“There she is,” he said softly. “I’ve missed that laugh.”
“I laugh.” I rolled my eyes at him.
“Not like that. Not with me.”
He was right. I’d been so careful for so long, rationing my smiles, measuring my words, keeping him at a distance that felt safe even as it slowly killed me.
“Graham,” I started, not sure what I was going to say.
“Don’t.” He held up a hand. “Just…let me have this. Letushave this. One dinner where we’re just Agnes and Graham, the way we used to be.”
“We can’t be the way we used to be.”
“Why not?”
Because a dying woman, who also loved you, begged me to let you go so that you’d live. Because I’m not strong enough to survive losing you.
“Because too much has changed,” I said instead.
“Some things haven’t.” He reached across the table and touched my cheek—just a brush of his fingers, there and gone, but I felt it everywhere. “Some things are exactly the same.”
The restaurant had grown quieter around us, other diners finishing their meals and filteringout into the night. Marco appeared to clear our plates and ask about dessert, and Graham ordered tiramisu to share without consulting me, which should have been annoying but somehow wasn’t. When the dessert arrived, we ate in comfortable silence, the sweetness of coffee and mascarpone melting on my tongue.
“Can I ask you something?” Graham said when the tiramisu was half gone.
“You’ve been asking me things all night.”
“One more.”
I gestured with my fork for him to continue, bracing myself.
“What do you see for yourself? In the future, I mean. Do you picture yourself still in Loren Brae in ten years? Twenty? Running the shop, making pottery, that kind of thing? Have you thought about it?”
The question hit harder than it should have. I’d trained myself not to think about the future—not to imagine wedding dresses or growing old beside someone. Because what was the point?
“I don’t really think about it,” I said carefully.
“Everyone thinks about the future.”
“Not everyone.”
“Agnes.” He leaned forward, his eyes searching my face. “What are you so afraid of?”
Standing at your graveside because I was selfish enough to love you.
“I’m not afraid of anything,” I said, and even to my own ears, it sounded like a lie.
“Then why won’t you let yourself be happy?”
The question hung between us, heavy and unanswerable.I stared at the remains of our dessert, at the smear of chocolate and coffee on the shared plate, and I felt the walls I’d built so carefully begin to tremble.
“What matters is that I love you, and I’m always going to love you, and nothing you say or do is going to change that.”
“I think,” I said softly, pushing the memory of his words aside, “that we should get the bill.”
Graham watched me for a long moment, and I could see the frustration warring with something gentler in his expression—disappointment, maybe, or resignation. The look of a man who’d pushed as far as he dared and knew he wouldn’t get any further tonight.
“Aye,” he said finally. “That’s fine, then.”
