None of this feels right. I don’t like using the silent treatment, especially with my brother. But saying nothing seems like a better option than saying what I want to say.
Even if I did say it, none of it would make any sense. Stop keeping me here. I understand why you feel like you should do this. I know I’m not safe at the apartment now that someone broke in. I almost got in a car with him. Be mad at me, the way I’m mad at you. I don’t want to be mad at you. Don’t be disappointed. I don’t want to care if you’re disappointed. All very rational and good, right?
I put down the brush and take out the phone.
It’s not a text from Leo. I don’t have this number stored in my phone.
That doesn’t matter. He’s announced himself in the first text, the way he stood up tall in the gallery and looked me in the eye when I stepped into the room.
It’s Emerson, the text reads.
My hands shake. He got my number somehow. Robert isn’t supposed to give it out. I let the phone drop back onto the table that holds all my paints.
Emerson: Daphne.
Where is he right now? Sitting in his SUV outside my apartment? At his house by the beach? I can see him with his head bowed over his phone. His wetsuit from when he was surfing. Maybe he’s standing at the shore now despite the whipping wind. Maybe he has his phone in one hand and his surfboard in the other, his feet crunching on snow-covered sand.
Emerson: Are you okay?
My heart clenches. I expected anger from him, not concern. More anger wells up alongside the ache in my chest. It’s not only Leo I’m pissed at. It’s me, for telling him anything in the first place, and it’s Emerson. If he’d never fixated on me and broken into my apartment, I’d still have my apartment. I’d be going to my job at the gallery and selling paintings. I’d have my freedom.
Emerson: I’m calling the police.
I move so fast to pick up the phone that it clatters to the floor.
Daphne: No
Daphne: Emerson
Daphne: Don’t do that. I’m fine.
Emerson: I don’t believe you.
Daphne: I swear. I’m staying with my brother!
Emerson: Why?
Because he thinks you’re a psycho. I type it out and delete it. I wonder how he’d take that.
Daphne: Because I need some space from overbearing rich assholes
Also, stop texting me in the middle of the night. Doesn’t anyone have any sense of boundaries? Or…keep texting me. More and more until I fall asleep with my phone.
I toss my phone onto the table, another wave breaking over me. You know what? I’m done with this. I’m done with the silent treatment and avoiding the real problem, which is men telling me what to do.
Leo wants to talk about all this. Fine. We can talk.
I stomp down the stairs into the bedroom, sweep past my desk, and go out into Leo’s giant hallway. It glows with moonlight coming in from his courtyard and low lights. The plush carpeting makes it impossible to stomp, so I give that up. I can act out my righteous anger with soft footsteps. My guest suite is at the opposite corner of the house from his bedroom. I don’t see anyone on the way there, which isn’t surprising. It’s late. Too late to be doing this. I storm past a moment of hesitation. It would be better in the morning. It would be smartest to sleep on it and go down and talk to him at breakfast. But I don’t feel good, and I don’t feel smart. I’m at my wits’ end being this pissed off.
Leo’s bedroom door appears quicker than I thought it would. I take a deep breath and let it out. Anger got me here, but it will get me nowhere with my brother.
His door opens softly. It’s not locked. Light angles in from behind me. “Leo?”
The sound reaches me at the same time the light reaches his bed. Something like a gasp.
Someone else is in his bed.
It’s not Leo.
Leo doesn’t have scars like that. There are so many I can’t tell one from the next. Even in this half-light they’re red and glaring, almost like burns. I catch a glimpse of Haley’s hair. Someone must have gotten in. Someone is attacking her, right in front of me.
I try to scream, but the sound comes out terrified and garbled. What was I going to say? I don’t know, I don’t know. She doesn’t need a warning. She needs Leo to be here, to fight off whoever this is—
The man picks up his head from where it had been, at the side of her neck, I think.
“What the hell, Daphne? You throw a tantrum for days and now you want to talk in the middle of the night? Get out.”
It’s him. I can see his face now, his eyes. Frustration burns there, hot and unfiltered. I can’t move. Leo blinks. The anger’s gone, but it’s been replaced by something else—the same shock and horror I feel right now.
“Jesus. Daphne—”
I don’t wait to hear what he says. I force myself to go. To run. All the way to the opposite side of the house, my gut churning and my skin gone cold. It looked so bad. It looked so, so bad. Something terrible happened to him. His skin. It must have been so awful. I throw myself through the door of my bedroom and stumble to the desk. Drop into the seat.
The tears come fast, one after another. I fold my arms on the smooth wood and rest my head and cry.
Jesus Christ.
It’s so bad.
I don’t know how much later it is when the door glides across the carpet. “Daphne.”
Leo.
I pick up my head from my arms and watch him come into the center of the room. He’s dressed now. Soft black pants. A soft black shirt. My chest hurts.
“Who did that to you?” The question feels like a sore throat. “Was it Dad?”
Because if it was, because if our father did that…
Leo folds his arms over his chest, and it strikes me how tired he looks. It’s late, but there’s more to it than that. Shadows under his eyes. Something near my spine goes numb and buzzing.
“There are some things it’s easier not to know,” he says, his voice tight.
“Who was it?” I might as well be breathing through a straw. “And what—what—”
My brother takes a deep breath. He looks past me, into the corner of the room. Pain is a ghost light in his eyes. He uncrosses his arms and puts his hands in his pockets. “It was Caroline Constantine. With a whip.”
It sinks in slowly. So, so slowly. Horror like a boulder. Confusion like a heavy chain. She did that to him. All those wounds. One by one. The time it must have taken. “Why?”
“A long time ago, I got involved with her.”
“Involved?”
The look he gives me says what involved means.
“That’s not possible. You would never. You hate the Constantines.”
“She was convincing.” My skin goes cold. Leo continues. “It wasn’t how I thought it would be. She got upset when I tried to end it. Crazy. She begged to see me one last time, and I fell for it. She had whiskey waiting when I got there. Drugged. It was how she got what she wanted. Sex, and then…” Leo gestures over his shoulder. “After she was done, she sent me home again.”
No.
“She drugged you because she—because you—” I shake my head. You don’t drug someone who wants to be there. You don’t whip someone for trying to leave. But some people do. The world is full of people like that. Every woman alive knows the danger. It couldn’t have happened to Leo. “She made you do it?”