“Go,” she says, her voice unsteady though her tone brooks no argument. She shifts enough to pull her phone from the pocket of her overalls, switching on the flashlight. “I’ll be fine.”
“You can call me.”
“I’ll call Sloane.”
That sinking feeling returns to fill my chest as I watch Lark bring up her favorite contacts, where my name doesn’t appear in the short list. She presses Sloane’s name but it goes straight to voicemail. Without glancing up at me, she tries Rose next, who picks up on the second ring.
“Boss hostler. How’s married life, pretty lady?” Rose says for a greeting.
Fresh tears still glisten on Lark’s skin and her shoulders tremble, but her voice is summer sunshine when she says, “Oh you know, lots going on. How are you, what’s new? Teach the good doctor any new circus tricks yet?”
Rose cackles on the other end as Lark gives me a glance that clearly says fuck off immediately. And I should want to leave. I should not want to linger here. Lark would rather be in this metal box alone with her fears in the dark than sharing the shadows with me. And it’s best that way. For both of us.
But when I back away from her pool of light, it feels like the wrong thing to do.
In the time it takes me to hop onto the table and open the roof hatch, I never hear a complaint from Lark, only her questions to Rose, anything to keep her friend talking or make her laugh. Their voices follow me as I force open the door to the second floor, which is not much of a reach from the roof of the elevator. I hop out to Lark’s open-plan living and dining area and head back down to the first floor, and with a little scavenging of tools from her craft room, I manage to fix the faulty electrical connection within the hour.
Lark looks as though she hasn’t slept for days when the elevator finally opens where it was supposed to. I roll the coffee table into place in the living room and we work together to get it just where she wants it. Lark stands back to look at her work for a long moment, her expression unreadable.
“It looks good,” I say. “Like it’s deserving of sentimental value despite being brand spankin’ new.”
Lark doesn’t rise to my teasing, nor does she hit back. She only gives me a faint nod.
I face her and suck in a breath. “Lark, I—”
“No.” She turns to me, her bright blue eyes are pink-rimmed from tears. “I’m done for today. Thank you for your help.”
I want to say more. I want her to talk to me. I want to listen. But there’s no give in her expression.
It’s for the best …
I give her a nod and let her show me to the guest room. She takes Bentley out for his final walk of the night as I unpack my bags. I don’t see her when she comes back into the apartment, I only hear her enter the primary bedroom with the dog in her wake. Though I cook enough for two and text her when it’s ready, she doesn’t appear for dinner. If it wasn’t for the quiet music that slips from the crack beneath her door, I’d be convinced that I’m alone. Even the gentle melodies fade away before midnight, and I go to sleep wishing I’d said more than I did.
I wake from a nightmare shortly after three in the morning and head to the kitchen for a fresh glass for water. The last thing I expect to see is Lark sitting curled in a round chair by the windows, a guitar nestled in her lap and headphones on her ears, papers spread before her and a pen discarded on the pages.
She doesn’t see me. But I see her clearly. Puffy eyes. Blotchy skin. Swollen lips. The sheen of tears on her cheeks, as though they haven’t stopped. She’s stripped down to her raw edges, to the bloody knuckles from battling with life. I’ve lost skin in this fight to survive too, and though I’ve tried to cover the physical marks with ink, the ones in my memory never seem to heal. Sometimes old scars still ache, an echo of sharp moments.
Have I wounded her? I know I have. But maybe not with a fresh, shallow strike that would soon be forgotten. No, I think I sliced through thin tissue that first night we met. And there is something still bleeding deep beneath the wound.
“Two twenty-four three eighteen,” she sings, her gaze disconnected from the world around her as she stares out the window. “Five thirty-nine six twelve six fifty-two …”
I turn and leave before she can see me, feeling like I’ve finally settled at the bottom of the sea.
BANJAXED
Lachlan
I need to ask you a question.
SLOANE:Go for it.
Lark, her thing about dark enclosed spaces, what’s up with that?
SLOANE:Why don’t you ask her yourself? She’s your wife in this weird ass marriage that neither of you will tell me about, so if you want to play the part of husband, how about this novel idea: TALK TO HER.
I don’t think she’ll tell me. Was hoping you could give me some insight …?
Sloane’s reply takes a moment to come through, which I soon realize is because she spends that brief time yelling at Rowan about why I’m such a dickhead.
SLOANE:You think I’m just going to cough up my best friend’s history on a platter for you? Lachlan Kane, be so fucking for real right now.
ROWAN:Hey dickhead. My wife wants to know why you’re such a dickhead.
ROWAN:Should I give her the long version or the short version?
SLOANE:Do you honestly think I would tell you that? Seriously? GO FUCK YOURSELF.
ROWAN:Secure your eyeballs. Repeat. Secure your eyeballs.
SLOANE:If you’re having trouble with your “marriage” and talking to your “wife,” why don’t you crack a fucking book. A ROMANCE book, not more of your “history of leather” bullshit. It’s literally an instruction manual for dumbasses like you.
SLOANE:And get fucked.
SLOANE:METAPHORICALLY
ROWAN:If you can find insurance for eyeball enucleation, now would be a good time …
“Feckin’ bollocks.” I drop my phone on my desk and rest my pounding forehead on my arms as I try to work out what the fuck I’m supposed to do.
After that first night we met, I tried to push away every thought of Lark. I never looked into her. Never hunted her down. Though I spent until dawn searching for her once I realized she’d escaped from my car, shame had stopped me from trying to find her beyond that day. I didn’t even realize she was related to Damian Covaci until Leander ripped a strip off me for ruining the contract. I didn’t want to care about Lark Montague. But every moment that passes seems to upend my ideas of the woman I thought I married. And lately, it feels like I haven’t looked into Lark because I’m afraid of what I’ll find.
But I think she needs help. It feels like I’m the only one who can see it. And I’m at a total feckin’ loss at how to do it.
Since I moved in two nights ago, Lark has barely slept. The first night when I woke in the morning, she was still in that chair that faces the windows, headphones on, guitar in her grip. She was asleep, but it seemed restless. When I tried to move the guitar off her lap, she woke with a vicious glare, then padded off to her room without a single word. Last night, she didn’t appear in the living room, but the light stayed on under her door. Sometimes her voice followed it as she sang or hummed. She’s spent the last two days running around, only settling long enough to play a few minutes of a movie, something with Keanu Reeves, but she turned it off with a muttered “Constantine” when I asked the name of it. Otherwise, she’s either heading to Shoreview, where her aunt has just been moved and where she’ll start a new job as a music therapist next week, or taking her dog out, or cleaning with a precision that borders on obsession, or rehearsing with a band she’s supporting. I can already tell she’s exhausted.