When the Caged Canary Stops Crying Chapter 2

The girl in the black dress stayed the night.

She was the first one in twenty days who hadn't been ushered into an Uber before sunrise.

When I walked out into the courtyard the next morning, she was sitting on the wisteria-draped swing—the very one Bennett had spent an entire weekend building with his bare hands just to coax a smile out of me after my surgery. Bennett stood behind her now, his broad shoulders relaxed, pushing her with gentle momentum while she threw her head back in melodic laughter.

I felt like a ghost haunting someone else’s sanctuary.

Three days ago, I had left a paperback on the stone patio table. I had only come out to retrieve it.

Telling myself that, I walked over with measured steps, picked up the weathered book, and turned around. Neither of them looked at the book. Neither of them looked at me.

At lunch, Mrs. Gable, the longtime housekeeper, set a plate in front of me with eyes full of quiet, heavy sorrow. She slid a thick manila envelope across the marble counter.

"I’ve grown fond of you these past two years, Tess," she murmured, keeping her voice barely above a whisper. "Take this. You'll need something to land on."

Bennett and the girl had left an hour earlier. Mrs. Gable clearly knew something I didn't.

"Thank you, Martha," I said, my fingers grazing the heavy envelope. "Is Bennett... throwing me out?"

She offered no answer. She simply turned and disappeared into the pantry, her silence louder than any confirmation.

The steak on my plate suddenly tasted like dry ash.

It turned out the most effective way to recover lost memories was to be dropped back down to rock bottom.

A memory surfaced, sharp and humiliating: my seventh confession to Bennett.

We were in the private lounge of an upscale downtown hotel. Bennett was slouched on a leather couch in a tailored charcoal suit, looking impossibly distant. I stood in front of him, clutching a handmade gift box that looked painfully juvenile in a room like that.

I don't do kids, Tess. Don't play games with me.

He hadn't even looked at me; he had merely lifted his chin toward the man sitting on the adjacent sofa.

Keep your sister on a leash, Adam.

My brother had only shrugged, taking a sip of his bourbon. Tess has always been stubborn. She's in love with you, man. I couldn't stop her if I tried.

Inside that small velvet box was a sterling silver band I had spent weeks learning to forge in an artisan metal shop. A couple's set. Even while he rejected me, I had caught the dark, searing heat in his eyes—he hadn't been entirely indifferent to me.

But my brother had pulled me aside afterward, his tone unusually solemn.

Bennett isn't like the boys at your college, Tess. His mind is wild, predatory, ambitious. You can't domesticate a man like that.

My own stubborn voice echoed back from the past: Adam... I still want to try.

Adam.

I had a brother. His name was Adam Miller.

Where was he now?

I gripped the edge of the dining table, squeezing my eyes shut as I tried desperately to conjure his face. But the memory lurched violently, careening into the claustrophobic interior of a crumpled SUV.

Metal shrieking. Shattered glass raining down. The suffocating stench of spilled fuel and hot, coppery blood.

So much blood.

My legs gave out. As the world tilted into absolute blackness, the last thing I saw through the haze was Bennett’s silhouette sprinting across the living room toward me, his face twisted in sheer terror.

I fell into a long, suffocating dream.

In the dream, our parents had died when we were children. Adam and I had only each other, surviving side by side in a small rental apartment on the edge of town. When Adam landed his major year-end bonus, he promised to take me on a road trip up the coastal highway. He had borrowed a high-performance SUV from Bennett—they were close friends and business partners.

Except the car had been tampered with by one of Bennett’s ruthless corporate rivals.

The brakes failed on a steep mountain curve. We hit the sheer rock wall at eighty miles an hour. The impact tore the vehicle apart.

Before Adam lost consciousness forever, his trembling, bloodied fingers had managed to dial Bennett’s number on the dashboard console.

Please... take care of my sister.

A dying man’s final plea. A debt carved in bone.

Bennett hadn't saved me out of romance. He had kept me by his side for two whole years simply to fulfill a promise to a dead man.

The missing pieces locked into place, forming a picture so bleak it stole the air from my lungs. I remembered Bennett’s mocking smirks, his untouchable arrogance, and my own foolish, desperate pursuit of a man who treated love like an inconvenient distraction. A moth hurling itself into a bonfire gets nothing but ash.

Why did you have to lie to me, Bennett?

You didn't have to pretend to be my lover. You didn't have to hold me in the dark, pretending you wanted me.

I woke up choking on my own tears. The first thing my eyes found was Bennett, sitting on the edge of the mattress, his face pale and lined with exhaustion.

"The neurologist ran a full scan," Bennett said, his brow furrowing into a tight knot. "There's no new trauma. Physically, you're healed."

He leaned in, his voice tightening with suppressed frustration. "If you fainted just to get me to send her away, you don't need to put on a show. Just tell me."

The helplessness from the dream fused seamlessly with the cold reality before me. Bennett reached out, his thumb sweeping across my temple to wipe away the cold sweat clinging to my hairline.

"She's gone," he murmured, his voice softening slightly. "Can you stop making a scene now?"

I stared at him, numbly shaking my head.

To Bennett, I was entirely whole now, which meant every ounce of my agony was just manipulative theater.

So this was what it felt like when your heart finally turned to dust.

"Okay," I whispered, the word barely a breath. "No more scenes. Never again."