Julian sat in a hotel room in Rome, exhausted from the train ride north and feeling sick to his stomach as he read the texts he’d been getting. That one was from Lilly. It was hardest not to respond to her.
He scrolled through Sloane’s texts. She was getting pissed off. He’d never ignored her before. He’d have to respond to her eventually; she was his sister. He just couldn’t do it now when he was already feeling so terrible. She’d called their parents and enlisted their help in trying to reach him. Although they’d already known about his diagnosis, they now also knew his relationship with Charlotte had changed and were hounding him to go back to the villa and work things out with her, which ticked him off. Sloane shouldn’t have said anything to them.
He knew he was lucky to have so many people in his life who cared about him and were willing to stick by him during difficult times. But they didn’t understand—he didn’t want them to have to do that. He’d always prided himself on whathe couldgive. If he was incapacitated, someone who could only take, how could he be of any value to them?
He sighed. He hadn’t eaten all day, but he didn’t care. He was too tired to worry about that. He hadn’t had much sleep since arriving in Italy. At first, he’d been too wound up about his diagnosis and how and when he was going to break the news. Then he’d spent every night he could with Charlotte, trying to collect as many memories as possible—as if that would be enough to carry him through his particular future. He was going to bed. But before he set his phone down, he received another text from Charlotte.
Please don’t hurt me.
He winced. That one took a chunk out of him. He didn’t want to hurt her. He was trying tosaveher, but he could only do that by staying away from her.
She’d be so much better off in the long run. He wanted to reiterate that, but he knew if he started a dialogue with her he’d crumble. He wanted what she wanted probably even more than she did.
Leaving his phone on the nightstand, he pulled the covers up and rolled over. He was doing the right thing. He had no choice.
He kept saying that to himself, but the minutes ticked away and sleep wouldn’t come.
Finally, after nearly an hour, he sat up and grabbed his phone again.
I’m doing this for Charlotte’s good. One day you’ll understand, he wrote to Lilly.
I can’t believe you looped Mom and Dad in about Charlotte, he wrote to Sloane.
And to Charlotte:Please don’t feel hurt. I will always love you.
He told himself to leave it at that—hoped that now he’d be able to sleep—but he couldn’t help waiting for their responses.
Lilly:If you love her, you’ll come back.
Sloane:They agree with me. Charlotte is perfect for you. That’s why they keep calling—to say the same thing. Parkinson’s doesn’t mean your life is over. Fight to live every moment to its fullest, the way you always have. That’s who my brother is.
Charlotte:I’m the one who should get to decide what’s best for me and my future.
Lilly was too young to understand, he told himself. And Sloane was right, but he didn’t feel much like fighting today.
He hoped he’d be stronger tomorrow.
Problem was, Charlotte was right, too. She was a grown woman. She should get to decide what was best for her. In any other circumstance that would apply.
He just couldn’t let her make this one mistake.
“You’ll be glad one day,” he muttered and pulled the blankets back up.
The flight home was long and uncomfortable, made worse by the fact that Charlotte couldn’t sleep. She’d enjoyed Italy. She’d loved their villa, too, and definitely wanted to come back.
Next summer when Lilly was out of school, she hoped they could spend another month on the Amalfi Coast. After all, it was the place where she’d met Lilly and fell in love with her, so to speak. Praiano, especially, would always be close to her heart.
But thinking about her time on the Amalfi Coast was bittersweet. Although it wasn’t where she’d met Julian, it was where she’d fallen in love with him, too, and yet he hadn’t responded to her since he left, except to tell her he would always love her, and he was going to live his life without her forhersake, not his. He wanted her to find someone who wouldn’t be so much of a burden, wanted her to have the kind of happy and fulfilled life she “deserved.”
She’d tried to tell him that she preferred quality over quantity—whatever years she could have with him over whatever years she could have with someone else. But he’d never replied to that text. Last she’d heard from Sloane, he’d started treatment with his doctor and then left for Iceland, where he was taking pictures of the volcano that was erupting there.
She pictured him under a pewter sky, lava lighting his face from below, and felt a lump rise in her throat.
“Are you excited to be home?” Lilly asked. The cheapest flight for Sloane had been through Dallas, so she wasn’t with them. Only Lilly was sitting next to her. She’d read almost since they took off—when she wasn’t sleeping.
Charlotte had been gazing out the window, watching the ground rush up to meet them as they prepared for landing. “I am,” she said and smiled. But she was feeling more tentative than she wanted to admit. She knew Cliff would have divorce papers waiting for her; he’d told her as much. He was now claiming that he was going to try to break the prenup himself and leave her with nothing, and she’d been so engrossed in trying to make progress on her latest book that she hadn’t even had the chance to contact an attorney.
She’d figured she’d handle all that once she was back in LA, so that was what she had to look forward to now.
