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Curious, I take the offered glass along with the hand he extends and follow him to the back door. Silently, I trail him with our hands attached while the insect noise increases, sounding on all sides of us. The air rapidly cools as we walk, the sun slowly dipping behind the mountains beyond taking the bulk of the heat with it. The grass feels cool and dewy against my bare feet as he leads me up the small hill and into the clearing.
“Une table pour deux,” Table for two. He lays his suit jacket on the ground and gestures for me to take a seat. I’m still in my tweed slacks and wrinkled blouse, my heels long forgotten. He’s still dressed in suit pants and the button-down I stained with my tears. He sets his wine down and removes his shoes and socks, planting his feet in the grass to ground himself.
We sit for long seconds just sipping and taking in the view.
It’s when the violet sky starts to blacken, illuminating the full moon that the lightning bugs begin to play a soundless melody around us. With the next sip, my shoulders roll back, and I start to sink into the earth below. Completely at ease, I lean into his side, trying my best not to read into the words he spoke earlier, the softness in his eyes, the tenderness in his kiss. But I’m too drained emotionally to keep my guard up. And far too numb from the day’s events to let myself overanalyze, to protect myself further from the damage he could—in my weakened state—so easily cause. And I can’t bring myself to give a damn. He was there for me at a time I felt utterly alone in the world, and for that, all I can feel is grateful.
For endless minutes we just follow the lights from the ground to the expansive tree line above. The night sky becomes littered with twinkling stars as we’re transported into a different world. I’ve never in my life seen anything so breathtaking. That is until I turn to the man sitting next to me, watching me carefully.
“I like your view much better,” he whispers.
“What do you mean? You have the same view.”
“No, I don’t. But I’m starting to see it again.” He tenses and lets out a long breath. “At this point in your life, you’re experiencing many things for the first time. And in a way…I’m jealous.”
I lift a brow. “That’s an awful lot of honesty. How much wine have you had?”
One side of his mouth lifts before all amusement disappears, and he tears his gaze from mine.
“T-thank you for today.”
“Don’t,” he says just as soon as the words pass my lips. He lifts his chin just as the light around us intensifies. “Look.” As if on cue, the fireflies seem to multiply by the hundreds, and it’s nothing short of whimsical. It’s as if we’re surrounded by unearthly light. Reading my thoughts, he speaks up, his voice slightly mystified.
“Thi
s place. Right here. Is magical.”
I scoff. “You’re too much of a realist, too practical to believe in magic.”
“It’s practical magic,” he counters, “see because here, we can catch light,” he reaches out and snatches a lightning bug, which beams in his palm as he speaks. “No decisions to make, no burdens, no debts to pay, no deals to strike, not here, not now.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Ah,” he opens his palm, and the bug takes flight between us before floating away. “Now, there’s a magical word. Because if there’s something you want, here, all you have to do is dream it up, and then you just reach out and take it.”
“Maybe it’s the wine and the view, but right now, that doesn’t sound so far-fetched.” I take another sip. “So, I take it this place is significant for you?”
He nods. “This place made me. It holds every secret I have.”
I glance over at him as he keeps his focus on the shimmering trees above. Briefly, I close my eyes, letting the rest of the stress of the day fall away. It’s the hurt that remains, that will probably always remain, but for the moment, it’s a bearable throb.
His voice is coarse, saturated with the past when he speaks up next to me. “One of the scariest moments of my life was when I figured out that I knew absolutely nothing that someone hadn’t taught me. That’s when I was at my most humble, my most vulnerable. When I realized just how much I needed people.”
“When was that?”
“The night I lost my favorite teachers.” He swallows, as if he’s in pain, his words coming out chalky. “That night, when Delphine came to tell us that our parents weren’t coming back…I stood, walked out the front door, and kept walking. I don’t remember how I got here, but I knew I was searching for something, I needed something, and somehow I ended up in this clearing, staring at these trees, searching the sky for answers.”
“So, this is where…”
He turns to me, his thick hair disheveled, new stubble on his jaw. “For me, this is where it started for me.” He swallows. “It became a sort of church at first, a sanctuary. Wild, overgrown, and untouched. I was drawn to its purity. Over the years, it was like this place summoned me. At first, this is where I grieved because I didn’t want Dom to see. Eventually, I came to map out my future, clear my head. Night after night, when Dom went to sleep, I would run the nine miles to get here. Sometimes when Delphine passed out, I would take her car.”
“So, that’s why you were here that night?” The night I ran into the forest calling his brothers’ names. The same night he kissed me, sending me into a tailspin.
He shakes his head ironically, his expression somber. “This was my place. I don’t know if fate plays a role in life, but I knew when I found it. Somehow, I knew this place was meant for me.”
He plucks at a piece of grass next to him, before rubbing it between his fingers. “That’s why I wasn’t at all surprised when Roman started building his fortress only a few hundred yards away from where I was charting out my future and his.” I try and picture Tobias here as a young boy, newly orphaned and utterly alone in the woods staring up at the night sky. The image I conjure up tugs at every corner of my heart. To be so young, to have lost everything in a blink. It’s unimaginable.
He sips his wine, his swallow audible.
