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Leah stood up and held out her hand. “What’s the matter?”
I shook my head, not wanting or able to explain. I just wanted to get out of that club as fast as possible before I burst out in tears.
“Miranda!” She followed me to the door. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
I stopped in the doorway and wiped my eyes.
“He was there,” I whispered, barely able to speak.
“Who was there? Where?”
“In Afghanistan. When Dan died.”
She followed me out onto the street where I stood and glanced around, searching for a roving taxi.
“He was there when Dan died?” she repeated, her brow furrowed.
I nodded and raised my arm to flag down a cab, despite being in tears.
“Why are you leaving?”
I turned to her, frowning, my nose running. I rubbed my eyes with the backs of my hands, not caring if my mascara smeared.
“I have to go.”
Finally, a cab stopped at the curb. I opened the door and sat in the back seat. Leah stood blank-faced, and stared at me.
“Do you want me to come?” she asked. “I have to get my bag if so…”
I shook my head and closed the door. I turned to the driver and gave him directions to take me to my dorm at The New Yorker.
I cried my eyes out on the trip there, but didn’t care. The poor driver probably didn’t know what to say, but I felt his eyes on me in the rear view mirror.
I didn’t know what to think. Beckett had been there? It was because of him that Dan died?
He got the letters because his first name was Daniel?
Not only did he deceive me about knowing who I was and all about Dan, he was the one Dan went to rescue…
I arrived back at my dorm and threw myself onto my bed, crying my eyes out until I finally fell asleep much, much later.
When I woke early the next morning after only a few hours of sleep, I had another cry when everything Beckett
told me came flooding back at once. I couldn’t really explain why I was crying. Dan had been dead for a year. I hadn’t cried for several months when I thought about him. Instead, I usually felt a kind of sadness in my chest, and a nostalgia for our relationship and all the things we would have done, had he still been alive.
When I was cried out, I checked my cell and saw that I had about twenty messages waiting. Most of them were from Leah, but several were from Beckett – or should I call him Daniel?
His story was so damn convoluted that I didn’t know what to believe.
I deleted all those messages unread and thumb typed a text to Leah, assuring her I was fine and that I’d spill all over coffee and bagels at our usual Sunday morning brunch spot. Then I had a shower and tried to wash the tears and shock out of me.
I pulled on my jeans and a t-shirt and grabbed my sunglasses. My eyes were still a bit red and my nose looked like Rudolph on a good day. I walked to the subway and took a train to Central Park West and the little deli where Leah and I used to go before Dan died.
“Hey, sweets,” she said when she saw me. She stood and gave me a hug. I sat down, my latte already waiting. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks,” I said with a sardonic laugh. “Just what I needed to hear.”
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” she said and narrowed her eyes. “You’re going to forgive him, right?”
