34. Adrian

Chapter 34

Adrian

I 'd never been one to disassociate often, or even at all. My first real episode with it had come the moment I'd learned about Jan's death and I went into overdrive to handle it. I'd gone in and out of fits of shock the weeks and months after, somehow managing to get work done and be a parent despite it, even when it felt as if I were taking a backseat in my head and letting someone else control my body.

But now, as I sat on the floor against the wall of windows in my office, still wearing my coat and my hands frozen from my walk back from the park, I was gone entirely.

It was as if I wasn't even in my body anymore. Everything around me—the office, the floor, the plants, the mumbling of high-ranking staff passing by my door, my own heartbeat—felt distant, muffled, as if I were watching it all through a dusty, fogged-up window. I blinked, trying to recenter myself, but nothing I could see felt real anymore. My hands, my body, my breath felt so far away that it was like I was drifting away, somewhere safer where the weight of everything couldn't touch me.

I knew I should feel something. I knew I should force myself, somehow, back into reality. But there was only what was before me and the feeling of an empty, hollow space. All of the graves were dug up, and Jan's fingers had pulled me underneath the rotten soil, burying me instead of all of my problems.

I needed to work. I needed to prep for the next event, I needed to triple-check every choice the teams below me had made, I needed to do outreach to ensure that the companies signed on still wanted to work with me despite our catastrophic failings recently.

But I also needed her, and that was the most horrific realization.

A little over three months was too quick to go from barely knowing someone, to needing them to function. And somehow, against my better judgment, I'd let it happen.

I was right back where I'd been two years ago.

When I finally got the energy to move, it wasn't because I'd told myself to or intentionally piloted my body. I just…went from sitting one second, to standing the next, and back to sitting again in the plush seat at my desk. The screen from my laptop lit the darkening space, and it was only then that I realized that somehow, in all of this, the sun had set between the skyscrapers.

I'd done nothing.

The moment I had the tiniest drop of clarity, I called Grace, asked her to stay with Lucas. I'd take the angry meltdown from him later about missing the new episode of our show tonight, I'd deal with the minor fall out and handle what I could. I just…couldn't go home. I couldn't face my son like this.

A knock on my door pulled me toward the surface, briefly, again.

Michael stepped through the door into the dim light of my office, a gray and black flannel overtop of his button-up shirt and dark jeans. So fucking unprofessional, but it was Michael, and at that exact moment, I couldn't have cared less.

"You're still here?" he asked.

In an instant, I slammed back into reality, and all of it hit me at once.

One shaky, broken breath in, and Michael was moving across the floor to me. "Shit, what's wrong?"

"Everything," I choked. "Everything."

————

It took everything in me to keep from replaying the words I'd spoken and the moment I'd walked away from Ava, over and over again, in my mind. But talking through the last three months with Michael as we sat in the dingy, rundown bar a block down from the Darkwater building, helped keep my mind somewhat distracted.

"Can I be honest, man?" Michael asked, his glass of beer dripping condensation down his arm. I nodded. "From the way you've described her and everything up until this point, telling her father doesn't sound like something she would do. Especially not to spite you."

I leaned back in my creaking chair, staring at the still glass of red wine in front of me. "She kept the pregnancy from me for three weeks."

"Yeah, she did. But those were the three weeks you'd been working yourself to the bone to deal with the fuckin' chaos that came from shutting down that event upstate," he continued. "I mean, you said it yourself that she told you she hadn't wanted to stress you out any further. She knew you had a kid to look after and knew you had a lot going on with work. I'm not surprised she was trying to wait for a good time for you."

The wine sloshed as I lifted it by the stem, tipping back a solid mouthful. It was cheap, barely developed. "She knows what I went through with Jan. It doesn't excuse it."

"And do you not think that what you went through with Jan might be exactly why she wanted to wait to tell you?" he asked, his brows raising and making the tufts of gray hair at his temples wiggle. "You didn't want to fall as hard as you have. She probably knew that and didn't want to freak you out on top of causing more stress."

I shook my head. As much as I wanted to believe that, it wasn't safe for me or my heart. "The fact remains that there's no one else who would have run to David and told him."

Michael narrowed his gaze at me. "You know that isn't true. Assuming you haven't been absurdly careful with all of this, your nanny could have."

I stilled.

"Ava's friend could have. That woman who cooks for you in the Hamptons could have. Have you looked into any of them? Have you considered any of it a possibility?"

"No," I relented.

"Did you ask David who had told him?"

I swallowed another sip of wine to calm the uncomfortableness in my throat. "No," I sighed.

Michael's lips pursed. "You assumed."

"Yes."

"Text him."

I snorted. "Absolutely not."

"He's your friend."

"Was." I winced at the memory of reiterating that word to Ava, remembering the look of abject horror on her face as it sunk in. "He was my friend. He is clearly not anymore."

"Just text him and ask him, man. It's not that hard," Michael grumbled.

Sighing, I slipped my phone from my inner breast pocket and navigated over to the last few messages I'd had with David.

Me: Can you please tell me if Ava was the one who told you what was happening?

I set my phone face up on the table between us, the messages still open, so Michael would know I'd done it.

"Good job, Ade," Michael grinned. "That's honestly…"

It vibrated, and a message popped up.

David: Why should I tell you?

Groaning in exhaustion from the situation, I picked up my phone and replied.

Me: Because I am still at a loss as to how this happened.

Me: I appreciate that you're upset about this. I am too. I'll honor your wishes. I just need to know if she told you.

Me: Please. Just give me that much, Dave.

Another minute, another vibration.

David: It wasn't Ava, but that changes nothing.

It…wasn't Ava? It wasn't Ava. It wasn't fucking Ava.

Dropping the phone onto the glass table, I stared at it with dread coursing through my goddamn veins. Michael's gaze flicked from it to me, reading it upside down and gauging my reaction.

"Told you," he said.

"I fucked up," I breathed. I set down my glass with shaking hands, feeling the temptation to slip away again, to go back into disassociation where it was safe and slightly comfortable. "Oh my Ggod, I fucked up."

"Deep breaths, man," Michael said, hitting the button on the side of my phone to turn off the screen. "You should look into who did it. I don't think pressing him more on the issue is going to help."

I tried to measure my breaths, tried to stay in the moment. "How?"

He shrugged. "I can help you find a private investigator."

"That's insane," I laughed, but it was hollow, broken. I'd fucked up. I'd fucked up horribly.

"It's not," he chuckled. "It's pretty common. I've hired them before on the company's dime."

"You've…" I stopped myself from questioning it further, steadying my breathing again. "Fine. Okay. We can look into it."