Scarlett: (GxG)

Chapter 43

Zoey

A ghost. Not alive or dead. Just lingering. Existing... barely. Those were my thoughts as I moved through the house, nearly tripping over the pizza boxes I'd left beside the trash can, remnants of a night that had started so differently from what it eventually became. My body didn't know what emotion it should allow to take over. I was angry. There was no doubt about that. Heat made my skin prickle and my head pound, but then the sadness rolled in like a cloud. It cooled the rage but in the process left behind a drowning sorrow.

That had been... real hadn't it? The things we felt when we were together? All the laughter, silly talks, the eager hands reaching across the sheets at night... That had to of been real and not the game Scarlett made it out to seem.

Whatever the answer was, and whatever we'd felt, it wasn't allowed to stay. It had been doomed from the beginning. I should have been leaving with at least some good memories to show for it.

Now I didn't even have that.

My sneakers carried me out the door. She didn't follow, not that I expected her too. Outside I felt the cool air on my back where the seam of my shirt had ripped and now flapped in the breeze. I had no direction to go in, but forward, in the most literal sense. No friends to run to except Percy, but him seeing me in this state didn't feel right.

I'd gotten to the sidewalk and was just about to choose my next direction when an impossibly large shadow fell across me.

The breeze had her hair dancing around her strong shoulders, so impossibly dark against a cream blouse that was a tad less formal than the white dress shirts she often wore. I'd teasingly told her to be less formal tonight, and she'd not only shown up, but she'd tried to take my request into account.

My eyes teared up at the sight of her, but I fought hard not to let a single one fall.

Her expression was gentle, briefly looking away then back to me, as if trying to find the words. Words she'd probably never used in the years I'd been absent from her life.

"I'm sorry I'm late," Lee said.

She held out a bottle of wine in one strong hand.

"I brought this. I wasn't sure if you preferred white or red so I was forced to take a guess."

Shaky fingers reached out and took it from her grasp. Like a sad, pitiful creature I held it against my chest, still looking up at her.

"Thanks, Lee. Really. Thank you for everything you do."

Part of me expected her to retreat back to the black SUV that she forever drove, as the Lee I thought I knew in my old memories would have done. Instead my father's guard just stood there, looking down at me. With the soft sounds of the city just beyond the slightly poor residential area I now called home, filling the air between us, I slowly realized that Lee, this great powerhouse of a woman who seemed to have all the answers when I had none, didn't know what to do.

Her mouth opened but nothing came out.

"I like your shirt," I blurted out, still desperately blinking back tears. "You look good in something besides white."

She nodded.

"It was the only non-formal clothing item I have."

I laughed a little.

"Hey, you haven't eaten have you? Is that burger place still there? The one you found me at that night I snuck out of the house."

Now that got a hint of a smile out of her.