What if I was afraid of what I’d lose if I did? If he nevercame into the garden, if I could stop him during the bicentennial party from getting trapped in the first place, then we’d never have this, whateverthiswas. At the moment it was just a few kisses, just some flirty exchanges, some long looks, but I knew myself. I knew that if I kept kissing him, kept touching him, kept making more and more space in my life for this man trapped in time—I’d fall.
I’d fall too far, and sink too deep, and get too comfortable with the idea of not just Sophie, but Sophieand. A word that was hopeful and cruel. A coordinating conjunction marrying two ideas. The one of me, dirt under my nails and sunburnt shoulders, and the one of him, borrowed glasses tucked into a pocket and button-down rolled up above his forearms. I ached when I thought about it, but I had had enough of people leaving for one lifetime.
I had had enough goodbyes for a century.
And if I wanted this,him, then that meant I wantedsomethingagain—and I’d been so good at depriving myself of everything that could make me feel. Because if I felt, then I would want to feel more, then I’d want to live and—
And if I wanted that, then time would find itself in motion again, and Harrie would be further in my past and—
What if, in my reaching for something new, I left her behind?
“I’m sorry,” I whispered against his mouth.
He froze, then slowly extracted himself from our tangled limbs, placing his hands firmly on either side of me on the checkered blanket. His eyes searched my face. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No,” I croaked, blinking back aggravating wetness in myeyes. I felt awful with the cosmos and asters bright in the beds around us. “I’m sorry. It’s just I—I can’t.” My throat felt tight. My lips throbbed. “Not now.”
He swallowed thickly, hurt flickering across his gaze. But then he schooled it—for my convenience? So I wouldn’t see how much I’d hurt him? I didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t fall, just to say goodbye again. “It’s okay,” he said tightly, easing away. “It’s okay.”
And he said it so gently, so forgivingly, it made it all worse.
Coward, I told myself.I’m a coward.
I was such a coward that I couldn’t sit here any longer, with him looking at me like he wanted to ask if I was okay, because then I’d be compelled to tell him the truth—that of course I wasn’t, that I wasn’t sure I had been in quite a while, and that I’d left New York City because I thought fresh air and flowers could fix me, and here was this man who made me realize I didn’t need fixing. Here was a person who saw my failings and didn’t tell me to do better.
He thought I did my best. No one had thought that of me since . . .
Not since Harriett.
So I would do my best—for him. And that meant pushing myself to my feet, even as he called me to wait. It meant fleeing the garden with a whisper of “I’m sorry,” even as he scrambled to his feet after me, even as he knew he couldn’t follow.
I’d find that door, and I’d get him out. I promised.
28
rire dans sa barbe
Thunder rumbled in the distance as I escaped out of the Rose Court.
There was a thundercloud approaching, dark like a bruise. A violent wind rippled across the gardens, bringing with it a wave of petals and leaves.
The door appeared again in the Wildflowers, as if asking me to go back inside. I ignored it. My mouth was throbbing, the taste of strawberries still sweet on my tongue. I knew it was childish, and that Rus needed help, but I figured that I could help tomorrow. I needed time to think about what had happened—or tostopthinking, I guess. To forget how he kissed me, and how I ran away. And the look on his face, like he feared he was the reason.
Of course he wasn’t.
It was me. It was always me.
As I escaped into the Central Garden, Juliette called me from the veranda, and I went to go say goodbye to her for the evening.Shake it off, I told myself, as I climbed the steps to her. Juliette was in a disastrously good mood, which made me feel even worse. As it turned out, she was going on another datewith Dentist Myke with ay, and she was positively glowing at the idea of being the one to pay this time.
“We’re going to that Italian place,” she gushed, “and I think he’s going to make it official!”
“That’s great,” I replied, wondering if I could excuse myself to my cottage, and crawl into my bed, and never leave again.
She sighed happily. “Itis, isn’t it?”
And then she floated away to her happily ever after or whatever kind of night she was about to have.
I ignored the door three more times before golden hour ended, and each time it was in a place I didn’t expect, in corners increasingly more random, as if it was desperate for me to go inside.
