I lean forward and watch closely. I can’t tell what she’s saying, but she’s speaking low. The man is tense, and I think he might be crying, or maybe laughing. I can’t really tell based on her expression.
Damn, I wish I could see him.
They go on like that for almost ten minutes. He does most of the talking and she sits there, looking concerned. I want to walk over, hover over the table, or at least get closer so I can intervene if something goes bad, but I stay where I am. I promised that I wouldn’t get involved unless I had to.
Now though, she’s looking concerned. She shakes her head and the man snatches his hand away from her. He looks around for a second and I catch his expression.
He looks furious.
He stands up. I lean forward in my chair, ready to pounce. Aria asks him to sit back down, and he’s starting to speak loudly. People are staring at the guy.
“I told you, I left her,” he’s saying, loudly enough for me to hear.
I stand now. Fear spikes through me. Aria stays seated, saying something, trying to calm him. I slowly move closer, heart racing.
“No, listen to me. I love you, Aria. It’s over and I can’t go back. My whole life is burned to the ground.”
“I never wanted this for you, Louis,” Aria says softly. “You know that. I wanted so much more.”
“It’s too late.” He clenches his hands into fists. “It’s too late. Please, come with me.”
“I can’t. We can keep talking, or we can talk later, but I can’t go anywhere.”
“Why not? What happened to you, Aria?”
“Nothing,” she says, almost sadly. “I’m sorry if I ever gave you the impression that we were more than what we are, Louis.”
He stares at her, anger and hate in his eyes now. I get closer, ready to shove him away.
Instead, he turns. He storms out of the room. People are staring at her and she puts her head in her hands, clearly trying to keep herself from crying.
I’m by her side in an instant. “Come on,” I say softly. “Let’s get out of here.”
She lets me lift her up from her chair. We walk together, back out onto the street. She’s leaning against me, barely walking on her own.
We move away from the shop. I take her into the park, and we snag a bench on the corner of one path. She leans up against me and I hold her tight.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to her. “I only caught the end, but I know it isn’t your fault.”
“He thinks I love him,” she says, suppressing a sob. “He thinks… he called me a liar. He says I lead him on.”
“I don’t believe that,” I say. “I don’t think you ever did that.”
“But didn’t I?” She looks up at me, tears in her eyes. “That’s what I did. I made them feel loved. Even if I didn’t feel it.”
I hold her tight against me as she cries. I don’t know what I can say or do to make it better.
Probably nothing can, at least not right now.13AriaBrady is surprisingly tender as I slowly tell him about what Louis said to me.
I can’t get the look on Louis’s face from my mind. He looked wrecked, absolutely broken, destroyed.
He just kept asking me why, why, why didn’t I love him.
“I do love you, just not that way,” I said gently.
That only made him angrier.
Brady takes me back to his apartment. He sits me down on his couch and gets me a glass of wine. Normally, I’d turn it down, but I could use it right now. I take a sip as he drapes a blanket over me.
“You don’t have to be so nice,” I say to him.
“I know that.” He frowns, cocking his head. “I’m worried about you.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine at all.” He sighs. “What happened back there… it got to you.”
“You aren’t part of this, okay?” I snap at him. “You don’t owe me anything.”
He’s quiet after that. I feel like shit for saying it to him, but I’m angry and upset and he’s the only person I can lash out at right now.
After a little bit, though, he speaks up.
“You’re right. I don’t owe you anything. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to give you whatever you need.”
I groan a little bit. He seems to know just what to say to make me feel even more guilty. I take a big sip of wine, unable to even look at him.
“Was he always like this?” Brady asks after a bit.
“No,” I say. “When I first met him, things were good in his marriage, he just felt… dissatisfied.”
“When did things turn for him?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Sometime in the last year. He went from a little dissatisfied to straight up hating his life. I guess it finally caught up with him.” I bite my lip. “And I guess getting caught didn’t help.”