There, that’s more aligned with what I wanted to say.
She gasps, her eyes growing very wide as she looks into mine, so many emotions passing across them that I can’t read them all.
“OK,” she finally says and lets go of my waist, fishes the key from her purse and unlocks the motel room door. “I’ll meet you back here in fifteen minutes.”
Then she disappears into her motel room, leaving me standing in the dark.
I’ve never told a woman I loved her and meant it.
I meant it tonight. With everything I am.
And I’d be a liar if I said that getting only a whispered, “OK,” back doesn’t bother me.
But it wasn’t the time or the place to say it.
Maybe there will never be the right time for it. Because she’ll never accept my love. Because she’ll never return it. Because she can’t. Like she warned me.
And that’s a very scary thought. Much scarier than the thought of eternal damnation for killing a priest of the Catholic church. Which is what we’re about to go do, I think.
33
Alice
I may be standing perfectly still in the darkness, watching Gael’s house, presumably completely focused on waiting for the right time to strike and put an end to all the suffering he’s caused. To me, to Kate, to many, many other girls.
But in reality, the only thing echoing through my mind are Nico’s words.
I love you.
He loves me? How can he? Why?
I didn’t react to hearing him say those words well. At all. And the shame of that is growing, not lessening in the quiet, cool darkness of Gael’s garden.
“I think he’s packing,” Zane says, joining me and Nico in our spot by a huge cactus in the garden. He’d gone to check the rest of the house.
If I only focus on the task at hand, I should be fine. Everything else can wait.
But can it?
Nico has been very quiet since I only said OK to him admitting he loves me.
Why did I say that? Why?
When the truth is so much more complicated than that. And so much simpler. Because I’ve grown to depend on him in the past couple of days.
But it’s more than that.
I’ve let him show me another path was possible for me. Even before I had the chance to really deal with my past and Gael.
Showed me that I don’t just have to be hard and strong all the time. That I can let someone else take care of me. That I can be normal. Not just broken. Not just in pain. Not just a freak.
He’s made it so easy to not see myself that way. So very easy. And he makes me feel so light and carefree when we’re together. Even while I’m facing some of the worst days of my life.
But is that love?
I wish I could slap myself to dispel all those racing thoughts that don’t belong in the here and now, but I can’t. So I settle for just shaking my head. It doesn’t help.
“We’re going in,” I say. “He’s had long enough to turn himself in.”
