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“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” she said in her grimmest voice, happy that she sounded certain even though she was a mass of nerves and anxiety right now.
“Hold on.” There were muffled voices and sounds as the phone was handed over.
“Iris.”
Oh God, the sound of his voice damned near broke her barely healed heart all over again. And the pain of it merely confirmed that the decision she’d made was the right one.
“I don’t want to see you.”
There was a long silence at the other end before his voice taut and urgent replied,
“Please.”
The word was a whisper. So faint she nearly didn’t hear it, but it packed a punch. Because it was stripped raw of all Trystan’s legendary confidence. It was denuded of his charisma and charm. It was the broken remnant of a word and yet, its impact was profound. Because—despite all that the broken single-syllable word lacked—it was steeped in despair, desolation and desperation.
But Iris hardened her heart against it. He couldn’t do this to her. He couldn’t ignore her for two weeks, while believing the absolute worst of her and abandoning her in the wreckage he’d made of her life and expect her to be swayed by just one word.
“No.”
“Okay… you don’t want to see me, yeah?” His accent was back and she knew it tended to appear only when he was at his most vulnerable. “What if we just talk? Like this?”
“I have nothing to say to you. And I can’t imagine how anything you could say would interest me.”
“I know you didn’t write that article.” There was an expectant pause after that statement and Iris sighed gustily, hoping the sound adequately relayed her feelings regarding that statement.
“You expecting applause?” she asked, breaking the—by now—awkward silence. “An award perhaps?”
“Iris, I fucked up.”
She laughed at that, the sound harsh and bitter, but didn’t acknowledge the admission in any way other than that abrasive, curt sound.
“Don’t bother me again, Trystan. I’m trying to move on with my life. You can go back to being a remote, larger-than-life superstar and all of this can hopefully one day become a distant, unpleasant memory. I have nothing more to say to you.”
“I promise I’ll fix it.”
“I don’t care.” Why was she still talking? Why didn’t she just disconnect the call? Iris knew that was what she should do. And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to sever what she knew would be the last contact with him.
“I’m sorry I hurt you, sorry I doubted you, sorry I was an arsehole. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“You keep apologizing, Trystan,” she said, a hot tide of bitter, acidic rage rising up inside her like a tsunami. And Iris discovered that she actually had a lot to say to him. And this was the last opportunity she’d ever have to get it off her chest. “That’s all you’ve been doing since the day we met. It’s a twisted, toxic cycle that pretty much defines our doomed non-relationship. You fuck up, you apologize, and I forgive you. But I’m breaking that pattern right now. I don’t forgive you. I’ll never forgive you. You hurt me, right after you promised never to hurt me again. Never to doubt me again.
“You gave me no opportunity to figure out what the hell had happened, no chance to defend myself. You literally kicked me to the curb, like I was a mangy dog you no longer wanted. No, you’d definitely treat a mangy dog better than you did me. I was expendable, easily disposed of, like so much garbage. You never trusted me, Trystan. You always believed I’d betray you somehow. You couldn’t look past the fact that Stanford Carter was my biological father, and that I had the absolute nerve to show up at your den of solitude and manly sorrow, in search of—horror of horrors—an interview.
“And after all your pretty promises of sheltering me from the craziness of your life, you threw me in the deep end without so much as a life preserver. I was drowning, I was trapped, I felt like I was dying and you left me there to sink.” The last six words emerged on a sob, as the angry tears she’d fought to keep at bay while she said her piece finally welled up and spilled over, adding a quavering thickness to her voice.
“God, Iris…” She heard the same thickness in his voice, but refused to acknowledge it. This was her moment and he didn’t get to ruin it by making it about him. Her finger was poised on the red telephone icon, seconds away from finally ending the call. “You’re right.”
The two words made her hesitate.
“You’re right. I let you down. I failed you and abandoned you. And it’s something I’ll regret to my dying day.”
“Goodbye, Trystan.”
This time she hung up without hesitation.
“Are you sure they won’t mind?” Iris asked for the umpteenth time as she smoothed her damp palms nervously over her ’60s mod-style orange and yellow shift dress, with bright contrasting yellow and orange daisies printed all over the fabric.
