To my Dad:
I’m sorry the year 2020 was a short one for you. I know it’s not much comfort, but at least, you didn’t have to live through Corona because I’m sure you don’t have to wear masks up there in heaven.
(Sorry for the poor joke, but this is the only way I can cope with you being gone.)
I’m looking forward to the day they will find a cure for cancer. Hopefully tomorrow. Do me a favor and tell God to lend scientists a hand here.
RIP
“Look again, kid,” Dad says in that calm, patient tone of his after I’ve argued for the third time that the red gem glittering in front of me was, for God’s sake, a damn ruby. “Pay attention to the hue. Take in the shades… What do you see?”
I strain my eyes, holding them open until they start to water as I stare through the loupe in wearying concentration. Tilting my head slightly to the side, I try to capture the fluorescence of the tiny jewel under the UV light.
Fancy red. No secondary hues. No impurities. Just deeply saturated, flawless red boasting a magnificence like a drop of crystallized blood. Unique. Rare. Impossible to find.
I gasp, jerking my head up to gape at Dad. “It’s a diamond. A red diamond.”
Flashing me a satisfied smirk, he claps my shoulder. “Well done, son.”
For the record, the chances of finding a pure, red diamond are as likely as discovering a gold mine underneath Central Park. Not many jewelers will get to see one in their life, let alone the five-fucking-carat Vincent showed me that day. Half the size of my thumbnail but worth enough to make you a million dollars richer.
‘The devil is in the details’ is the incantation in this business. Uncovering the tiny, hidden parts has been bred into me ever since the word ‘gem’ made it over my pouty baby lips. Come to think of it, I blurted ‘gem-gem’ way before I said ‘Mommy,’ much to Brooke’s annoyance. Pinpoint accuracy was my everyday lesson until I mastered it to perfection. Like Sherlock showing up at a crime scene and filing away every hint in his genius head.
I’m a genius, too. Give me three seconds with a rare stone, and I’ll tell you its crystallography, luster, luminescence, dispersion, and value.
Give me a fleeting image of Devon, and I’ll tell you every minuscule feature of her hauntingly beautiful face.
And the moment that image appears in my mind, my hyperresponsive brain kicks into gear, and my non-REM phase slips away to make room for brutal reality.
I groan, the sound muffled by the cushion squishing my cheek. A hammer pounds against my temples—a painful reminder of the booze I consumed before I crashed on the living room sofa in hopes of sending myself into the afterlife.
Mission failed.
Wincing, I push myself up. An empty bottle topples from my hand and lands with a thud on the fluffy carpet, rolling straight into the table leg.
“Jesus fucking Christ…”
My tie knotting at the backside of my neck chokes my throat, and I tug at it, threads tearing as I make room to breathe. Irritated, I yank the tie over my head and toss it to the floor.
My Brioni Vanquish II has suffered as much as I did last night. Dirt smears and drops of Single Malt stain the expensive fabric, and my white shirt is missing a button. I hiss as I flex my fingers. The knuckles on my right hand are covered in bruises. The sight triggers a flashback, and my stomach hardens.
After my royal fuck-up with Devon yesterday, Nick stormed my apartment and put me through the wringer until I exploded and right-hooked him so hard, he staggered into the minibar. Half of the bottles crashed to the floor. Now, the usually squeaky-clean place looks like a night club after Happy Hour.
I drop my head into my hands, a wheezing breath forcing its way through my lips. The pounding in my skull is nothing in comparison to the pain in my chest.
‘There was never an us,’ Devon once said to me—words that cut to my core and stayed there ever since.
I stare at my dirty shoes, my pulse thudding in my throat as my mind wanders back to the sight that left blisters on my memory. Dark brown hair framing a heart-shaped, milky face, rosebud lips, and huge chocolate eyes. Arched eyebrows and a straight nose complete the perfection. Her slender arms and elegant legs caged me in every time we connected at the hips, and every night when I went to bed, I painted the dragonfly tattoo on her forearm in my mind.
I carve my hands through my hair, tugging at the strands. My vacant stare falls on Devon’s Halloween costume folded over the armrest. With a painful swallow, I take it into my hands and brush over the red sequins.
I knew something was familiar about her when I watched her yesterday at the exhibition. Every guarded glance, every flutter of her eyelashes, every graceful movement triggered something inside me I couldn’t pinpoint. If I’d just taken a few steps closer I would have heard her voice—a sharp, sexy accent ringing with her rough vocals that branded itself into my cortex ever since she whispered the first words in the darkness. If I’d just approached her, I would have recognized the scent of green tea mixed with passion fruit under a whiff of gasoline. If I’d just used my damn eyes and looked close, really close like Vincent taught me all those years ago, I would have recognized the gold chain around her neck that held my dragonfly charm.
You fucked up, dickhead.
A vein in my temple twitches, the sequins crunching in my fists. What the hell had I been thinking? I realized who she was before she left. She stood in the same goddamn room right when it dawned on me that I’d traced the constellation of freckles on her back with my fingers every time I made her come in the dark.
And what did I do?
Nothing.
Not one fucking thing until she disappeared in the Manhattan traffic.
I could have talked to her, see where it gets me. I could have accidentally bumped into her to let my phone slip into the pocket of her blazer and track it—legal or not. Hell, I could have dragged her into the elevator and hit the emergency button, trapping her until she heard me out. Maybe I hadn’t given her enough credit, and she would have been elated to finally meet me in person. Maybe she would have jumped me and begged me to fuck her against the elevator doors.
Maybe she would have told me her fucking name.
But I busted all maybes the moment I let my insecurities take over my actions, standing idly in the middle of the room and watching her walk away.
I lurch to my feet. The Single Malt swirls in my brain and makes my head spin. Heat rushes up my neck, sweat breaking out from my pores as my pulse spikes. I scrunch up the costume until the sequins break and toss it to the floor. My muscles are so tense, I’m surprised the tendons in my biceps withstand the pressure as I pace the room, my shoes pounding on the polished hardwood. The mental image of Devon’s face glosses over with a haze of red. Boiling rage flares inside me until I kick the table so hard, it topples over.
Glass breaks and vases shatter, but the destruction does nothing to calm me. My fingers twitch with the urge to fling the table against the window and smash the whole glass wall. One leap and my body would sail down twenty-two floors. A quick and easy death.
“You’ve lost your mind, Nathan…” I mumble with a shaky breath.
I pinch Devon’s pendant dangling over my breastbone. If I squeeze it hard enough, she might feel my pain. If I close my eyes and make a wish, she might show up again. If I hold onto the last thread of hope, the door will open and she will step in right now.