He sounds so bitter that I can’t help asking, “Did you…” Then I stop myself.
When I don’t continue, he turns his head to look at me. “Did I…?” His hand had been lying loosely between both of mine, now he squeezes my hand and asks again. “Did I what?”
“I just wondered if you had any grief counselling.”
A small mocking scoff, he shakes his head. “As soon as she was gone, everyone else came. The world found out, and they attacked from all sides. Sports magazines. Gossip press. A bunch of TV channels. Manufacturers offering sponsorship as long as I wore their logo. Advertising agencies wanting to use Kirsten’s name. And people…people.” He repeats the last word in disbelief.
“People I hardly knew suddenly started calling, acting as if we were best friends. Everyone wanted a piece of the story. So to answer your question”—he squeezes my hand again—“I couldn’t risk talking to anyone. I hid in my garden. Took all my anger, the denial, the pain and turned it into plants. It helped.”
“You returned to your trees.”
This time he turns fully to look at me, a question in his eyes.
“You know, you told me about finding peace and balance—”
“Dod yn ôl at fy nghoed,” he offers in his melodic Welsh. And then he smiles. A slow smile that starts on his lips then widens until it reaches his eyes. In the firelight, they shine, beautiful, denim-blue and full of warmth. “Do you ever forget anything?” he asks, still smiling.
“Of course. For example, I forgot the actual Welsh words, so I’m taking what you just said on faith. For all I know, you could have said something very rude.”
This time he laughs. It makes me feel like a million dollars that I made him laugh. Me. I mean, I’m used to making people laugh – it’s what I did when talking to camera. But not recently, not with Osian.
“Come on.” He gets up and because we’ve been holding hands, he uses that to pull me up.
He’s a lot stronger than I’m used to, so he not only pulls me off my seat, but the move drives me forward until I stumble into him. Quickly, he puts his arms around me to steady me.
Then he doesn’t let go.
He keeps hold of me. He seems about to tell me something, his face full of indecision.
“Osian,” I start. We’re so close he’d hear me even if I made no sound at all. And somehow, the shadows in this room, the faint trace of perfume, the mood, it’s too fragile for sound. So my voice is barely there, like finest lace. “Whatever you told me, I’d never share it with anyone. I can keep confidences.”
He threads a hand through my hair. “I know.” But he doesn’t say whatever it was on his mind, his fingers keep smoothing strands of my hair, slowly, over and over.
Against my better judgement, my face leans into his touch, just a little. “What is it?” I whisper.
“Oh God, Evie, you have no idea what you’ve done to me. What a difference you’ve made in my life.”
He pulls me closer, much closer, so we’re forehead-to-forehead. “Evangeline.”
No one calls me by my full name; even when strangers use it, I quickly correct them. It’s a long, old-fashioned name that belongs to someone’s grandmother. Yet from him, just now…
“Evangeline,” he says again, drawing it out as if savouring every letter.
I want this man so much. My hands go to tangle in his fair hair. Just as I move to touch him, he eases away and begins to move back. His body a mixture of guilt and regret. And my mind catches up instantly.
The room is no longer soft or intimate with shadows. It’s a vacant room that used to belong to an old lady with advanced arthritis.
I’ve been dreaming, seeing what I wanted. Feeling like I’ve been slapped awake, I turn away from him and walk to the French windows. My legs feel stiff but I make them move because I am not going to stand here and let him slap me again.
Outside it’s dark, but the rain has indeed stopped. In the distance, the terrace’s blue solar lights are on; I head that way, every step faster, trying to get away from mortification.
What did I just do? Throw myself at him when all he’d done was unburden himself to a friend he thought he could trust. Of all the times I’ve misread a situation, this has to be the worst. Not even getting engaged to Marcus compares to this.
I walk faster and faster, as if running away from that room could leave my humiliation behind. It’s maybe five minutes before I hear running footsteps behind me.
“Slow down,” he calls. “You don’t want to trip and fall in the dark.”
My feet obey him even if the rest of me doesn’t know what to do.
