Page 38

MADELINE

I’m going to need you in Philadelphia next week.

Mom said I was off until the convention.

MADELINE

Well, things change. Can Fitz do Wednesday?

I roll my eyes. Fitz can’t do Wednesday because he’s still at camp and won’t be back for another week. Considering Madeline basically runs the country, she should know that.

No.

Madeline

Nevermind then.

Laughing, I drop my phone to the floor beside my folded legs and resume my attention on the puzzle at hand, which—even though he didn’t have to—Fitz gave me permission to do while he was away. If I’m being honest, focusing my energy on the task at hand helps, but not in the same way it used to. I find it funny that when I first moved into this apartment, I was overwhelmed by the noise, by the people after getting used to quiet and solitude for so long. But now? Coming home to an empty apartment is my least favorite thing in the world.

My phone rings, and I brace myself thinking it’s Madeline, but as soon as I see the name, I smile.

“Hey.”

Fitz sighs into the phone. “God, I miss you.”

“You sound exhausted.” I push the pieces of the puzzle I had been working with further across the coffee table and push off the floor, flipping off the light and heading into our room. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

“Long day.”

There’s a distance to Fitz’s voice. “What happened? Are you okay?”

Fitz ignores my question. “You also sound tired. Have you been sleeping well?”

Pulling the phone away so he doesn’t hear me yawn, I nod. “Almost like a baby.” I plop down onto the bed.

“Almost?” Fitz asks. There’s worry in his voice now and I feel bad. But the truth is, I’ve felt more at peace than normal, even without him here. I don’t want to tell him to know that. I still need him around.

“Abby worked me hard.”

“You? Or Bernard?”

“Hey,” I say. “Horseback riding is an Olympic sport. Last I checked, football wasn’t.”

“It is if you consider football to be soccer,” Fitz points out.

I giggle, reaching out to the cool, empty space beside me. “I miss you too. I didn’t tell you that before.”

I don’t say that I miss the bits of Fitz I didn’t even notice fully until he left, like his sneakers by the door, or the keys to his truck on the table in the entry, the first clues that he was home when I entered the apartment. The shampoo bottle in the bathroom stands the right way up, not upside down as he leaves it. There’s less laundry, but more food in the cabinets, some sort of imbalance and I frown because I didn’t realize the balance I had at home with him.

And, of course, there’s more room in bed, which, as someone who has slept on a twin-sized mattress for so long, is something I should appreciate.

I don’t. I prefer the few days when my knee would knock into his at night, when he’d roll over and drape a thick arm over my waist. I miss the kisses—the softest, most innocent ones, and the ones when we both tested the boundaries.

Bringing my hand up, I trace my lips.

“Did you fall asleep?” I ask.

“No. I’m just relaxed knowing you’re there,” Fitz says. “Safe at home in our bed.”

Our bed does something to me.

“It’s lonely without you,” I admit, shutting my eyes.

“Scoot over then.” Fitz hums. “Pretend I’m there.”

My eyes fling open.

He jokingly adds in a deep voice, “I know you’re on my side anyway.”

Any hope I had plummets. “It does smell like you. I haven’t changed the sheets yet.”

“Do you know my favorite smell?”

“What?” I ask.

Fitz’s voice dips lower. “You. On my skin. Every morning when I got out of bed last week, I smelled you on me. Drives me wild.”

I shut my eyes. “I know that feeling.”

“I bet there’s something you don’t know.”

Leaning back, I rest my hand on my lower stomach. “Try me.”

“I’m touching myself.”

I bite down on my lip to keep in the whimper. “But I want to touch you.”

“How?”

“So many ways,” I begin. My fingers twitch against my stomach, and I pull up Fitz’s sweatshirt I’ve paired with only underwear.

“Like I’m touching myself now?” Fitz asks. “Do you want to stroke me, Parker?”

“Yes,” I breathe out, shutting my eyes. “I loved how you felt in my hand. Thick. Warm.”

Fitz takes a deep breath. “Fuck.”

My fingertips brush the elastic and slip under, and I shiver when I find my clit swollen and aching. I’m tingling from head to toe as I begin to trace lazy, firm circles around it.

“Tell me. Tell me what you’d do. Would you get on your knees for me?”

Tucking the phone against my ear, I drag my now free hand to my chest. “Yes.”

“Run your tongue along the tip?”

“Y-yes.” My tongue sneaks out of my mouth, wanting to do that but settles for my lips. “I want to lick you. Top to bottom.”

Fitz’s breathing grows stronger, and there’s something about that, about imagining the way his broad chest begins to rise and fall quickly, that makes my hand in my shorts move a little faster as well. “Parker…”

“Can you see me?” I ask. “Looking up from you with my lips around your cock?”

