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I don’t know why I’m surprised she’s got a Wikipedia page. She was an actress, after all.
My Gawd, she was stunning.
Seriously more beautiful than model-pretty Marissa Sullivan. I guess August has a thing for brunettes. She was smoky and smoldering and lived up to her name, with large green-brown eyes and a mouth so gorgeous I might start questioning which way I swing just looking at her.
I wryly tweak a strand of my own hair.
Definitely not his type.
I could never pull off her presence and elegance.
She looks like she’d have fit with him perfectly, though.
Meanwhile, in every tabloid pic I see of August and me ...
I look like someone cut me out of a photo of someone’s tacky backyard barbecue and photoshopped me in with him.
Totally out of place.
I skim the details. They started to divorce seven years ago, and the article cites it as a bitter, drawn-out one, contested by insane alimony demands. The article says they were part of her attempts to funnel his fortune into her newfound religion. It’s no different from what August told me, but hearing it described this way feels so cold and clinical, draining the reality and depth from it.
Never mind the loss.
Soon, she was dead, before anything was finalized. Not leaving him a widower, technically, but it definitely left him with some heavy things to carry.
Five years.
It’s only been five years, even if they officially split seven years ago.
But grief has no timeline.
When you have so much unresolved guilt, maybe you can handle a fling, a little pleasure, but someone prying at your feelings? Your heart? Trying to insinuate her way into your life like a spoiled child? Wanting to selfishly pry up those feelings you’ve held so close to your heart?
I close my eyes, curling over my phone as I press it to my chest.
I’ve been such an asshole.
Sinking my teeth into my lower lip, I straighten as I look down at my phone and swipe to August’s contact.
You up? I text.
He’s probably buried in work, phone muted or even dead—
But my phone buzzes back.
August: Yes.
I stare down at the blinking cursor.
I don’t know how to say I’m sorry.
How to explain everything swirling in my head.
How to tell him I’ve been a jerk and that I shouldn’t have needed to look up that information to respect the clear lines he’s laid down, even if I’m not the only one who’s been blurring them again and again.
I don’t think I can just type it all out.
It makes me think too much of those cold, clinical words describing Charisma’s downward spiral.
