Chapter Twenty-three

Felix

When Darien was late getting home, I thought little of it. In the weeks since I’d been here, he’d stayed late at the office at least a couple of times a week. That was the downside of dating—were we dating or had we gone past that?—someone so dedicated to their job.

The rush of feelings was immediate when he finally walked through the door.

So much so that I didn’t even wait for him to take his jacket off before pulling him into an impromptu embrace. A familiar smell assaulted my nostrils as I buried my nose in his hair. “Ugh! You smell of prison. I guess you had to see a client today.”

Three things set alarm bells ringing. First, was how stiff Darien had gone in my arms. Next, was his lack of response to what I’ d said, and then finally his eagerness to extricate himself, his arms having stayed by his side throughout the entirety of the one-sided hug.

I stood for a moment in the hallway, trying to convince myself I was being paranoid, that this was what happened when you spent the day alone counting the hours until you had someone to talk to again. In many ways, I’d walked out of one prison and into another. Only in this one, there was a glimmer of light. And his name was Darien. Tonight, though, he lacked that glimmer. Which meant I wasn’t being paranoid.

I tracked him to the living room where he’d taken his jacket off. Rather than hanging it up as he normally would, it was slung carelessly over the back of the sofa. The TV was playing a cartoon that I doubted Darien was interested in. Not unless he’d been hiding a secret desire to learn the alphabet and count to ten behind his love of trashy documentaries. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

It was funny how a simple phrase could cause such a visceral reaction, my heart rate increasing and my palms starting to sweat. Julian had used those same words more times than I could count, and nine times out of ten, they’d preceded him flying into a violent rage to prove he was anything but fine. It provoked an urge to get the hell out of here, to leave the house and go somewhere. Anywhere.

I forced myself to stand still, to think rationally rather than let fight or flight kick in. This wasn’t Julian. This was Darien. He’d given me no reason to think he was anything like Julian. You didn’t think there was anything wrong with Julian for the first year of your relationship. Don’t make the same mistakes.

“You’re not fine,” I said carefully. “There’s obviously something on your mind. Is it work? Did someone find out about me being here? ”

Darien shook his head as he picked up the remote control, the TV going silent just as the dog puppet got to seven in his latest round of counting. Darien continued to stare at the blank screen before seeming to catch himself and patting the empty seat next to him on the sofa. “Why don’t you come and sit down? I’ll give you fair warning that you’re going to be pissed, though.”

“In general, or at you?” I didn’t take the seat he’d offered, choosing to perch on the sofa arm instead.

“Both, probably.”

“What did you do?” Silent seconds stretched between us and I wished he’d left the TV on. “Oh, come on, Darien, how bad can it be? Just tell me what’s going on.”

“I had this idea,” Darien finally said. “I enjoy fixing things. You’ve probably already worked that out about me, what with me being a probation officer. I certainly didn’t go into it for the money.”

“Right?” There didn’t seem to be any other response I could give to the statement when I didn’t know where he was going with it.

“You being trapped in here while I’m at work isn’t fair.”

“I go out. I walk in the park. I go to the supermarket.” My argument wasn’t that convincing when the activities I’d come up with made me sound like I was ninety.

“Which you wear a disguise to do.”

I shrugged. “I just don’t want what happened at my mother’s house happening here. It’d be crap if I run out of places to live.” My attempt at a joke fell flat.

Darien sighed. “I thought if I could clear your name, it would fix things.”

“Clear my name!” I laughed. Darien didn’t laugh. He just carried on looking miserable. “You’re serious?” I waited for his nod. “How the hell did you think you could do that? ”

“If he admitted—”

“He?” A wave of dizziness washed over me, and I had to plant my feet more firmly on the carpet to prevent myself from slipping off the sofa arm. “You don’t mean… you can’t mean.” I found myself unable to say his name, like saying it might conjure him up. It felt like he was already here, though, his malevolent presence poisoning the atmosphere. “What did you do?”

Darien’s mouth twisted. “I went to see him.”

I couldn’t seem to stop shaking my head, such was my desire to deny that this conversation was happening. “You can’t just go and see him. It doesn’t work like that.”

