Page 62 of State of Ruin

Fuuuuuck.

My desperation for some other kind of anchor, some tether to reality, has me fumbling for my cell and pulling up my photos from last weekend at Fairwater. I click on one of the snaps I persuaded Elyse to let me take in bed that first morning. Her face fills my screen, except it’s the version of her face that I long to dream of at night. In the photo, she gazes up at me, hair tousled and smile soft and face sleepy and open. She’s looking at me as if she would trust me with her life and the life of everyone she loves.

As I use my fingers to zoom in even closer, to drink her up, I understand two things with the vicious agony of a knife through the stomach:

One. I didn’t see any of those things in her face today. Precisely the opposite, in fact.

Two. The woman in this photo was showing me, with her eyes and her smile, that I had in my possession the most precious thing in the world.

Her heart.

And I ruined that today.

CHAPTER 33

Sinclair

Iawaken, if awaken is the right term when you’ve barely slept, and scroll mindlessly through my personal emails, freezing when I spot one from Katrin, the MD of Alchemy, entitled Membership. I click on it immediately. I’d bet I can guess what it’ll say even before I read it.

From: Katrin Lawlor

To: Sinclair Voss

Subject: Membership

Mr. Voss,

Effective immediately, your membership at Alchemy is terminated and access to the club revoked. Any prorated dues will be refunded to the bank account we hold on file within five business days.

Per Section 34(c) of your membership agreement, termination is at management’s sole discretion and no reason need be given.

(I’ll give you one anyway: you know what you did.)

This decision is final. Please do not attempt to enter the premises. Please do not contact our staff members.

Katrin

I let my head fall back against my pillows. I’m one-zip down before the day has even fucking begun.

Not that it’s a competition, of course.

What I mean is that it’s barely six a.m. and Elyse has already tied one of my hands behind my back in my quest to make things right between us.

More accurately, I’m two-zip down. I sent her an impassioned voice note last night on WhatsApp—I was hoping that the sound of my voice might trigger some level of goodwill toward me—but it’s still sitting there this morning with one sad gray check next to it. Which means that she’s either turned her phone off…

Or she’s blocked me.

How the hell am I supposed to apologize if she’s barring access at every turn?

I wonder what she’s doing right now. I wonder if she feels at all conflicted. Surely one so-called betrayal, if that’s the terminology she’s insisting on using, can’t wipe out everything we’ve had? Surely she misses me, even if she’s pissed right now?

In the shower, I exhaustedly consider my next moves. The idea of an expensive gift I reject almost instantly. If she wouldn’t take money when she apparently needed it so badly, she’ll just look at my gift and see me trying to buy her. Again.

So I’m no longer welcome at Alchemy, I’m most likely blocked by phone, and I daren’t show my face at her modeling agency. Not if her agent is a crony of fucking Vanessa.

The way I see it, I have two options. One is surrender, which is not an actual option, and the other?

The other is to go, cap in hand, to her family home and fall on her mercy.