He turned to look at her. Her hands were trembling and he saw the way she swallowed. Would she weep? What had he done, coaxing her to him? He ought to have left well enough alone.
“I do like you. You must not think… What you must understand is that I truly cherished the moments we had together,” he told her. “There were many times when I would be amazed at how easily you could make me smile. You do not realize how difficult a task that is. I am not good with others.”
He was growing desperate, anxious, and all he wanted was for her to believe the truth in his words. All he wanted was for her to somehow understand. As if, if she understood, some of the monstrous misery he shouldered might melt away.
“You do not know what it is like to want something for so long, you forget why you even wanted it in the first place, until the only thing left is a gnawing need and there is nothing that can fill it. And even though everything in your body tells you that you are killing yourself wanting it, you cannot stop.”
Nina stood up, her movements casual. Her face was distant. He wasn’t sure she had heard him. Perhaps she did not care. She hardened with every second that passed, and he found this alarming.
He did not want to see her grow this weary.
“You said you wrote me a letter,” he told her. “What did it say?”
“Nothing important.”
“Nina, please,” he said knowing instinctively that it was important.
And there was a coolness to her eyes, which had been gentle and honest. There were the seeds of disappointment in the curve of her mouth, melancholy in her movements when before he’d only ever found a vibrant joy of the world.
Hector knew what she’d written. Not the words but the meaning. It was engraved in the space between them.
He took a step toward her. A painting fell down, knocked off the wall by her power. It was but a reflex; he recognized the untamed expression of her talents. But it stopped him in his tracks, and if he’d thought for a second that he might move closer to her, now he realized this was impossible.
He had no right.
Hector sighed. “If there was anything in my power that I could give you, if there was anything I could do to make you happy, I would do it. You must believe that. And if you ever would ask anything of me, know that I would answer affirmatively,” he told her.
“I don’t need anything from you,” she said.
He could feel around them, all around the room, her restless energy burning the edges of everything in sight.
“I sent the beetles because I am a silly man who understands nothing. But I also thought you might take pleasure in them. I want you to be happy, I want… toknowthat you are happy, to know you are well.”
Nina looked at him blankly, as though he’d spoken in a language she did not understand.
“You were my friend,” he said. “I was a fool.”
“You pretended to like me,” she replied.
“No, no, don’t return to that,” he said sternly. “I liked you. I like you still. You can believe anything you wish about me, but not that my affection was false. I’ve liked you since I met you—more than that, I admire you—that’s the truth.”
She conveyed a wordless wonder. The conviction in his voice drew her toward him. She took a tentative step, then another, but she stopped at the third as if she’d remembered an important point.
Nina bit her lip and there was a girlish quality about the gesture, but then she fixed her eyes on him, steady and calm. “I thought I could never forgive you, but I realize that is not the case. I stand here before you, and I do not hate you as I thought I would. But I cannot forget either,” she said.
They were quiet. Her talent, which had been perceptible a few moments before, simmered and died.
“Please send no more gifts, Mr. Auvray. Send nothing more,” she said. She was trying to keep emotion out of her voice and could not manage it, but when she walked out, she did it with composure. She’d broken the colored glass windows in Oldhouse, might have broken the world in half in that moment, but she’d learned to rein herself in.
He’d taught her card tricks, but he hadn’t taught her that.
He went to the window and looked down, scanning the street below, until he saw her marching out into the street. She turned a corner and she was gone.
The sun, as if mocking him, had shrouded itself behind a cloud.
It was he, then, who sent papers and writing instruments scattering across the table with a flicker of his eyes, happy to hear the noise of them landing against the floor and filling the silence she’d left behind.
Chapter 6
