The change of topic left her with whiplash. She tucked her phone in her pocket and turned to him. “Food.”

“Yes. I need beef and a big ol’ piece of chocolate cake.”

“Portillo’s?” she suggested.

“You read my mind.”

She knew what this silliness was and embraced it. Her best friend knew what she needed and he was doing a great job of making her feel better.

“Want me to come over?” Tom asked as she finished off the last bit of chocolate cake. She glanced over at him and grinned. Eyes locked on his phone.

“That’d be nice,” Lizzie replied, thankful that she wouldn’t have to be alone tonight.

“Do you mind if we stop by my place so I can get my truck and Foxy?”

Thinking of the adorable canine, Lizzie smiled. “Not at all. Maybe I can kidnap her.”

Tom’s head whipped up from his phone. “Uh . . . not happening.”

“She needs to visit Auntie Liz more often.”

“Not now she’s not, you crazy dog-napper!”

A laugh bubbled up from deep inside of her. She missed this with Tom. They’d spent so many days just like this when they were younger—being silly as hell. And the adult versions of them needed to keep this up.

“Pooh bear, you ready to leave?”

“Stop calling me that,” he said, pulling her hair.

“Oww!”

“That so did not hurt, but calling me that name does.”

“Oh, your poor fragile ego.”

“I do have a big ego and when I take a hit, it just hurts all that more,” he said, taking the tray over to the garbage. “Ready, pita pocket?”

“Pita pocket?” she asked, totally confused.

“Yeah . . . just came to me. Seemed appropriate right now.”

“If you say so.”

The two made the quick drive back to Tom’s to grab his truck and Foxy, then the small caravan drove to her place. He went to the yard to let Foxy run around and Lizzie went to the back porch to unlock the door.

Opening the screen, she stopped when an envelope fell to the deck. Curious, she bent down to pick it up. Flipping it over, her heart sunk when she saw the familiar scrawl on the front.

Elizabeth

She ripped it open, pulling the letter out and letting the envelope flutter to the ground, and then read.

I’m so very sorry.

This shouldn’t have happened. You should never have seen me like that. I shouldn’t have done it, shouldn’t have been in a place that made it so easy.

God, I love you so much, but you are too good for this messed-up me. You deserve so much more. You, Elizabeth McCullough, deserve the stars. I’m not that. Right now, I’m a black hole and I don’t want to suck you into it. I want you far, far away from it.

I need to work on this thing that has been controlling my life for far too long. Seeing what I had done through your eyes was a revelation. A revelation I now wish I would’ve had earlier so I would’ve never hurt you . . . because you’ve made me feel alive maybe for the first time in my life.

With you, I saw I could be a better man. I tried to be that man, but I failed in such an epic way.

I ran and left you. I’m sorry for that and I’m sorry I’m gone now. I just needed to get away and start this. I want you to know that I’m not giving up, Elizabeth. Believe me. I’m going to work to be worthy of you but first I need to leave. When I’m in a better place . . . I don’t know what I’ll do except that I will still love you. It’s not ever going to go away. You, my beautiful woman, are ingrained in my heart for eternity.

You are my moon and the stars in my sky, and because of that I know I will find my way back to you. When . . . I don’t know. I don’t know how long this will take—a month . . . three . . . a year? I don’t even know what tomorrow will hold. The one thing I ask is that you don’t worry about me. Please. Though I do hope that you’ll remember me. Especially those good times together because we had so many. Those are what I’m holding on to . . . those future ones with you.

Though I’m not fooling myself that there will be any possibility of those moments. I know I’ve messed us up royally.

I need to end this now or I will ramble on because leaving you . . . God, it’s so fucking hard.

One more thing . . . in the other envelope. I had this made for you and was going to give it to you on our anniversary. I want you to have this even though we won’t be together for it. I hope you like it.

I love you, Elizabeth.

~Marc

Lizzie scrambled to the deck floor and picked up the envelope the letter was in and found the smaller one he spoke of. After sliding her finger to break the seal, she emptied the contents into her open palm. The moment the necklace hit her hand, the tears poured from her eyes.

She held it up to look at it. A hanging pendant of two stars and a moon, each with a diamond in the center hung from a delicate gold chain.

It was absolutely stunning. As she stared at it, the tears continued to fall as she thought about Marc . . . and how this letter was his goodbye to her. That she wouldn’t get to see him or hold him again. That their last conversation was a goddamn argument. That the last time she saw him he was shooting up.

“Lizzie?”

She looked up at Tom standing at the bottom of the porch stairs. “He wrote me a letter,” she said, folding her fingers over the necklace.

“What did he say?” Tom said, sitting on the step by her.

