She ran from me for a reason. She saw what she saw and made a choice. Theonlychoice.
“Good,” I hear myself say. “Better that way.”
“Better?” Zeke sounds incredulous. “Bash, she’s blind. She’s out there somewhere, completely fucking blind, and you think it’sbetterthat we can’t find her?”
“She’s got Yasmin.”
“Oh, yeah? Yasmin? Yasmin, who’s got a stalker ex who put me in the hospital? Yasmin’s got enough of her own shit to worry about, man! You really think that’s a stable support system?”
I clench my jaw. “What do you want me to say?”
“For starters, you could act like you give a shit!” Zeke steps close enough that I can see my own reflection in his sunglasses, the reflection I’ve fought like hell to avoid. It’s even worse than I expected—grotesque, emotionless,wrong. “I want you to be the guy I thought you were. The guy thatshethought you were. Not this…” He gestures at me, disgust clear in every line of his body. “Whatever the fuck this is.”
“I do give a shit,” I murmur, almost to myself. “That’s the problem.”
Zeke’s jaw works. “Then why aren’t you looking for her?”
“She doesn’t want to be found. Not by me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.” I turn away from him, from his reflection and mine in the Bean’s chrome surface. If I never saw my face again, it would still be too soon. “I know exactly what she saw that night. I know what I looked like. What I was doing. And I know that no sane person would ever want to see that again.”
“So what, you’re just giving up? That’s it? You’re done?”
I don’t answer right away. Tourists stream past, taking selfies and laughing. None of them notice the two men standing in the Bean’s shadow, one of them asking if the other is capable of letting go.
Am I done with Eliana? Have I accepted that she’s gone for good?
The correct answer is yes.Lie, motherfucker, lie.
Instead, I reach into my jacket pocket.
The paper I pull out is soft from being folded and unfolded too many times. The creases are worn thin, threatening to tear. I’ve carried it every single day since she left, transferring it from one jacket to another, one pair of pants to the next. Sometimes, I take it out in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep and read through her handwriting by the light of my phone.
Things to see before I go blind
I unfold it now and hold it out to Zeke without a word.
He takes it carefully. His eyes scan the list—the skyline at sunrise, Casablanca, standing in the rain. Most of the items are crossed out.
Then he looks up at me. “Bastian…”
I don’t say anything. What is there to say? The fact that I still have it, that I’ve kept it close like a talisman or a penance, says everything about how little I’ve actually moved on.
Zeke gazes at me with something halfway between pity and understanding. I can’t decide which of those two I’d hate more. Then he hands the list back, and I fold it carefully along its worn creases. It goes back into my pocket, right over my heart, where it’s lived for seven long weeks.
Where it will stay until I figure out how to deserve her again.
Or until I finally accept that I never will.
7
ELIANA
à point /ä 'pwaN/: adjective
1: French for “cooked to perfect doneness.”
