Within the Garden of Twilight by Sarah M. Cradit

Author:Sarah M. Cradit [Cradit, Sarah M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sarah M. Cradit

30

Oz

Oz had thought going back to work, after a couple months away, would be hard. What he found instead was that the limbo of waiting for his first day back was harder than the thought of stepping onto the forest green carpet and facing fifty faces with endless questions.

His home on Seventh was quiet. Too quiet. Ashley had gone to stay with his mother at The Gardens, now that his housesitting was no longer necessary. The children were spending two weeks with his parents while he “sorted himself out,” as his mother tactfully put it. Her underlying insinuation seemed to be that he was on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown.

His parents. Nicolas. They all looked at him like that, as if he was hanging on by a thread, that Adrienne’s death had sent him into a lifelong period of mourning that rendered him incapable of tying his shoes or finishing his vegetables.

The people in his inner circle had always ascribed this level of depth to his emotions, throwing around words like “martyr,” or “hero complex,” without really understanding the density of his commitment to those same people. Yes, Oz loved hard, and he loved deep, but he wasn’t a one-dimensional man defined by that love and nothing else.

Only Lucia didn’t condescend to him on the matter. She teased him about it, but her method involved words like “get over it” and “let’s go for a run.” She fell on the exact opposite end of the spectrum from Oz, a free spirit un-tethered to anyone or anything.

Oz supposed her dalliance with Nicolas shouldn’t have surprised him all that much, but it did take him off guard. Nicolas had it wrong, though. Oz’s feelings had nothing to do with how he reacted; he couldn’t have put it adequately into words, either. He only knew that what had felt untainted in his life now no longer was. Whatever sheltered innocence they’d shared, no matter how unorthodox or temporary, had been shattered.

Lucia’s name popped up on his phone several times a day. He sent each call to voicemail. He couldn’t explain those feelings to someone like Lucia, whose most complex emotions involved reactions to battle scenes in movies. She wouldn’t get it. She’d tell him to get over it. She’d invite him out for a run, like everything was the same.

The grandfather clock chimed noon. When the intonations died down, he was again left in a silence so loud he could very nearly hear his pulse through his skin.

Oz grabbed his blazer from the coat rack.

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