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He is so reassuring, so familiar. Just like last night, all the years melt away, and I suddenly feel like that girl standing in that office doorway watching this mysterious boy silently and stoically grieve through the night.

I freeze.

I let him come to me in Central Park, but now? If I let him take me, it’ll be a silent admission to something I don’t want to admit out loud. It will be a surrender to a part of me I’ve kept locked up.

“I don’t deserve this,” I say softly.

“Come here.”

He’s offering me safety.

I can’t have safety.

“You don’t need to do this, Fabien.”

I’m shaking my head, but he’s seeing what I really want.

“Come here, Jolie.”

And I do.

Because despite myself, I need to.

I bury my face in his chest. My tears soak his shirt. I can’t believe I’m doing this, but it’s happening.

“I don’t know why I wanted you to come to Central Park,” I stammer. “There’s just... there’s nowhere else to go. You’re the only person who truly understands me.”

Fabien’s breath is long and slow. Each steady rise and fall of his chest calms me.

“You’re going to get through this, Angel.”

My own breath catches. The word stabs through me. It’s the first time he’s used his nickname for me since then.

“What if I don’t figure it out?” I ask through shaky sobs.

“You will,” Fabien replies. “And I am here. We’ll figure it all out.”

And that’s when it hits me. The realization. Maybe I have been living a lie all these years.

Maybe I cannot keep pretending anymore.

25

FABIEN

Jolie refuses to eat. I try to encourage her to take a bite of something, anything, but she shakes her head at me. She hasn’t eaten all day, and she needs to. Yet I reluctantly drop that fight. Instead, we take our places back on the couch, ignoring the broken glass on the kitchen tiles, and simply talk. Her tears have dried, and she feels safe enough to pour it all out.

“I trusted him,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“And still he betrayed me.”

“What did he say?”

“He said it was just business.”

“That’s it?”