Page 59 of The Square

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - CHRISTINE

The door rattlesthe frame as I slam it shut. I don’t look back, but I hope it knocks some of the precious shingles off the thatched roof.

Avoiding the slate pathway and marching straight through the garden, I step on and squash as many daffodils, or daisies, or pussy willows, or dandelions, or whatever as I can. I don’t know what I’m stomping on, exactly. I don’t fucking garden.

I trudge my way into a grove of trees just past the little stone wall and see the magical playhouse that I knew was there. Just beyond the playhouse is a proper guest house that looks like a larger version of the playhouse. The playhouse that looks like a miniature version of the main house.

This whole place makes me wanna puke.

From behind me I hear the door to the main house open and I turn, expecting to see Alec. Because Alec would come for me right now, right? After everything. After all we’ve gone through. After coming to rescue him, and admitting that we needed Eliza’s help, and facing her, and all that, and the past… he’d come out to make sure I’m OK, right?

Danny and Charlie call my name at the same time.

“Hey!”

“Oi, Christine!”

… I guess not.

Charlie spies me across the way and trots over first, taking my elbow as he arrives. “You OK, luv? Is there something—?”

Danny comes up behind him and puts his hand on Charlie’s shoulder, pulling him back. “Thanks, mate. We got it.”

There’s a moment.

Charlie spins on Danny, seemingly out of instinct at the sensation of being touched. It looks like they’re going to—as I’ve heard the Watson boys says in the past—“have a tussle.” If they do, I don’t want to be here to watch it. They’re well matched physically and neither one will ever back down, and I don’t have any desire to stand here and watch them kill each other.

But then Danny tips his head toward Charlie with a resolute and knowing look and repeats himself. Slowly. “We got it, man. Thanks.”

Charlie stares at him, looks at me for… I don’t know what. Something I don’t have to give. I look at the ground and Charlie huffs a breath, nods, and turns to head back inside.

Once Danny and I are alone, the sounds from Eliza’s property settle in my ears. Bees buzz. Birds chirp. I’m pretty sure I hear Snow White singing to a motherfucking blue jay somewhere in the distance. I rip a bunch of roses from a bush, tearing them free and cutting my hands on the thorns.

“Hey! Yo! What are you doing? Don’t do that. Stop.”

I keep ripping at them anyway.

“I said, stop!” Danny repeats, grabbing my hands and holding my arms at my sides.

“Let me go.”

“Not until you calm down. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“Oh, I’m gonna hurt somebody all right. Let me. Fucking. Go.”

He does. He releases his grip and I rub my palms together to get the stinging to stop. The blood smears.

Danny sits on the stone wall. He plants his hands beside his thighs and lifts his shoulders. “What else aren’t you telling me?”

I cross my arms. I’m probably going to smear blood all over my clothes. I don’t give a shit. “What are you talking about?”

“I feel like I’ve been pretty fucking cool and understanding about the fact that I’m in the dark on what’s going on. I don’t know a whole lot of other motherfuckers who’d travel all the way around the world knowing as little as I did about what the hell was going to be waiting for me when I got here, and not make a thing out of it. And I know there’s still holes in your goddamn memory, but I also know there’s shit you’re just withholding from me, period. But y’know what?”

He lets that hang in the air for a second before he goes on.

“We’re here now. We’re here. And we did it. The whole fucking reason that we risked our lives—and are going to continue to risk our lives, it would appear—is so we could get Alec. When you left me, disappeared to I didn’t know where, and then came back to say that you had found him, I said, ‘Let’s fix this.’ Remember?

I nod.