Deep Surrendering: Episode Ten (2 page)

“Marisol?” I realized Sapphire had been calling my name for a few seconds. Oops. I’d zoned out and had gotten tangled up in my own thoughts.

“Sorry. Just thinking. What’s taking them so long?” I wanted to get up and do something. Pace around, or… something.

“Relax. Worrying isn’t going to anyone any good, okay? We just have to wait. Right now, no news is good news.” She did have a point. But this no news was screwing with my head.

“I’m sorry, I have this habit of thinking the worst is happening when it comes to Fin. He’s just so unreal that I always think something is going to take him out of my life because he doesn’t make sense being in it in the first place.” Oops. I didn’t mean to say that either. Was Sapphire a witch?

But she just smiled as if she knew exactly what I was talking about.

“Exactly,” she said and we both shared a moment of understanding. Neither of us needed to say anything else. We just knew.

And then the phone finally rang again.

I
scrambled to get it, tipping completely off the couch and onto the floor as I stretched out my arm to nab the phone. I didn’t even take a moment to register the pain as I slammed into the floor.

“Hello?”

“Hello Marisol.” The relief at hearing his voice was so intense, I thought I would drown in it. I couldn’t breathe.

“Oh my God, Fin,” I was finally able to say. Without even thinking, I reached out and grabbed onto Sapphire. She let me crush her hand in mine and leaned forward, her face turning from amused to worried as soon as she knew I was talking to him.

“Oh, my love. I’m so sorry,” he said. I didn’t care if we were broken up. I just wanted him to be okay.

“Where are you?” My voice was oddly steady. As if I finally found a focus in his voice and it steadied me. Grounded me.

“I can’t tell you that, I’m afraid. I assume you’ve spoken to my father.” My blood chilled to ice at the mention of his father.

“Yes. I might have given him a piece of my mind.” He chuckled softly and I figured he couldn’t be in much danger if he was able to laugh.

“That’s my girl,” he said. Even though I wasn’t his girl anymore. It didn’t matter. A part of me would always belong to him.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. You’re not mine,” he said, his voice going low and sad. Oh, it broke my heart to hear him talk like that. I didn’t like hearing him like that. It made my wounds open again and start to bleed.

“Oh, Fin. I’ll always be yours. No matter what. Nothing changes that. Are you safe? Are you okay?” I still gripped Sapphire’s hand and I could see that she wanted to talk to him.

“I’m safe and I’m well. Thank you for asking.”

“Of course I’d ask. I want you to be safe. Even if we’re not… you know. Have you run away?” I could almost hear him smiling and I pictured his face in my head. Oh, how I missed his face.

“Yes, I’m joining the circus. I’ll be the one with the whip and the chair, taming the lions.” Now that I could see. Him wearing one of those red velvet coats with a black satin top hat. He’d be glorious and sexy.

“Are you really okay, Fin? Is this part of your grand plan?” He sighed.

“No. I had to change the plan. But it was part of the contingency plan. And my contingency plans had contingency plans. I’ll never underestimate my father. Ever again. For now all you need to know is that I’m safe and sound and if you’re ever worried about me, all you have to do is call. I’ll answer as soon as I can. And if you don’t want to talk to me, that’s fine as well. Whatever you want, Marisol. I’ll do whatever you want.” That worked, as long as I knew what I wanted. Which I didn’t, at the moment.

In the short term, I wanted Fin to be in a safe place, away from his father. In the long term… We’d have to see what happened in the short term to figure that out. Fin was a puzzle I didn’t have all the pieces to and the final picture on the box was blurred out so I couldn’t even use it to go by.

“Good. I just got worried. Well, not just me. Sapphire is here.” I heard his sharp intake of breath.

“She is.” It was a statement more than a question.

“Yes. Right next to me, actually. Would you maybe want to talk to her? She’s worried about you.” He paused for quite a while before he answered.

“Sure.” I handed the phone to her and she tucked her hair behind her ear before she answered it.

“Hey, Herry,” she said.
Herry?
As in a Herald nickname? I’d never heard him talk about being called that. “You cool?”

She listened for a minute and then smiled.

“Yeah, I know, but desperate times. Besides, I like her. You finally picked a good one, which means you took all that advice I tried to pound into your brain.” There was another pause. “Okay, okay. I know. Anyway, I just…” Sapphire looked at me as if she wanted some privacy. That felt odd, but I got up and went into my bedroom. I didn’t know how long she was going to talk to him, but hopefully not too long. I had no idea what country he was even in, so the call might be costing one of us a fortune.

After just about two minutes, there was a knock at the bedroom door and I opened it to find Sapphire handing me the phone.

“He wants to say goodbye. And thank you, so much,” she said and I could tell she really meant it. I took the phone from her and put it up to my ear.

“Fin?”

“I promise to never underestimate you ever again, Marisol.” He seemed… happy. Calm. And not just his normal calm control. This was something else, and I liked the sound of it.

“Why’s that?”

