But this time, for the first time, I thought of someone else. Hammer.
And that fact sent a rush of fear through my heart. I didn't need anyone to make me think of the possibility that there might be more than this for me in life. I didn't need to put anyone else in harm's way. I already had my sister's blood on my hands. I had failed to protect her. I was responsible for my son's life now. That was the most important thing.
I embraced the darkness.
Meia's words echoed in my head. Embrace the darkness. Not fight it. Maybe it was part of my nature. Maybe it was fighting against it that was killing me inside.
So I started embracing my own darkness. By data searching Meia. She’d told me to leave it alone, but I couldn’t. I wanted to know who she was, and whether she was safe. I wanted to know why she was with Aston.
I wanted to know everything about her.
But with all my skills, I’d basically found nothing. She was a blank slate before she was with Aston. She'd been photographed on his arm a number of times over the past two years. But prior to that? It was like she'd never existed.
I wanted to know why.
I think it was also because I couldn't sit there anymore at night, alone, thinking about April being gone. I couldn't sit there in the darkness, thinking about where I'd gone wrong with my daughter, about whether or not she'd ever be okay, or whether she'd be depressed forever.
I told myself it was out of concern for Meia that I did what I did next. And that I didn't tell her.
It wasn't that I was becoming obsessive.
I only wanted to make sure she was safe.
I started following her, watching her. I noted the men who tailed her, not every day, but sometimes, from a safe distance. The one who sometimes sat outside her apartment in a car. I started tracking their schedule.
I wasn't becoming obsessive.
I was still in control.
He called that night, the person to whom I'd already become too attached. Tayza had a point about letting go, not becoming too attached to some things- attachments to people were dangerous. This - whatever this was with Hammer - these phone calls that I'd begun to look forward to, were dangerous for him. He didn't need to become involved with this.
I was home alone, sitting on the floor, trying to calm the storm that raged on in my mind. Meditating only seemed to make it worse, to give more freedom to the thoughts that swirled around like whirlpools in the water, threatening to pull me down into their depths.
When Hammer called, I was grateful for the interruption. And not only because it gave me a reason to get out of my head. But because it was him. I’d been talking to him, stolen phone calls at night. I knew it was stupid, foolish, even if I was taking precautions, walks late at night, using my disposable phone. I had only taken that unnecessary risk the first time. I was being smart.
I swore to myself that I would stop whatever was happening with Hammer.
I would quell the little flutter of anticipation I felt when he called on the phone. I would not think about the way my heart started to beat wildly in my chest, or the way I was beginning to draw comfort from the sound of his voice.
I would let go, before anything went any farther with him. This I could do.
I had to do it.
I pulled the top off the beer and dialed the number, all the time wondering what the hell I was thinking. I'd talked with Meia three times on the phone this week. I followed her a few times, told myself it was okay, that I was just making sure she was not being hurt. Of course, who the hell knew what was happening once she went into Aston's penthouse?
I couldn't know, and it was starting to eat at me, the knowledge that she wasn't safe.
I kept telling myself to let it go.
The conversations were mostly one-sided, me talking and her listening, and I wondered what she must think of me. Pathetic, that's what she must think. She had to see me as a pathetic excuse for a man, some broken man whose life ended with his wife’s death. Part of me felt I should be over this by now. Other people got past death. Other men lost their wives. I wasn't the first person in the history of the universe to have lost someone.
Yet here I was, on the phone pouring my guts to someone I didn't know in the slightest.
And then I asked the question. "Can I meet you in person?"
My usual self-assured attitude was suddenly gone. Suddenly I was nervous.
Then the nervous feeling was replaced by something else. And before I could take back my question, she said, "Yes."
When I opened the door of the hotel room, she smiled at me, the expression brightening her face. I hadn't seen her smile before. It made her look suddenly younger, lighter. Less burdened somehow. Then it was gone, as quickly as it had appeared.
"Meia," I said.
"I don't know what I'm doing here," she said. But she stepped closer to me, and I stood there in the doorway for a moment, with her inches away from me, looking down at her. I had the sudden impulse to kiss her, as she looked up at me, uncertainty and apprehension etched on her face.
"I don't know what I'm doing here either," I admitted.
But I stepped back and she walked inside anyway, her eyes surveying the room before she peeled off her coat and laid it over a chair. She looked exquisite, despite being in a simple dress, one that skimmed her body, barely giving a hint of what was underneath.