August.
I sit in the best sushi restaurant in San Francisco like a broken doll left in a lost property bin, as Freya flirts with the waiter, talking in Japanese. She never stops surprising me. I have a feeling that no matter how long I know her, she never will.
I stare out over the ocean, it's the deep green of your eyes today. It's hard to see where the ocean ends and the sky begins. Birds as vanta-black as the collar you gave me, swoop across it. Scaring it with their imperfections.
I rub at my neck. I miss the weight of that collar. It's only now that you're gone, that I realise the real weight it held. Did I ever really understand how important that collar was to you? To us? I don't think I did back then. I thought it was another toy to play with. A toy that made me your toy. I guess I thought you were a toy too.
But that collar meant something that I didn't understand back then. If I had known the power it held for you I would never have given it back.
Too late. I am a broken doll and how ever many times I pick the pieces back up from the floor, I just can't make them stick together.
God, what have I done? Stupid, stupid woman. What the hell was I thinking? I should never have left that note. If I'd known it would lead to this, I never would have.
And of course, it's only now you're gone, that I realize how completely, fucking in love with you I am.
'Amber? You ok?' Freya asks from across the lunch table as the waiter floats away.
'No. No, I'm really not,' I say, and burst into tears.
'Oh, Darling.' She comes to my side of the table and makes herself a shell over my body, as she hugs me. 'You really are suffering from your art.'
'What do you mean?' I sniff, and wipe my eyes with a crisp white linen napkin, as she returns to her side of the table.
'All this Darling,' she waves her hand in my direction. 'This love affair with Macallan. And now this break up. I'm so proud of you.'
'Proud of me? How? Why?'
'Well, this is what it is to have a muse. To feel all the feelings - good, bad, passionate, soul crushing. This is what it's all about - life and love, and art.' She smiles at me broadly.
I look down at the once crisp white napkin, now crumpled and smeared with black kohl, and say, 'But I don't want to suffer for my art. I want him back.'
'I know Darling. You're grieving. You have to go through that. But do write it all down. Because everything your feeling right now, it's all good for your process and for your creativity.'
'Jesus,' I huff. 'This is not art. This is fucking brutal, Freya. Is there someway I can feel better? Like something I can read that will help me?'
She smiles, only kindness in her eye, 'You've just got to go through it - that's the only way. You have to feel the pain. And I am here to feel it with you. But I can't take it from you. No one can. There are no short cuts to fixing a heart.'
'Yeah. I know. But Jesus, I wish there was.'
'Here's what we're going to do we will order champagne and pretend we're celebrating something. That always helps me when that nasty black dog comes yapping at my heels.'
'Good idea,' I nod. 'Thank god for you, Freya. Thank god Jameson was clever enough to send me to you.'
'Oh, on that note,' she says, as she waves over a waiter, 'We do have something to celebrate. Jameson called me and told me.'
'Told you what?' I lean forward in my seat. Why would Daddy call her and not me? 'What did he say?'
'He's coming here Darling. He's coming to get you. Wants to drive you down the Big Sur, said you always wanted to do that.'
'He is? Why didn't he call me?'
'Oh! Shit!' She slams her hand over her mouth, 'Darling I think it's supposed to be a surprise. You won't tell him will you? I didn't mean to spoil it.'
'How can I not tell him?'
'Oh, yes, you're right, Jameson will know. Jameson always knows.'
There's no point trying to cover up for Freya. Daddy will tell from my reaction that she's let it slip. He always knows. Always knows about everything. That's why he's never been locked up. This last job, and him having to hide, was the closest he's ever come to getting caught. That's why he thinks he's slipping. That's why he sent me to San Francisco. For my own protection. Because the one thing Daddy thinks is worse than being caged, is me being caged.
Freya turns to the waiter as he arrives at our table, and says, 'We'll take a bottle of your best Champagne, Darling. And better give me a whiskey chaser too.' Then she turns to me and says, 'There now Darling, we can be happy, or sad, but either way, it'll be better with Champagne.'
'And Jameson,' I nod.
'And Jameson,' she agrees.
I don't tell her that I'll still feel fucking devastated when Daddy gets here. Or that I'm dreading seeing him. Because however open we are, and even though he's always encouraged me to fly free and then return to him. This time is different. This time I'm heartbroken in love. And that is a new experience for both of us.