Because maybe you can’t leave behind all the neuroses and anxieties that shaped you. What if theYouyou always think ofasYouis just an empty space, held together by scar tissue and trauma? What ifYouare nothing but the bad things that have carved you into shape?
I think back on every moment we’ve shared. Oysters. Sunrises. Cinemas. His hands on my body in that office overlooking the city, whispering that I was his, his,his.
What if none of it meant what I thought it meant?
What if I’m just another girl he charmed and fucked and forgot about?
My stomach twists. Bastian has a reputation. Everyone knows it. He goes through women like Kleenex. Hell, Patricia practically keeps a running tally of how many assistants have quit after brief, ill-advised affairs with him.
I told myself I was different. What we had, our connection, wasdifferent.
But standing here alone while the rain soaks through my dress, I don’t feel different at all.
I just feelstupid.
7:30 comes and goes. I try one more time to call. I get his voicemail again. This time, I leave a message, loathing how small and timid and weak my voice sounds. “Hey. It’s me. I’m still outside. Just, uh… just let me know you’re okay.”
The rain is coming down harder now, and I’m shaking from the cold. My makeup is probably running down my face. My hair is plastered to my neck.
All those weeks ago, I stood in Yasmin’s apartment with her and Zeke and they asked me what I wanted. I said I wantedto be reckless, to take what I could get without worrying about consequences.
Well, here are the consequences.
Out of nowhere, I start laughing.
It bubbles up from a source deep in my chest and spills out into the rain-soaked street. It’s the same kind of unhinged giggle fit I had the other night in the empty Olympus building, after Bastian had me pressed up against the window glass and everything felt impossibly perfect.
Except this time, it’s not joy making me laugh. It’s the sheer,how-could-you-not-see-this-comingabsurdity of it all.
Of course this is how it ends. Of course Bastian Hale stood me up on the most important night of his professional life. Of course I’m standing here alone in the rain as the world turns to a muddle of streaked gray all around me.
Of course I’m hurt. Of course I’m crying. Of course I fell in love with a man who was never going to choose me.
Of course, of course, of course. It was all so predictable.
The laughter turns into something closer to sobbing, but I can’t quite tell the difference anymore. I’m laughing because I am Eliana Hunter, the girl who endures, who always keeps going no matter what—except I don’t know how to keep going from here.
I’m laughing because I’m broken. I’m laughing because I’m blind. I’m laughing because there was one more item on my list and, yeah, I thought I’d do it with Bastian, but maybe it’s more fitting that I’m doing it alone.
So I step out into the rain and turn my gaze toward the sky.
Stand in the rain and feel it on my face.
… Check.
56
BASTIAN
clean·down:/kli?n da?n/: verb/noun
1: the end-of-service cleaning ritual in a professional kitchen.
2: … but some blood on the tile can never be scrubbed away.
I drive home on autopilot. Aleksei’s photograph is burning a hole in my pocket. My mouth tastes like a menthol ashtray and the vodka I drank stings in the pit of my stomach.
The penthouse is dark when I walk in. I shrug out of my tuxedo jacket and toss it over the back of the couch.
