Page 135 of Shade
My pulse pounds, pumping blood into my cheeks. “Why?”
“The last time I was here was with her.” He swallows thickly, his jaw tensing as we continue to walk, his steps slowing, his voice oddly gentle. “I know you know about Rhya.”
“Just what I’ve read or heard.”
Shade leans in, whispering in my ear, “Then you don’t know anything because nothing that’s printed on those stupid articles has anything to do with what she did to me.”
My pulse drops to a low beat when he shrugs, and I still can’t tell how this is really affecting him because of those goddamn sunglasses. “You can talk to me about it.”
He offers a smile, but I know this is torture for him. You can see it in his body’s response, as though he can’t help the way just her name affects him. “There’s not much to say.”
“She killed herself, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t do that, Scarlet. Don’t apologize for something she did.”
My heart is beating so fast and my hands are shaking. He’s talking to me. Like really talking to me like two friends would. “Losing a friend is never easy.”
Shade’s steps falter, and he stops to look over at me, sunlight hitting the side of his face in the most beautiful way. “You know, in the end, I can’t even say I could have called her my friend. The friendship was more of a burden, but it was my burden because if I didn’t do it, who would? In the end it wasn’t friendship, it was obligation.” With his words, his lips purse immediately. His face exudes stone-cold demeanor, bleeding with an invisible pain. I want to know his pain because he doesn’t deserve to keep it inside him.
Timidly I say, “Her dying wasn’t your fault.”
“You don’t know that,” he mumbles and begins walking again.
My heart goes out to him that he confided in me some of his problems and worries. He’s world famous, yet terribly lonely inside.
The longer I’m with him, the more he trusts me with himself. We’re friends now, pushed together in the oddest of circumstances. And I feel his pain over Rhya’s death and his frustration in every part of his life.
