She sighed and stirred behind me. The mattress barely moved when she sat up, but I felt the movement regardless.
“I’ve wanted to call you every day since I’ve been here. And every day I fought the urge, telling myself that you should call first. You let me go. The only thing that prevented me was the resentment.”
She became quiet for some time, until she found words again.
“Some months moved with delirious speed, others with painful slowness. I bought a camera and filled my time—hoping, no, praying that you would come for me soon. I’d have all of these wonderful memories to share with you. Look, Brando, look what I did on a day when I missed you so much that I felt I couldn’t breathe—”
Her voice caught in her throat. She inhaled and then exhaled on a cry. She laughed at herself a second later, somewhat bitterly.
“Before you arrived, the only respite I had from the hurt, apart from loafing through Paris, was dance. I can’t claim that we’re best friends, but we’re also not Charlotte and Scarlett either. I’ve moved toward it. It became the only reminder of home for me—you loved to watch me dance, therefore, I found something to love in it too, to be closer to you. Silly, right? I should be doing this for me, not you. But here I am, and there’s no hiding from the truth. I’ve done that long enough.
“Here’s the thing,angelo sbagliata,” she said and sniffed. “The night I went to Sous Rosa, I called you after. I had felt the change—in me. For so long, I was a reflection of that girl back in Natchitoches, the one with you. I refused myself the right to grow, because I didn’t want to outgrow what we had.
“The first night I went to Sous Rosa, somehow I knew that I wasn’t the same. I was no longer that girl, and no matter how hard I tried, I’d never be able to be her again. What if you couldn’t love me anymore? What if you had already moved on? Experienced the same sort of change, but different enough to irrevocably separate us?
“Haunted. That’s what I am, Brando. Haunted bywhat if.” She sniffed harder, attempting to control her emotions. “You don’t even look at me like you used to. I—I can’t even stand the thought. Your eyes speak to me, always have. They move me even when my feet can’t. You’re holding back.”
She cried for some time, her face buried in her hands.
“Nemours. Tell me who else.” I didn’t even recognize my own voice. I seemed to drift outside of myself, ready for the rage to overtake me when she admitted the truth—the situation I had gone to hell and back to avoid.
She stopped crying. “Nemours?” She sniffed again. “Who else? What do you mean?”
“Tell me.”
You have no one to blame but yourself, you bastard.
I had let her go, the both of us tethered to each other by a long leash. I’d sent reminders, but I had decided long ago that reminders would have to do until it was time. What we shared ran deep, and I depended on that to ensure that she’d always be mine only. Neil’s detail gave me peace of mind.
“No one,” she said, her voice solid, almost insulted. “I could hug every guy in Paris, but what good would it do? Make me feel even lonelier, that’s all. I looked at him, Olivier, when he—”
“Don’t say the word,” I said, on the verge of madness.
“I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing, except for a healthy dose of fear. No one can replace you. There’s only one Brando Fausti. And he claimed me beyond the flesh a long time ago. When I was just a girl.”
We were quiet for a while. The fire hissed, the log cracked and popped. Our breathing had become labored with the tension and heartache.
A sense of immense relief washed over me, and the pressure lifted from my chest. For the first time in years not only did my skin feel like it fit on my bones, but I felt healthy. For her, I’d do this—I’d explain.
I lifted my hands and then let them drop. “Janet—”
“Who’s Janet?”
“Jane works for Maggie Beautiful. She got the key to our house from her. Violet had some shopping to do for the trip, so I went along. I needed a few things. Violet walked in on Jane waiting for me. I told her to leave. She kissed me. I told her to leave again. So she left.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah. That’s it.”
“You didn’t kiss her back?”
I turned and gave her a narrow look.
“You don’t love her?”
“Janet?”
“Jane, Brando,Jane.”
