Chapter Fifty-One
She’d received Damien’s note late on Saturday evening – inviting her to Mr Jane’s teahouse, and Ava’s bruised heart had leaped in her chest. Hope and hurt twisted together as she walked through the city the next day, one threading through the other until she couldn’t tell which was which. For part of her hoped this would be an apology, an explanation – and the other part of her feared this would just be him, putting into words what his absence had already told her the other day.
She tried to remember what Oliver had said in the kitchen. Tried tofeelbrave as she turned the corner of Brunswick Street and drew closer to the teashop. After all, she was the one who’d tried to hold their family together. The one who’d picked up all the pieces after her mother had passed, and carried on.
She was the woman who Miss Fairchild said she’d admired. The woman who’d leaped across the street when she’d seen Damien tumble out of that inn.
She wasbrave.
And she wouldn’t let fear dampen the spark that burned within her now, even though her fingers were shaking as she reached for the teashop’s door and swung it open.
Inside it smelled like woodsmoke, like warm sugar cakes, and dense fruit buns, and amidst the sea of yellow furniture sat Damien; his dark hair falling over his spectacles, his white shirt unbuttoned at the collar. He was looking at something upon the table, smoothing his hand back and forth across it, though when she neared, and he saw her, he folded it quickly and stuffed it into his pocket.
‘Ava.’
His voice was too loud against the dim chatter of the tearoom, and she felt the eyes of those at some of the tables around them turn as she took the seat opposite him.
‘I wasn’t sure you’d come.’
There was a brittle kind of look in his eyes, and she saw the same wall between them that she’d seen grow between her and Jem. Except this time, she would shatter it.
This time, she would be brave.
‘Listen, Damien, I have something I want to tell you—’
‘I too,’ he said, his eyes not leaving hers. She couldn’t see a single speck of green in them today – instead they were dark, as dark as his hair, and the smudges beneath his eyes.
Love is a terrifying thing.That was what Oliver had said.Love is handing someone every sharp edge within you, every weakness – and trusting them not to hurt you with it.
She could feel the words gathering behind her ribs, tight and breathless.
That’s what makes it so awful. And extraordinary.
‘I love you,’ Ava said, at the very same moment as Damien said:
‘I’m leaving, Ava.’
She blinked, feeling his words slice at her, feeling the sting they left behind. When she looked up, she found all the colour had drained from his face – and it was like watching someone lose their footing, watching someone fall; that moment when time seemed to slow, and everything happened in the space of a breath.
‘You—’ he began, and then broke off, as though stunned. ‘What?’
‘You’re leaving?’
His expression pinched. ‘I was always leaving, Ava,’ he said softly. ‘Even before I met you, I was leaving.’
‘And yet you kissed me anyway.’
The sharp edge whittled into Damien’s expression softened. ‘You kissed me, too.’
Her voice came out as a breath, cracked and raw. ‘Before I knew you would disappear.’
He leaned closer. ‘I should’ve told you sooner. I should’ve …’
‘It should’ve been the first thing you said,’ Ava replied – and she wished she could summon some fire into her voice, but it was nothing but a thin thread. ‘Nice to meet you, Miss Adams – by the by, I plan on only being here long enough to … to …’
To hurt you.
When he looked at her, his expression was like fractured glass. Cracking. Breaking.
