Page 36 of Shattered

It wasn’t enough. But it was a start.

CHAPTER 8

Delia

I’d started noticingthings about Axel Irving that I really wished I hadn’t.

The week after Sunday dinner, after we’d called our truce and stopped existing in silence, my apartment had somehow gotten smaller. Or maybe Axel had gotten bigger somehow. Or maybe I’d just started paying attention to things I’d been deliberately ignoring.

Like the way he read with complete focus, long fingers turning pages with deliberate care. How his whole face changed when he was concentrating on his laptop—brow furrowed slightly, lips pressed together, like whatever he was reading required his entire attention. The rare smile that transformed him from marble statue into an actual human being.

I was noticing everything, and it was driving me insane.

Wednesday afternoon, I was supposed to be painting. Instead I was watching him read some report on his tablet, coffee cup in his other hand, completely unaware that I existed.

When had his jaw gotten that defined? Had it always been like that and I’d just refused to notice? And why was I noticing now?

“You’re staring,” he said without looking up.

I jerked my attention back to my canvas. “I’m not staring. I’m thinking.”

“You’re thinking very loudly in my direction.”

“Maybe you’re just in the direction my thoughts happen to go.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Your face doesn’t make sense. It’s too… organized.”

He looked up then, eyebrow raised. “My face doesn’t make sense?”

“It’s too… organized. Like someone designed it on purpose.”

“As opposed to faces that happen by accident?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I really don’t.”

I threw a paint-stained rag at him. He caught it without dropping his tablet—annoyingly impressive.

Thursday, my mom called.

I knew it was a bad day before she even spoke. I could hear it in the way she said “Hello?” like she wasn’t sure who she’d called or why.

“Hi, Mom. It’s Delia.”

“Oh. Delia.” A pause. “Is Miguel there?”

My heart sank. Miguel. My father. Dead for eight years.

“Mom—”

“I need to talk to him about the anniversary dinner. I want to make sure he got the flowers I asked for. The roses. He always forgets the roses.”

I opened my mouth to correct her. To remind her that Dad was gone, that there was no anniversary dinner, that the roses didn’t matter anymore.

But the hope in her voice stopped me.