Fitz hisses. “You’d never look prettier than when your mouth is full of me. God damn.”

“Mmm.” I imagine the moment—quiet, intimate, but so god damn sexy. “The way you’d push my hair back and tell me I’m doing a good job.”

I let out a little moan, sliding a finger inside myself. It doesn’t compare to Fitz. But coupling that with the image of him hard and thinking of me compensates a little for what I’m missing.

“Are you touching yourself?”

“Mmm-hmm.” I bite my lip, pressing my hand into my clit as I rotate my finger inside. “You have no idea what thinking of making you feel good does to me. I want you so much.”

“I know, baby,” Fitz says. In between his pants, I hear the faintest, sweet sound of skin on skin as Fitz strokes himself.

I whimper. Part of me wants to beg him to turn on the camera, but the other part of me wants to cherish the sound alone.

“I’d take you all the way in,” I tell him. “God, the way you pull my hair, the sounds you make… Knowing you like it makes me ache .”

“I love it,” Fitz corrects. “I fucking love hitting the back of your throat.”

I try to hold my breath because I swear, I hear his movements grow faster, and as a result, so do mine.

“The soft spot?”

“Yes. God, yes.”

I pump my fingers harder. “The way I’d moan around you?”

Fitz lets out a combination of a sigh and moan. “Yes.” There are more frantic pumps of his hand. “Where…Parker, where do you want it?”

A warmth creeps across my lower belly, and my head rubs against the pillows as I feel my release build quickly. I grind harder into my hand as every muscle in my body tightens, searching for relief. “My mouth,” I tell him. “I want to swallow every damn drop of that warm baby batter.”

“God damn.” He pants around his words, his voice growing higher in pitch. “You’re such a good wife.”

I don’t try, not for a second, to hide how hard I come—Fitz’s words, the sounds of his own release, send me over the edge. My chest heaves with heavy breaths, as I realize my head has slipped through the space between the sets of pillows on the middle of the bed.

“Fuck. I made a mess.” He sighs. “Are you alright?”

“Am I alright?” I grab the phone. “Come home, and I’ll show you. I’ll show you everything .”

I hear the happy breath that floats out of Fitz when he smiles. “Soon. I promise.”

* * *

Riding every day has me both on cloud nine and incredibly sore. After settling Bernard in his stall for the night, I’m waving down Agent Samuels, who’s been standing against the large tree, signaling I’ll be ready to go home soon.

Abby pops in. “Do you have a few minutes? I’ve got some paperwork that needs your signature. Just some authorizations for vet visits, grooming.”

I’ve never been more excited to sign my legal name. “Yes.”

“I feel awful,” she says as we walk side by side. “I didn’t tell your husband congratulations when he came by last week. He must’ve thought I was so rude.”

I skip up the steps as we approach the office. “It’s fine. We didn’t want to make a big deal of it.” This sounds ridiculous considering we eloped in Vegas with active paparazzi standing right outside the chapel doors. “I mean, it’s a busy time for both of us. We just didn’t see the point in waiting for a big wedding and wanted to have a little fun. It was pretty informal.”

“I just saw the picture. His jersey was a cute informal touch.”

“Thank you,” I say. “Please tell my mother that.”

Abby cackles. “My husband and I also eloped.”

“Did you?” I ask. “Was your family on board with it?”

Abby’s shoulders shift side to side as we step through the small reception area, which I realize I’ve never been in even after all this time. “I didn’t tell them for a year, even though it was well after my sister had died. I just… they’ve never been the same. But they’re happy for us. It will always be a different kind of happy though.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you lost a sister.”

“The heartbreaking thing is everyone was really on poor terms with her anyway.” Abby sighs. “I think she would’ve been happy though. I married my childhood sweetheart, kind of like you.”

My cheeks round into a smile. It feels like I’ve learned something new about myself.

Abby reaches over the partition of the desk, and hands me a folder and a pen. “The first time we got married, we were eight and my sister was in kindergarten. We married right under that big oak tree. Sarah was the maid of honor.”

The pen slips from my fingers. Abby quickly retrieves it, but I stare as pieces of the puzzle finally begin to settle, painfully, together.

“Midnight was Sarah’s horse?” I spit out the question so quickly I nearly stumble over the words. I don’t know why it needs to leave my mouth so fast when I’m terrified of the answer.

Abby places the pen on top of the partition when I don’t take it. “Anyone who ever said animals don’t grieve could learn a thing or two from him. He’s never been alright since Sarah left.”

Left .

“Parker? Are you alright? You look a little pale.”

I shake my head. “Sorry. Could I trouble you for some water?”

“Stay there.” Abby points to a chair, and I sink down into it, trying to focus on my breathing as much as I can. But that becomes almost impossible no matter how hard I try.