“I applied for a visiting order.”

“When?”

“A few days ago.”

“A few days ago! And you said nothing.”

“You would have told me not to go.”

“Damn right, I would have done.”

Darien shuffled closer. “That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

“And what exactly did you think you’d gain from going to see him?”

“I thought I could get him to admit the truth. I… er… smuggled a recording device in with me.”

I stared at him. “Are you insane? If you’d gotten caught, you would have kissed goodbye to your job.”

“Yeah, well… I’m doing a lot of things these days that wouldn’t go down too well if those in authority knew about it, so I figured why stop there?” He ran a slightly shaky hand through his hair. “And anyway, I didn’t get caught. I figured if I could just get evidence of him changing his story, it might be enough to at least convince people to look into things again. ”

“And how did that go for you?” There was a bite to my words. Darien had said I’d be pissed, and I was indeed pissed. It didn’t matter that he’d done it for the right reasons. Not when he’d deliberately kept it from me. He’d set off to work this morning and hadn’t said a word, all the time knowing he’d be seeing him.

“Not well.”

“I bet.” I studied Darien. He was looking at me, but not really, his gaze slightly off center. It had been the same since we’d started this conversation. In fact, now I came to think about it, he hadn’t looked at me properly since he’d gotten home. “What did he say to you?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re lying.” I felt sick, my body temperature too high and my clothes feeling like they belonged to someone else. Julian had taken seven years of my life. More, if I included the period before that when he’d controlled my every move. I thought I’d found something good, that Darien was an oasis in a desert of shit. A shining beacon of light as it was. And now, my ex-boyfriend had even managed to contaminate him. “You let him get to you, didn’t you? You let him get inside your head.”

“No, of course not!” Darien’s face said the opposite, though.

“So he didn’t tell you it was all me, that you shouldn’t believe a word I say? That I’m a fantasist who makes things up?”

“Well, yeah,” Darien admitted. “He did, but that doesn’t mean I believed a word of it.”

“Right. And that’s why you can’t even look at me, is it?” I stood, Darien making no effort to follow the motion, his gaze remaining at waist height. Heat had given way to feeling cold inside, like someone had removed all my internal organs, put them in a freezer for an hour, and then given them back to me. It had been stupid to get involved with Darien and think that I couldn’t be hurt, that I was in control. The Felix I’d become in prison had only ever been a hard outer shell. Inside, I was the same na?ve fool I’d always been. The one who believed in romance and thought there was someone out there for everyone.

I left the room and took the stairs two at a time, ignoring the “where are you going?” that floated up the stairs after me. My first target was the backpack that I’d left in the spare room. From there, I went into Darien’s room and pulled open the drawer he’d emptied for me in a moment of touching domesticity that had made my heart skip a beat.

“Felix?”

I started shoving things into the bag with little regard for folding them when it would take too long. Footsteps on the stairs. Slowly, like Darien didn’t really want to come up here, but thought he should. It was my turn not to look at him as he filled the doorway and stood there. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” My tone was terse, like we were strangers. “I’m doing you a favor.”

Darien stepped into the room and stood at the end of the bed, my frenzied bag packing taking place on it. “How do you work that one out?”

“I’m leaving before you throw me out.”

“Where will you go?”

The problem with not folding things was that less fit in. I gave up on trying to squeeze the last pair of jeans in and left them on the bed. I’d come back for them later, or Darien could burn them. I fastened the backpack with movements that I wanted to believe were efficient, but if I was honest, were more angry. “Are you asking as my probation officer or as my… boyfriend?” I cringed at the word I’d used, speaking quickly to get in before Darien could respond. “Assuming that label is correct. Perhaps it isn’t, and I was just fooling myself.”

“No, we were boyfriends. ”

Whether it was the quiet way he said it, or the past tense usage that made my throat thick, I couldn’t have said. Either way, I needed to get out of here before I did something stupid like cry. I flung the bag over my shoulder and made for the door, Darien trailing after me, his shoulders hunched. “I will need to know where you’re staying, though.”

“Yeah…” I was at the front door now. “I’ll text you an address when I have one.” I opened it, Darien making no move to stop me, and left.