This book has left me with a bittersweet feeling, it is so full of suffering and hopelessness...
Mason and Ava in the end don’t drive themselves to the cliff, instead they go to live in an old farm in a small town in the UK.
The relationship between Ava and Mason go through many ups and downs (especially downs). Despite all the bad that happened to them in the past and their separations, in this book I really thought this was the end of their marriage.
“ I didn’t reply. Because I wasn’t sure that our marriage was salvageable this time. We’d hit a low point those months ago when we were prepared to leave life behind. Yet we’d tried again, promising ourselves that we couldn’t get any lower. But, so far, nothing we had done had lifted us away from the feeling of absolute failure. And I was left wondering if we had done the right thing when we had driven away from that cliff top. There went my heart again. I wasn’t sure it could take any more hurt. I could practically feel it disintegrating inside me. It was all going wrong. We had both believed that time to ourselves, away from our past, would be the thing to mend us. However, true to us, it wasn’t turning out that way.”
“Anger controlled me, and I grabbed her jaw tightly. “You always fucking run when things get hard!” “It’s better than standing still and doing nothing!” she hissed back, shrugging away from me. “I’m lonely, Mason! Even with you, I’m fucking lonely! .I don’t know how to make it right, Mason. I have no ammunition left to fight with. I can’t protect you any more than you can protect me. Believe me, I’ve tried so hard, we both have, but now it’s time to admit that we failed. We failed.” I wanted to stop her. I wanted to take her hand in mine and never let go, hold onto her soul until my heart ceased beating. But I couldn’t. Because she was right. For so long, our love had been the cement that bound us together, but even then, it had still been fragile, our life forever shaking the foundations that supported us. One final crack had seen the walls we protected ourselves within crumbling, tipping us the wrong way and plunging us into perpetual darkness. The light had gone from our lives, and no matter how many times we hunted for the sun or lit the lamp to guide us safely along, fate had its way of snatching those gifts away from us. Opening the door, my little warrior paused and turned back to me. “We didn’t have to drive off the edge of that cliff because we’re killing each other anyway.” Softly, she smiled, wiped the tears from her eyes, and stepped out of my life.
Although Mason still loves Ava, he blame her for denying him the chance to close his wounds and overcome what happened with George.
“I didn’t cry because they took me without my consent! I cried because they took me with his consent! My skin doesn’t crawl with the shame of what those men did, it crawls because George commanded my shame! I don’t relive the feeling of them inside me! It’s only George’s laughter that I hear over and over in my dreams, only George’s cold smirk that I see in the dark, and only George’s hatred of me that has turned my soul bitter!” “Mason.”
“Why weren’t you there?.Why didn’t you save me, Ava? Why? WHY? You took his life before I had the chance to make it right. You took that from me, and nothing can give me the peace I need. Nothing!” “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she recited over and over as if those two words were the official soundtrack to our story. “I’m sorry, Mason. I’m so, so sorry!” “I want to go back, Ava. So much! I want to hold him in my arms and tell him I forgive him.”
In fact, it seems that Mason seems to realize that his relationship with Ava has always been somewhat toxic.
“George was made from our own spite. Don’t act like you don’t understand, Ava.” “But I don’t.”“We both know when the twins were conceived you were fucking Kade. At first, I refused to see it. Not my Ava. My Ava wouldn’t be so cruel. But we both know that you were. The sex between us became a game. Don’t you see that? It was furious and selfish. Angry and nasty and greedy. And it was that concoction of hatred and frenzy in the both of us that created our babies.”Horror had seeped into her eyes, and very slowly she climbed from my lap, stumbling backwards. “You’re wrong.” I couldn’t help but laugh at her. “There you go again, my little warrior. Hiding in the dark depths of denial. You know I’m right. Our children were spawned from our rage. Is there any wonder they’re both as messed up as we are?”And once again, my little warrior ran. Ran from me and ran from the truth.
