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“Why do you think that?”
“Because it never was! Not ever. Not for her. I tried, Alex, I put everything on hold because she was sick. I helped plan her parties, I chose Ajax because he was safe and easy and he wouldn’t disgrace me or our family. I tried to appear polished and to always smile, just like she did. But all I could ever be was a pale imitation. All I could ever manage was lukewarm cocktail shrimp and a party that was barely mediocre. She was this... She made everyone so happy at parties. She made everyone’s life easier and I just...made things harder because I was distracted and couldn’t finish, or just because I don’t have that thing that she had. I fake it, but I don’t have it. Not really. The press sees it, they think I’m so like her but I... She was never happy.”
“That isn’t your fault, Rachel, you aren’t her clone. It doesn’t mean you’re a failure, not in any way.”
She nodded. “I’m just all...messed up inside, Alex.”
He stroked her hair, his body a solid wall of reassurance for her to lean against. “Aren’t we all?”
“Well, we are.”
“As you said. Screwed up and screwed up.”
“A mess,” she said.
“But it’s the mess we have.”
“I know,” she said, sniffing loudly. “I haven’t even cried for... This is the first time in eight years.”
“I haven’t cried since I was a boy,” he said.
“How long?” she wanted to know. She wanted to know how heavy the burden inside of him was. Hers had been nearly unbearable.
“Probably about twelve years. A boy of fourteen—I might have cried then.”
“Why?”
“You want my secrets now, agape?”
“I’m leaving snot trails all over your shirt,” she said, leaning back. “I think we have no reason to keep secrets. And I wanted them once already. But you didn’t give them.”
She thought back to their night in Cannes. He’d deflected then. Both times. And he’d done it with sex.
“Then you can have them now,” he said. “Leaving the Kouklakis compound was the single hardest thing I ever did. The worst day of my life. My mother was dead. I felt very alone. Afraid of what was ahead. I wanted to escape and yet I feared the freedom. I knew I couldn’t stay because...because of what I would become if I did. I cried that day. It was the only home I knew, and I loved it as much as I hated it.”
“Your problems are so much bigger than mine,” she said. “I must seem like a nutcase to you.”
“No. I don’t see it that way.”
“How?”
“Because it hurts you. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being in the position I’ve been in, being around the types of people I’ve been exposed to, it’s that people have common pains. They come from different places, but they are the same sorts of hurts.”
“Forgive me, Alex, but you’re one of the most amoral men I’ve ever met. You used me to get back at Ajax, you were going to crash my wedding—”
