Despite my bravado, I need this time. I need to banish myself to a place other than here, a place where the memories will be so deeply buried that I won’t be tempted to dust them off and examine them. For the next few minutes, I won’t be Christina. For a brief moment, I’m grateful that I’ve practiced my whole adult life to be someone else.
“The book?” He tilts his head to read the title. “It was my mother’s. She was French.”
The golden letters blur in my vision as I lean closer just to get a little farther away from him. “Is that why you and your brother have French names?”
“Yes,” he says, sounding miles away.
I look at him. Like me, he’s staring at the book but seeing something entirely different. Maybe his mother. I shouldn’t ask, knowing the subject makes him volatile, but my curiosity is too big.
“When did she pass away?”
He meets my gaze, seeming surprised at the question. “You don’t know?”
Biting my lip, I shake my head.
His tone is clinical. “Two years after my father died.”
His mother died young, then. I’m not only curious about his family. I’m curious about everything that concerns him. “What did she die from? Or is the question too personal?”
He studies me intently. “It’s personal, but you should know. Your father should’ve told you.”
Regretting being so direct, I say, “You don’t have to talk about it.”
“You not only have a right to know. You have a duty to know.”
Taking in his features, I register the pain and blame in his eyes. I hold my breath, getting lost in the suffering that’s mirrored in the blemish-free depths of those russet pools.
He continues in an emotionless tone. “My father drove to Cullinan and shot himself on a heap of excavated earth. He didn’t want us to find his body. One of the neighboring farmers did.”
I don’t exhale for the fear of making a sound. The moment is too fragile, too breakable. Like us. We’re both damaged, already broken.
He looks at the book. “Have you ever seen what happens to a dog that is too attached to its owner when his owner dies? It mourns itself to death.” Facing me again, he says in the same, neutral voice, “I suppose that’s the real cause of my mother’s death. The death certificate stated pneumonia, but she’d stopped taking care of herself after my father had died. She’d lost her will to live.”
Reaching out, I fold my hand around his. Enveloping as much of his broad palm as I can, I offer him the only comfort I can give. In this moment, the man crowding my space isn’t my enemy. He’s a man who’s hurting. We’re sharing the same fate. We’ve both been broken by the same man. Bell Warren.
“My mother buried my father where he killed himself. When she died, I bought the plot for her grave next to his in Cullinan. I couldn’t do it here.” He adds with shocking honesty, “I couldn’t bear it. It would’ve been too devasting to separate them after death.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, opening my fingers and letting the paper with the verdict of my medical condition drift to the floor.
It flitters down like the stark ink printed on the pristine white paper doesn’t carry a heavy judgement. It settles on the tiles as if none of the letters forming the dooming words matter. Lifting my free hand, I cup his jaw. I hold his gaze, seeing the man instead of the criminal as the roughness of his stubble grates my palm.
The moment my defenses are down, he pounces. He tears me open and steals his way inside, forcing me to be Christina. Our truth is too raw. It’s impossible to hide behind Evie. For once, I’m not confused about who I am. I’m the girl who gave up her dreams but not her hope. I’m the woman who prefers vanilla to jasmine. He unlocked the door of my cage, and I can’t drive myself back in.
With him, I’m free.
For him, I’m Christina.
For him, I’m me.
His smile is gentle. The light in his eyes is soft but not forgiving. “My poor Evie. Because of your father, our fates have been sealed.”
It’s as if he’s grabbed the words from my mind, speaking my thoughts out loud. He steps closer, putting our bodies flush together. We gaze at each other, my face tilted up and his down. We’re thinking the same thing and breathing each other’s air. I drop my hand to his chest. His heart beats in tandem with mine. The rhythm is erratic—painful and harsh with dark anticipation. My heart isn’t lying about this. Unlike my mind, it doesn’t reason. It doesn’t consider wrongs and rights. It simply exists. In this moment, isolated in our brokenness, we’re perfectly aligned.
Closing his hand over mine where it rests on his chest, he says, “My beautiful Evie. A princess locked up in a tower. I feel sorry for you. I do, but it won’t stop me from doing what needs to be done.”