Because when I lift my face from the ground, the thing I see on the wall is Sarah smiling at me.

* * *

Hours later, I sit in the chair in the den, my feet pressed up to the seat, hugging my knees. I keep staring at the search engine on the monitor, afraid to type anything.

Every time the screen falls asleep and goes black, I reach out and wiggle the mouse to wake it. I’m not sure if I’ve done that fifty or five hundred times, but when the summer sky begins to darken outside the window, I realize if I don’t look now. I never will.

I type Sarah into the search engine, followed by Griffen , Abby’s last name.

If the chair didn’t have wheels, I might’ve flipped it when I push back, driving my body away from the desk, away from the results.

PARENTS SUE THERAPEUTIC SCHOOL FOR WRONGFUL DEATH OF DAUGHTER.

TEENAGER DIES OF SEPSIS AFTER BEING DENIED MEDICAL CARE WHILE ATTENDING WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS BOARDING SCHOOL, PARENTS ALLEGE.

There are dozens of hits, right in front of me. I bring my shaking hands up, folding them over my face before I inch forward, using the mouse to scroll down, clicking on one.

Autopsy results show that Sarah Griffen died from peritonitis, an infection of the abdomen that, under proper medical care, is usually successfully treated with antibiotics…

I click the back button.

PROBE FINDS NO ISSUES AT THERAPY BOARDING SCHOOL WHERE TEEN DIED; NO STATE LICENSES REVOKED.

Immediately, I jump out of the chair and rush into the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet as I violently vomit.

* * *

I sit on the floor of the shower for so long that the cold water begins to soothe the scorched skin the hot water left behind. Goosebumps prickle my legs. I can see them in between the tiny drops of pelting water, but I can’t feel them. Even though it’s been a long time since I had a cold shower, despite all the shitholes I lived in, I’ve had enough that I’ve grown immune toward the icy feeling.

Showers were meant to be relaxing. But while I was at Horizons, they put my system into overdrive, worrying about eyes on me while keeping my ears focused on what might be happening outside the bathroom so I would know what I would be in for when I got out.

It wasn’t the fighting between other students that scared me. The paralyzing fear came when it happened between students but was broken apart by staff who often hit back and hit harder. I remember wishing I could say something. I remember wanting to scream, the enemy of your enemy is your friend . That’s what Sarah told me. If all of us believed it and acted like that, we could stage a rebellion. We could figure out a way to break out or, at the very least, try to overtake the place enough that someone would be forced to call the police.

I like to think that if Sarah had never disappeared, we would’ve done that.

A sob breaks free from my chest. Sarah never disappeared. She died .

My hair is a sopping mess, when I get out of the shower and slip into Fitz’s robe, but I don’t care. I walk back into the entry where I left my phone on the table when I came in, finding texts from Fitz I missed earlier.

Fitz

Going up to my room in an hour after dinner. Will try calling you.

Checked with Al at the front door. He said you went up. Guess you fell asleep.

“Later.” I know if I call him now, I won’t be able to hide the shaking in my voice. “I’ll deal with him later.”

I call my sister because—unlike most daughters—I won’t be able to reach my parents. Madeline answers on the second ring.

“What happened?”

I take a deep breath. “I think that’s a question better suited for you,” I say slowly. “Do you know what happened? I never asked.”

“What are you?—”

“Do you…” I begin to repeat. “Do you know what happened when they took me? Do you even know where they took me?”

“Have you been drinking?”

I’ve never been more sober in my life. Not ever.

“I want to talk to Mom. Now.”

“I’m at home . It’s almost midnight,” Madeline informs me. “Whatever drama you’re stirring up, it can wait.”

I lift the phone and tap it furiously against my head before lowering it and trying to calm my breathing.

“I screamed for you that night,” I whisper. “I thought I was going to die.”

“Well, you didn’t .”

The truth hurts. She’s right. I didn’t die.

But Sarah did .

I squeeze my eyes shut as my body shakes. So much of me began to die that night I called out for Maddy. My trust, hope, and mind. Small bits broke off that night, and with every day I stayed in Horizons, the pieces chipped away at me were larger.

And now, standing in this enormous apartment as the daughter of a president who was destined to serve in this position as the last member of a once-great political dynasty, I’m nothing. I have everything around me, but none of it is mine. I have no one around me even though I have a ring on my finger and a husband who goes out of his way to check with the doorman to make sure I’m home when I haven’t answered.

But even Fitz isn’t mine. Not in that way.

In some ways, I do feel dead.

“Parker, whatever you’re thinking?—”

“It wouldn’t be enough anyway.” I hang up the phone.

Whatever I can do—whatever I’m willing to do—won’t bring me back. It won’t bring Sarah back. And we’re the ones who matter. Us and god knows how many other kids… we all matter.