“Because you let Sapphire into your house and have treated her with the utmost respect. There are not a lot of people who would have done the same, under those circumstances.” True. There was a tiny part of me that wanted to claw her eyes out, but what then? It wouldn’t solve anything. It wouldn’t change the past they’d had together. And they did have past together. She had shared things with him that I never could and that was okay. I’d had my own time with him and it had been completely ours.

Just me and Fin.

It would never be that way again, but I could hold onto those moments and cherish them. And someday, I might be okay with that. Right now I was still assessing the damage. It hadn’t really hit me yet. But it would and I would probably be knocked down for a while.

I had my letters to him, and that was helping.

“Marisol?” I’d blanked out for a moment.

“Sorry, I just zoned out there for a second.”

“Are you busy?” he asked, his tone going to cold and formal, which I did not like one bit.

“No, I was just thinking about everything. Do you need to go?” Usually we couldn’t talk long, and I had the feeling that was currently the case.

“Not for a few minutes. You have my undivided attention.” I smiled at Sapphire and she closed the bedroom door for me.

“Oh, what shall I do with it?” I said, falling back into old flirty habits that I probably shouldn’t let myself fall into anymore because we weren’t like that. This was just me being a concerned friend. Not a concerned girlfriend. There was a difference.

“Whatever you want, Mari Cherry,” he said and my heart fluttered like it always did when he called me that.

Both of us had fallen into old habits. We’d probably do that for a while.

“I should probably let you go,” I said, even though I wanted to talk much longer. This was starting to hurt and make me want to cry again.

“It’s so good to hear from you. And thank you again for what you did for Sapphire. Would you like me to call you?” Yes, yes I did. But should he call me? That was the question.

“If you want,” I said. That left it up to him. “But if you do, I’ll always answer. Always.” There was a beat of silence as both of us tried to find the right words to end the conversation that we didn’t want to end.

“I’ll talk to you soon, Marisol.”

“Okay. Talk to you soon.” We didn’t say that we loved each other, but we didn’t need to. I knew and he knew. Words weren’t necessary.

I took a moment to breathe after I hung up with Fin. A few tears trickled from my eyes and I wiped them away. I didn’t want Sapphire to see me cry. Not that it mattered what she thought about me, but I didn’t want to reveal a vulnerable side of myself to her.

It took me a few minutes to get control of myself, and then I went back into the living room. Sapphire was on the couch, picking at a hole in her jeans.

“Everything good?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said, giving her a smile. “He thanked me for being nice to you.”

That made her smile.

“Yeah, well there aren’t a lot of people that would have let me into their house and given me coffee.” I hadn’t really thought about it in the moment. I was so caught off guard. But things had worked out. Sort of.

“Why did you call him Herry? I mean, I’m guessing it’s a nickname for Herald.” Why was I asking this? It wasn’t really any of my business.

Sapphire smiled.

“Oh, it’s just a stupid nickname. That’s all. Anyway, I should probably go now.” She’d gone back to fidgeting, as if she was now uncomfortable in my house. Her eyes kept darting around like someone was going to jump out from behind the curtains and grab her.

“Everything okay?” I asked. It was almost like she’d flipped a switch.

“Yeah, fine. I should just get back to my part of the city, you know?” Not sure what she meant by that, but clearly she was no longer comfortable here.

“Sure. Um, thanks for letting me know about Fin. I was kind of worried about him anyway and it was good to hear from him. So there’s that.” Sapphire edged toward the door. Man, she really looked ready to bolt.

“Yeah, no problem. Um, I guess I won’t see you later, but thank you. For everything.” Before I could so much as wave, she had her hand on the door and was in the hallway.

Something had her spooked, and I had no idea what it was. Maybe she’d gotten a phone call while I’d been talking to Fin?

I shook my head. It wasn’t my business.

It was dinner time but I wasn’t that hungry, so I just put some soup in a mug and stuck it in the microwave.

My body was all twitchy from being so amped up about Fin and I had to find a way to release some energy. I searched the cabinet under my TV until I found a yoga DVD I’d bought during a fit of health consciousness a few years ago. I should definitely call Chlo and set up some more yoga and Pilates sessions. I needed to find my Zen again.

After I had my soup, I put in the DVD, moved my coffee table and started doing the deep breathing the instructor on the DVD told me to do. It wasn’t easy. All I wanted was to do… something. Run around or break something. I really shouldn’t have had that coffee. I was supposed to be thinking serene thoughts, but it wasn’t working.

I struggled through the DVD and by the end my heart rate was calming down and the stretch of my muscles and the focus on my breath was distracting my mind.

I showered and then crawled into bed. My brain started yapping again so I pulled out some paper and started another letter to Fin. It seemed silly to write him about a conversation he’d been a part of, but he was never going to see these. They weren’t for him. It was a diary of sorts. A way to get the thoughts that spun around in my brain to go away.

This letter was a long one and I just let it go. Let the words fall onto the page like snowflakes onto the sidewalk.

Before I knew it, it was time to go to bed and my mind was finally clear. But when I closed my eyes, I could only hear one thing.

Mr. Herald, saying my name. Over and over.

I put my hands over my ears, but the sound was in my head, not my ears. There was nothing I could do but wait it out.

He wouldn’t get the best of me. Or Fin.