Beautiful Beast by Aubrey Irons (10)

It was the routine that sucked after it was all over.

When you’re with someone, especially in high school, you have a routine. A schedule. Familiarity. With Josh, the routine was easy. He’d pick me up outside the front gates of the Crown Estate, drive me to Dunkin Donuts so I could get my coffee before he went to Starbucks to get his. We’d pull into the school parking lot, and if we had more than a few minutes before the first bell, we’d make out a little before homeroom.

We’d see each other between second and third period, and then again at lunch. After school, and after his lacrosse practice, we’d meet up again for more making out. I knew it’d get further than that soon, but, I wasn’t there yet, and Josh understood.

Or at least, I thought he did.

Because then was the day he wasn’t around after practice. Bastian, of all people, in some random bout of being a normal human, had given me a ride to Josh’s house. I’d walked right in, because why wouldn’t I have. I ignored the clues, because why would I be looking for them. And I even ignored the sounds as I walked up to his closed bedroom door, because why would I be hearing those sounds?

I was young, I was naive, I thought I was in love or at least the closest I’d been to it, and the notion that someone could crush you so brutally and so entirely wasn’t even something I’d ever considered.

That’s when I stepped into Josh’s bedroom and walked into the worst thing I’d ever seen. It was her I saw first. Kendra Wallace, one of the popular senior girls from school, on her hands and knees on my boyfriend’s bed. It was him I saw second: kneeling behind her and frantically thrusting in and out.

And that was that. That was how I learned that the world could be brutal if you weren’t ready for what it could throw at you.

After, Josh had tried to apologize, but it hurt too much. He’d even come to the Crown Estate - actually onto the grounds, which he’d never done before - and tried to beg for my forgiveness. That first time, my dad had asked him to leave. By the time he came back the next day, dad had gleaned a bit more as to what had happened and wasn’t so reserved in telling Josh to get lost.

But it was the third day when a stray jab of Bastian’s lacrosse stick broke Josh’s nose and fractured an eye socket, that he stopped trying to make amends.

Leave it to Bastian Crown to actually do some good in this world by way of brutal violence.

* * *

Routines make it easy. I wake, I brush my teeth, pull my hair into a loose ponytail, and pull on some jean shorts and a T-shirt. I grab my work gloves and the iPad full of schedules and notes about various plantings around the estate. I head down the back staircase to the kitchen and grab an extremely necessary cup of coffee, say hello to Mrs. Tottingham, and grab a muffin or something before I head out the kitchen door to work.

This is how I’ve survived two weeks back here.

The burned out greenhouse is less scary than it was the first time I saw it - less like some dead broken dinosaur with its ribs exposed and more just old ruins now. Shoots of green have already started to spike through the soot and blackened ground around the old structure - vines and flowers already creeping their way up the sides.

I stroll the gardens on the way to my dad’s office - a small garage of sorts out by the eastern hedges. I tweak the watering schedules, making a note of when to call the tree trimmers, and the lawn guys, and the hedge specialist. With an estate as big as this, it’s not like my dad was actively psychically doing all the labor. That’d be impossible. He was more the head of organizing the various upkeep services - in charge of maintaining things.

And of course, the rose garden.

That one’s off my to-do list, though. Obviously.

I get work done, pretending that the monster of the castle isn’t lurking two hundred feet away. I check on the saplings Dad planted near the hydrangeas, trying to ignore the feeling that I’m being watched.

And at the end of the day, I take a walk by the shore and then hang out with Mrs. Tottingham while we eat dinner in the kitchen since I’m officially never eating in the dining room again with him again. After that, I go to my room to read, mess around online, and go to bed.

Routines. They’re easy.

This particular day, back in the office after an insanely indulgent lunch of lobster ravioli followed by a slice of pear and almond tart with Mrs. Tottingham, I flip to my email. It’s been a few weeks, and I should finally get back to Jack.

Jack. How do I describe my imaginary friend without sounding insane? Well, for starters, Jack isn’t actually imaginary. Or, if he is at least, I might need to be committed.

