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First, I go back to the guest room where he held me. The linen is pressed, and the room is neatly organized. Like I’ve never been there. I don’t know what I was expecting . . . for the bed to be unmade, the way we’d left it? This is not Arsène’s style. I amble through the hallway. Walk into the bathroom. Open the cabinets, my ears heating at my own brazenness. All he has there are Band-Aids, Tylenol, and some TUMS.
When I reach his bedroom, I halt. My hand is on the doorknob. There’s an irrational part of me that’s afraid I’m going to find him there with someone else. Why, I don’t know. It is obvious he is not here. Arya told me he went to meet a pompous colleague of his who went to Andrew Dexter Academy with him.
But ever since Paul . . .
No. Screw Paul. You’ve moved on. You’re not going to let what happened in the past dictate your future anymore.
I shove the door open. The second I do, all the oxygen leaves my lungs.
Because it is here.
Full size and hung on his wall. Where the TV should be. Right in front of his bed. And it’s just as magnificent as I remember it to be.
The Seagull’s poster.
The huge one that got magically “lost” all those months ago. With the close-up of my face.
It was Arsène who took it. Who stole it. Who then tampered with the cameras and took the damning footage of himself seizing the thing.
My face stares back at me. I look tranquil . . . maybe even a little dreamy.
But it can’t be here. It can’t be him. The poster was taken so early in our relationship—or whatever that was that started between us.
This is . . . how?
His words from the last time I saw him, on my porch, haunt me now.
My need to be near you and next to you at all times had stopped being about Grace and started being about you very, very early. Since you ran out of the New Amsterdam after knocking poor Cory to the ground.
He wasn’t lying. He really did like me from the get-go.
I walk over to the poster and plaster one hand against my printed face. Something wet and weird caresses my cheek. I reach with my hand to wipe it, examining the tip of my finger to find a perfectly round, see-through, salty tear staring back at me.
I’m crying.
I’m crying!
I’m no longer cursed or numb or incapable of fully feeling.
The waterworks start right away. Loud, childish wails rip from my chest and through my mouth. I cry for the entire year that I couldn’t. Cry for Paul’s death. For what he did to me. For Grace. For what she did to Arsène. For losing my role of Nina. For gaining perspective. For Rhys. For Arsène, for hiding for decades behind a wall of erudition and wit.
Most of all, I cry for myself. But shockingly, these are not tears of despair or self-pity, but of relief.
I feel courageous. Stronger than I’ve ever been. And so incredibly hopeful.
I’ve been through hell and walked through fire, only to come out the other side of it, scarred and bruised, but stronger than ever.
I burn for you, he said. And I’m ready to burn right back for him.
I fall into Arsène’s bed and cry and cry and cry for hours.
Cry until I fall asleep in the comfort of the scent of the man I love.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
ARSÈNE
My phone is blowing up when I’m in the Uber on my way back to my apartment from the airport.
Christian: Something happened when I was away.
Arsène: I’m not helping you bury any bodies.
Christian: You think I’d ask you for something like that via text message? You think I’m that dumb?
Arsène: Don’t ask questions you’re not prepared to hear the answer for. What happened?
Christian: Arya took the spare keys for your apartment.
Arsène: I’m flattered, but she is not my type.
Christian: Winnie asked her for them, YOU MORON.
I will my heart to stop beating like a sledgehammer, but to no avail. The thought that Winnifred is in my apartment right now makes my pulse go haywire. I don’t even bother answering Christian. Just check the traffic app on my phone, which alerts me that, as usual, there’s a traffic jam from hell on my street.
I tap my foot against the car’s floor. Would it be an overreaction to bribe every single asshole in front of us to pull over and let us through?
When we get about five blocks from my apartment building, I tell the driver to stop and throw a wad of cash at him.
“You’re gonna walk the rest of the way?” he asks, surprised. “A little dangerous in the middle of the night . . .”
But I’m already out, running like a maniac. When I get to my building, the door to the stairway is locked. I swear, kick a trash can, and call the elevator. The wait takes forever. So does the ride up to my apartment. Then I get inside, and my living room is completely empty. Winnifred-free.
