“A vegvísir.”
“Yes. A stave that guides you through bad times. I imagined that you might be that for me. I even wondered if I could be that for you, too.” Oh, the arrogance, that I could be that for anyone.
He leans forward, his eyes lighting. “We can be, Lacey. I believe it with all my heart.”
I shake my head sadly. “It wouldn’t work. The more I am around you, the harder the storm rages. I have to give you up if I’m ever going to get out of here.”
Stian gives me a long, hard look. He’s searching for ways to take back the reins of a situation that’s out of his hands. My control freak doesn’t give up so easily.
He shakes his head. “No. I won’t accept that.”
“I’ve had some time to think in here. It’s only been a week, but they make you think all the goddamn time.” Sometimes I wonder if you can sprain your brain with too much self-reflection. Everything hurts in there.
“Do you know the story of Pandora’s box?” I ask, and he nods. That’s the upside of getting involved with a museum director, I suppose. He already understands all my favorite stories.
The Ancient Greeks had a myth for every painful and joyous aspect of the human psyche. Pandora was a mortal, and she was given a box by Zeus and told she must never, ever look inside. She didn’t know it, but it contained all the world’s ills. Sickness, pain, death, hunger, and many other things besides.
“I have my own Pandora’s box. It’s where my anorexia has lived since I was discharged from the ward last year. I put her in there and sealed the box up tight, and I was able to keep myself alive, and functioning. I could have a job and exist out there in the world with everyone else. For a while, I was able to have you, too.”
I reach out and brush my fingers across the back of Stian’s hand. A whole hour with him every evening. It was like a beautiful dream.
He catches my hand and grips it hard. “You still have me. I’m not going anywhere.”
I take a deep breath and continue. “When Pandora opened the box, which she did because she’s human and humans are weak, all the evils of the world came flying out. She slammed the lid shut, trapping in what was left inside, but it was too late. All the bad things had got out. The only thing left in the box, fluttering sadly around, was one little creature. Hope.”
Stian waits, not understanding.
“I have to trap my anorexia in that box so I can survive, but other things get locked in there, too. My hope. The things I really want. I know they’re in there, but if I reach for them, she gets out, too.”
The possibility of falling in love. Traveling. Having children. Just being. Hope is always out of reach. Trapped in that box forever.
“But it’s not—”
I cover our joined hands with my other hand. “Please, Stian,” I say, my voice shaking. “I only have so much strength right now, and she’s taking everything I have. I can’t argue about this with you, too.”
He lapses into unhappy silence, glaring at our twined fingers and gripping my hand so hard that my flesh is white.
“How was the exhibition opening?” I ask, trying for a neutral change of subject.
“It was fine,” he says tightly.
I slowly pull my hand from his, because it’s time to say goodbye. “I’m proud of what we were able to do together. We had a good two months.”
His face is stony, as if he hates me talking in the past tense. It was a sliver of happiness between two great chasms of darkness. I suppose it’s not his style to think in terms of morsels that quickly disappear. He told me that the night he first kissed me. I always want everything.
“I can never give you what you need, Stian. You know that. I appreciate you trying, but it’s not going to work.”
I think back to the conversation we had in the vaults. We were curious about each other then, and we were learning what made the other tick. That conversation gave me the courage to confess my complicated feelings for him. He told me he enjoyed risky ventures. What was I, if not a challenge he was dying to get his hands on?
“I was a risk, but I blew up in your face.”
He slams his palms down flat on the table and stands up. He hovers there for a moment, pain and fury burning in his eyes. Then he storms out.
Chapter Twenty-One
Stian
I’m too angry to get on the Tube, so I walk the two and a half miles to the next station, my feet pounding the concrete. I won’t be told to give up on anyone, by anyone. Lacey doesn’t get to sit there in that horrible institution and calmly shed me from her life as if it’s what she wants. That was her disease talking, the jealous, spiteful bitch who—