“He’s gone. That he needs to work on something that has been plaguing him for far too long. Do you know what he’s talking about?”

“Other than the drugs, I really don’t know . . .”

“Do you know who would?”

“Clark.”

“I need to talk to him.”

“Let’s go inside and we can do that. Come on,” he said, standing and offering her his hand.

Before accepting it, Lizzie gathered up the letter and the envelopes, and they went inside, Foxy following them into the living room. Lizzie placed the letter on the sofa table behind the sectional. Tom walked around and sat down and Foxy was right by his side. Before joining them, she reached behind her neck and put on the new necklace, closing her eyes as the pendant settled at the top of her breasts. She placed her hand on it for a long moment, feeling Marc’s presence, then she joined Tom on the sofa. Foxy didn’t like that Lizzie sat on the other side of Tom. The dog got up, walked over Tom and Lizzie then plopped down, her head on her lap. The whole thing made Lizzie smile.

“Damn dog really likes you,” Tom grumbled playfully.

“I really like her,” she said, petting the dog’s soft fur.

After a few minutes of silence, Lizzie turned her head to her best friend. “Tom? Can we call Clark?”

He nodded and pulled his phone from his pocket and handed it to her. Lizzie took the phone and quickly found Clark’s number and hit call. On the third ring, Clark’s voice greeted her. “Tom . . . is he with you?”

“This is Lizzie and no . . . he’s not. We were hoping he was with you.”

“Hi, Lizzie. He was with me. I picked him up last night. We stayed at a hotel in Rosemont. This morning I went to the studio for a couple hours and when I returned he was nowhere to be found.”

Her heart sank at Clark’s words.

“Clark . . . he left me a letter . . . he said he needed to work on something that had been bothering him for too long.”

“Shit . . .”

“What does he mean?”

“His father.”

“His father. Not your father?”

“Marc is my half-brother. Different dads. His father was Beckett Kerr.”

“The author?”

“Yeah,” Clark confirmed.

Lizzie racked her brain trying to access anything she knew about him. Why did suicide keep popping up?

“When Marc was thirteen, he went to spend the summer with his dad. Marc never talked about what happened, but all I know is that his dad killed himself in front of Marc.”

“Oh my God! Seriously?”

Tom bumped his knee into her to get her attention and mouthed “What?” She held up her finger as Clark continued.

“He hasn’t gotten over it.”

“And you think he’s gone off to try to do that?”

“Yeah.”

“How?” she asked.

“I have no idea.”

Marc

He had to make this flight, Marc thought, slamming the trunk of the taxi then hurrying into the backseat.

“O’Hare.”

“Yes, sir,” the older taxi driver said to him, his hand slowly moving to the meter to enter the fare. This man’s movements were that of a sloth . . . maybe even slower. Marc’s eyes rolled back hard enough to make his head hit the seat.

Just hit the damn buttons and put the car into drive already
, he cursed in his head.

“My flight’s at three . . .” Marc said, hoping the hint would get the guy in gear.

“Yes, sir,” the guy said again, but at least the car started to back out of the driveway.

Marc shook his head. Just his luck to be stuck with the safest taxi driver in the entire universe.

When the taxi finally got on the highway, Marc relaxed a little. Though not too much. He didn’t want his mind to wander. He didn’t want to think about what he’d done, what he was doing right now.

He was leaving.

His job. His life. His friends and family. Lizzie.

The fucking tears came again. He’d cried too much the past twenty-four hours. But the worst had been when he wrote the letter to Lizzie, sitting on the floor of her deck. He didn’t want to leave her; he wanted to stay in her arms forever. But he wasn’t worthy enough to be there. He wanted to be, and that was the only thing that got him up and into his car, leaving his heart behind.

Now he was on his way to rehab . . . with more therapy than he could stomach.

Therapy that would dig into the reasons he did the things he did.

Therapy that would focus on his father’s suicide and how that affected him.

Definitely not looking to relive that. Not at all.

He’d spent the years after that event searching for a way
not
to relive it. Not to have to wake up and see his father’s blood staining the floor. Not to hear the gun discharging. Not to see the splattered mess of his brain, skull, and blood on the floor.

That’s when he’d started to self-medicate. He was a rich kid on the North Shore. Getting drugs was easy. He definitely gained a dependency on them throughout the years. It had begun with his father’s death but as time passed, Marc began to take them whenever things got too hard, when things made him feel too much. It eventually became recreational . . . at parties mostly.

But when he met Lizzie, he didn’t use . . . and had thought that he was done, that the dependency was over. But all the times she’d been gone for work, a little voice hummed in his head, letting him know that something was around to make him feel better.