But no, Jack is a real person, somewhere. We’ve never met. We’ve never seen pictures of each other. We’ve never spoken, actually. Just emails - sort of like having a modern day pen pal, I guess. We started talking seven years ago, not long after I left South Neck when he’d responded to a flyer I’d taped up in a few bars and coffee shops in the East Village looking for backing musicians.

I will never forget his first message, sent to the throwaway email address I’d printed on the fliers.

To this day, I’m not sure why I ever even responded. Maybe I was curious why anyone would bother emailing the address on a stupid coffee shop flyer just to say “no”. Or maybe it was that last line that stirred just the right mix of intrigue and annoyance. Whatever it was, I did respond.

I won’t lie, there may have been some wine involved in that first email. At least I was smart enough to use a fake name, I guess.

“Jack” wrote back immediately.

Jack was a ball of conundrums from the start.

Jack took a day or two to respond that time, and I’d almost written it off as some drunk weirdo trying to be cute when I finally got a response.

And just like that, I took the bait.

This was Jack. Snarky, smart, and quick-witted.

It was his secondary follow-up email I blame for starting the whole thing.

Seven years later, Jack is arguably my best friend, and we’ve never met. Maybe that’s why we’re such good friends. Over the years, we’ve shared a lot with each other. I’ve told him about my mom. He’s told me about his, who also passed away young and also from illness. We’ve talked dreams, aspirations, and bucket lists. Our relationship is complex and weird, I’ll grant that. We’re platonic, I guess, but there’s also flirtation there. I’d say we’re just friends, but then, I’m sure a shrink would have a field day on why the one thing we never really share with each other much is the details of our love lives.

Here in my dad’s office, in the chair he’s sat in for seventeen years, I write to Jack and fill him in on things since we last talked.

I glance around the stuffy, old, cramped office that smells like dirt and cut grass and Miracle-Gro - pictures of perennials, planting schedules, photographs of me and my mom. It’s familiar in here. And homey.

I don’t know why I lie to Jack. I just do sometimes. I’m willing to bet he does too. The lies - mine at least - are never big or anything, and they don’t hurt anyone. They’re just exaggerations. Maybe we do it because we’re scared of being too real with each other. Maybe we do it because to each other, we’ve become “Jack” and “Jill.” Maybe it’s easier to pretend than to face harsh truths sometimes.

Maybe I think about this too much sometimes.

Whatever it is, that’s where we are. To Jack, I quit music for law school years ago, and I have a new job at a prominent law practice in downtown LA. Like I said, I’m reasonably sure we both exaggerate or flat out color certain parts of our lives to each other. So, true or not, I choose to believe Jack really is still manning the helm as CEO of his own small hedge fund in New York.

Jack also has cancer, by the way. That part I’m pretty sure isn’t bullshit. For one, because he’s sent me pictures recently of a view from a hospital window, and I do know what a chemotherapy I.V. drip looks like. And for two, even if he’s never come out and flat out told me, he’s implied it enough times, and lying about cancer seems a little beyond the pale.

The “love” part started a few years ago, and we’ve just fallen into the habit of using it, I guess. I know, more weirdness to go on top of an already very weird relationship.

I close my laptop and start to reach for my work gloves when my phone rings. My heart lurches at the Holy Cross Hospital number that pops up on the screen, my hand covering my mouth in silent horror before I snatch it up and answer the call.

Thirty seconds later, the office door is banging shut behind me as I sprint for the pickup truck.

Hank Bell is officially awake and ready for visitors.

* * *

“I know you never wanted to come back here, you know.”

I smile wryly at my dad, the sterile smell of hospital and overly bleached floor stinging my eyes slightly.

Not seeing him - at least not really - for two weeks has been more of a strain on me than I think I even admitted to myself. At first, he was in a chemically induced sleep to avoid strain on his vocal chords, which were singed from the smoke, and to help his body concentrate on healing. The immediate care wing is a “clean room” environment, so even though Holy Cross was the first place I came even before setting foot back on the Crown Estate, I haven’t been able to talk to him, or hold his hand, or hug him, or tell him face-to-face without plastic between us that I love him.

