“Then paint a forest.”
Daphne gives a dramatic sigh and flings herself off the chair. She goes over and gets up on tiptoe to brush a kiss to Leo’s cheek, then flounces away. “We’re not done with this discussion,” she warns with a glare. He rolls his eyes.
“Go to bed.”
“You go to bed,” Daphne says, and then she’s gone.
I’m about to make a joke that’s not really a joke about going to bed when Leo pulls his phone out of his pocket. He takes one look at the screen, and then all the quiet of the evening is shattered. Leo’s phone hits the floor, forgotten. He strides across the room to the fireplace and throws open a panel in the wall above it to reveal a TV that’s brand-new and surrounded by fresh paint.
“I didn’t know you had—” The rest of the sentence never makes it to the air.
Because my dad is on the news. On TV.
My blanket pools on the floor, slipping off legs gone numb. The TV is partially blocked by Leo’s shoulder until I’m up next to him. So close. Too close. I reach to touch the screen before I know what I’m doing.
“He looks—” He looks so old. He looks so afraid. So tired. My dad is washed out in the bright lights from the cameras, his face pale, sweat gathering at his hairline. The podium in front of him is too tall. “Oh, Jesus.” He’s not alone. Caroline stands next to him, her arm looped through his. It’s meant to look like she’s steadying him, but I bet she’s not, I bet she’s keeping him there. Making him do this.
Leo pushes another button on the bottom of the TV, and I can hear him.
I can hear my dad.
“—her fiancé has already spoken to you, but it’s not enough. It hasn’t been enough. I’m asking you—asking as a father.” His voice is unstable. Trembling. He raises his sleeve to dab at his forehead. “Please return my daughter to her family. We are all worried sick. We need Haley in our lives. Our Haley. She’s about to graduate college next semester. Her whole life is ahead of her. All she ever wanted—”
He puts a hand to his chest, his fingers curled into a fist. I can feel it on my own chest, like a brand, burning through my heart. Goose bumps fly down my shoulders to my fingernails. I dream of Leo dying almost every time I fall asleep. This is a waking nightmare. It was one thing for Rick to work with Caroline, to agree to give a press conference, to lie. It’s another for her to scare my dad like this. I thought Cash would tell him I was okay after the party. And maybe he did. But Caroline obviously told him something else.
She’s been nodding along with everything my dad says. Caroline nods again. But she’s nodding at silence. I can’t take my eyes off my dad. He’s wincing.
“All she ever wanted—” He clears his throat.
“Dad,” I say, and I know it’s foolish, I know he can’t hear me. I know. The fist at his chest spreads out and a matching horror takes wing across my heart. “Something’s happening. Leo. Something’s happening to my dad.” I grab for his arm and hold tight.
“Haley,” my dad says. His face contorts. I think he might sob, or beg, but he doesn’t.
He collapses over the podium, his hand clutching his heart.
It’s chaos on the screen. Someone runs in from the side, and Caroline’s bending over him. I launch myself at the TV and get both hands over him before the picture cuts out, replaced by the news studio.
“Oh my god.” I let go of Leo and scramble for the couch. For my phone. “Oh my god. I think he just died on TV. I think he just died. I think he just had a heart attack and died on TV.” My face is numb. My heart is numb, or it hurts so much I can’t feel it. I don’t know who to call. The phone screen swims in front of me. “Oh, help. Help.” I go back over to Leo. “Please. I don’t know who to call.”
“It was for nothing.”
“What?” I try to push my phone into my hands. “What are you talking about?”
He turns, and all the worry, all the uncertainty of the past few days, is gone from his expression. He looks like the man I met in the street a lifetime ago. The mean, devastating man who took pleasure in my fear. The beast.
Leo glances down at me like I’m a stranger. He takes in my face. My clothes. My tears. And then he shakes his head, like I’ve overstayed my welcome at one of his business meetings. “This is over.”
My mouth falls open. I can’t close it. “Just—I just need to know who to call.”
“You can call anyone you want from the car, but you’re leaving. It’s over.”
“Leo, what—” He’s killing me. His eyes are so blank, so devoid of warmth, that they could freeze me in a blink. “What car?”
He walks away from me. Turns on his heel, and goes away. Picks up his phone from the floor. He dials a number and puts it to his ear. “Haley’s coat and a car out front,” he says into it. “Now.”
“No.”
“Time to go,” he says.
I turn and run. He’s not doing this. He’s sick, or he’s upset, or he’s in pain. He’s not actually doing this. I’ll barricade myself in the first room I find. I’ll make him understand.
Or I’ll run headfirst into Gerard, who stalls me long enough for Leo to catch me.
I fight him.
I fight him with everything I have. With fists and feet and all my weight.
I fight him, and I lose. Leo takes me to the front doors like a doll or a discarded piece of furniture. He holds out one of my arms so Gerard can put my coat on. The pink coat he bought me. I pull my arm back, fighting, fighting, fighting.
“It’s fucking freezing,” Leo snaps.
“Then don’t send me out. Leo. Stop.” He gets the coat around behind me, and no matter how hard I pull, I can’t stop him. It’s over both arms. “I want to stay with you.”
“You don’t belong here.” Gerard opens the door, his eyes unbearably sad, and stands by while Leo takes me out into the cold. To the waiting car.
The driver opens the door. Leo tries to put me in the back seat, but I fling both arms out and grip the frame with both hands. “Stop,” I scream at him. “What are you doing?”
“I’m sending you home, where you belong.” There’s no blank look in his eyes now. It’s fire and rage, heat and hurt. “I don’t want you here with me. You’re a complication. A liability.”
“You need me here. And I need you. I’m choosing you. I can just stay here with you. I only wanted to call and find out if he’s alive.”
“You’re going to do better than that, darling. You’re going to go see him. They’ll be taking him to a hospital. Gerard will find out which one, and Thomas will have that information before you reach the highway.”
I take one hand off the car and get my fist into his shirt. “I’m coming back to you. I don’t care what you say. I want you. I choose you. I love you, Leo. Please don’t do this.”
His eyes linger on my lips and hope tears through the air, through my lungs.
Leo brushes my hand away from his shirt and pushes me into the SUV. He traps my face with his hands. “You’re a Constantine.” He practically spits the name. It sounds so ugly when he says it like that. “And you’re sweet. You were fun to toy with, like the rest of them, but you’re not worth my life.”