Mason, as always, uses cocaine to avoid his problems.
“ I don’t know what the hell is happening to us lately. But have you ever thought about talking to me, instead of shoving down your emotions by snorting that shit?” Her voice was as choked as I felt. “You know it’s not that easy, Ava.” I hated that I was hurting her, the one person in my life that didn’t deserve my fucked-up shit, yet I couldn’t seem to stop. She was quiet for a while, possibly weighing up my words. Eventually, she nodded and turned to look at me. Tears shimmered in her eyes, making my chest ache. “I’m going back to the farm.” I nodded, but my soul withered inside me when she added, “Alone.”“No, Ava.” I took her face in my hands, begging her with a look of total desolation. “Please.” “I can’t…” She wet her dry lips with her tongue and cleared her throat. “I’m sick of competing with the coke, Mason.”
But it seems that Mason relationship with Kade has evolved more and more,something bigger and more pure and that leaves me with so many questions about the future.
“The taste of the only man I had ever loved shot electricity into every nerve-ending, yet the wetness of his tears poured guilt into the beat of my heart. My soul felt complete for the first time in so long. I loved this man with my very bones. I hungrily feasted my eyes on the man I loved only slightly less than my wife. I longed to touch his face, the tips of my fingers itching for a fleeting moment of him on my skin. Although the craving for him was bringing me to my knees, I knew I couldn’t drag him back into the terror that was my life now. The pain in my chest was profound , the ache inside making my soul sit down and weep.”
“I missed you so much.” He didn’t turn into me, but he didn’t move away either. “I’m so sorry, Kade. Ava and me, we hit rock bottom. In fact, we sank under the rocks, and we found ourselves in hell. George infected us both with his bitterness, and we knew if we didn’t do something drastic, then it was all going to crumble around us.” Burying my face into his hair, I inhaled his scent deeply, filling my empty soul with its drug. I didn’t need coke when Kade was near. He was far more addictive than any drug. I got lost in the sight of him. Kade always made me feel so comfortable in my own skin, calm and untroubled, and I’d always found I could be honest with him. With him, I felt like I could take on the world, grab it by the horns and ride it together. “
“I felt his hand in mine.” For a second, confusion filled his eyes, but realisation made him blink. “George?”Nodding, I shrugged. “Stupid, I know, and I’ve never told Ava this. But I just knew he was saying goodbye, and I had this overwhelming knowledge that his death would be my rebirth. My reason to carry on. For him. For his mother.”“Jesus, Mason.” I palmed his face, begging him with my eyes for forgiveness. “The person I was then wasn’t someone who I wanted you to love. I’ve always had a dark side, but every inch of me was drenched in black. There were no greys, no off shades, just a void of blackness that I knew would have eventually sucked you in as well.” The tears that had shimmered in his eyes spilt over, and I wiped at them. “I love you, Kade. Only you know how much. That will never end, and it was the strength of that love that made me walk away from you.” I wasn’t sure if he’d ever forgive me for what I’d done, but when he brought his hand to my face, his touch told me that one day it would hurt him that little bit less. His kiss was passionate but tender, and as our breaths mingled together the chasm between us both became narrower.
It is the first book where sex between Mason and Ava is non-existent for almost a year: once Mason fucks Ava after she confesses that she kissed another man, and the other Mason gives head to Ava as a Christmas gift. Sex is how this couple connects or so it has been during the 24 years of their relationship. In the end it seems that the thing is improving or not.
“Our relationship was another thing that was healing, admittedly very gradually. Sex was still sparse, but when we did have it, it was frenzied and fast, a means of release for our broken souls. We both knew that wasn’t entirely healthy, but it was a start.”
“ I was in no doubt that Kade and my family and friends were the foundation that held Ava and me together, and with them by our side, we could continue to build our future into something that would one day be magnificent.”
Again,I need another book to know how everything ends, to be able to see the Fox act as grandparents.... MORE PLEASE.