Somewhere else in this hospital, Dylan Forbes is lying broken and unconscious, hooked up to machines that breathe for him. I shiver, pushing that aside as I take my dad’s hand and smile.

He’s healing well. The bandages on his legs, covering the burns from the fire, are clean looking now, instead of bloodied and stained like they were those first few days. And the stitches on his shoulder from where one of the greenhouse panes fell on him when he tried to run and save the roses are looking way less puffy and swollen.

Yeah, that’s my dad - running into the fire to save plants.

“I know whatever it is, you won’t tell me, but I know you coming back here was never in your plans.”

“It’s fine, honestly.” I squeeze his hand, trying to smile away the worry on his face.

“It’s not, honey.” He frowns. “You’ve got important things to do out in LA. Things you’ve worked your tail off to—”

“They’ll be there when I get back,” I say with an easy shrug that hides the lie.

The other lie - or at least the other “not full truth,” is that I haven’t told my dad about the arrangement, or the contract. I haven’t told him what me being back here means in terms of Bastian keeping Dad’s contract. I mean, the man’s recovering from major trauma. He doesn’t need to know how it’s being paid for. Not yet. Not when this very plain, average hospital recovery room is costing more than a night at the Ritz Carlton.

For now, he can think I’m just back home to see him. Which is also true.

“How’s Sebastian?”

I frown, my eyes narrowing as my gaze drops to the floor.

“Relax, Texas. That’s why you’re here, to save the day, right?”

The thought of that smug, arrogant smile and the sound of his stupid cane tap-tapping the floor make my blood boil.

“Why the hell do you care how he’s doing?” I mutter.

Dad shrugs. “He loved that rose garden, actually. He was in there almost every day since he came home.”

“You mean since he got wasted and drove his friend off the damn road and was put under house arrest back home.”

Dad smiles, his hand rubbing my arm. “He’s had a tough life, Ana.”

I glance up sharply, my brow arched.

“Are you defending him?”

He shrugs. “I’m just saying, he’s got reason to be angry at the world—”

“Dad he fired you.”

My dad’s face darkens, and he sits up a little more in the bed, frowning.

“What? No he didn’t.”

I shake my head in disgust. “He did, Dad. He’s calling the fire an act of ‘willful negligence.’” I spit the words, imagining bad things happening to Bastian as I do.

My dad smiles at me curiously.

“Honey, I can promise you, Sebastian didn’t fire me. He came down the first day I was in here, house-arrest and all with a damned state police escort to tell me everything was being covered.”

A cold feeling teases through me as I stare at him. “Wait, what?”

He starts to say something when a rough sounding coughing fit overtakes him. I move forward, but he waves me off.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.”

He clears his throat, the coughing turning to strained laughs as he looks up at me with a sly grin on his face.

“Jeez, honey. You came back here and stayed up at that house thinking Sebastian fired your old man?”

I frown, nodding, and my dad chuckles weakly.

“The hell were you doing, plotting revenge?”

“Something like that.”

I smile wryly as Dad chuckles again.

“‘Willful negligence’, huh?” Dad mutters. “Fire guys say it was probably something clogging the intake valves on the salt filtration system.” He sighs, looking down at his lap. “Hell, maybe it was negligence on my part. I shoulda caught something like that.”

“Dad—”

“No, I know. It wasn’t willful, or whatever, but still. I should’ve seen it. Those roses…” He takes a deep breath and looks up at me. “You know, I feel sorry for that boy.”

I make a face.

“He loved those roses, Ana. I think it may have been the last link he had to his mother.” He frowns. “And now they’re burned to the ground.” He looks up at me. “Sebastian was an angry guy when he had that connection to her. Can’t imagine how he’s doing without it.”

He looks up at me, smiling curiously.

“Who the hell told you Sebastian fired me?”

* * *

Bastian didn’t fire my dad for the fire.

It’s the only thought going through my head as I leave the hospital, after hugging my dad goodbye and promising to come back the next day.

Bastian didn’t let him go, which begs the very obvious question:

What am I really doing back in South Neck?