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I love that he asks. But it’s only a few feet over the pond, so it’s not an issue for me. “I’m good with this one.”
He returns my smile with one of his own, but it falters as we stop in the middle of the bridge, with more roses on the other side. “I’ll miss you, Jules.”
“I’ll miss you,” I say.
This time, when I draw a deep inhale of the roses, the scent becomes the smell of my stepmother’s perfect rose bushes just outside my window, and I fall back in time to six years ago—the summer after my freshman year of college. The summer before what would have been hers.
She was bored that Friday night, but Willa was always bored if she had no one to see. She was the ultimate social butterfly, the glue holding together Hannah, Josh, Ollie, and the whole crew from our high school and hometown. That night, she danced into my room with twist-my-sister’s-arm intentions. I can remember it so perfectly, it feels like it’s happening all over again.
Finn must read the longing and the missing in my face because he says the same thing he did at the Luxembourg Gardens: “Where did you go right now?”
To a place I don’t like to talk about.
But as I glance around the gardens, I feel like I’m in a dream. A good one. A safe one. Like this is a place out of time. A few days ago on a quiet street in Montmartre, I told Finn something I’ve never told my family. I shared the truth of my OCD with him, and it felt freeing. Like I no longer had to live all alone in a dark secret.
I no longer want to live withthisdark secret either.
I’m tired of how much it hurts. I’m tired of carrying it with me. “The day Willa died…” I say, steady and careful. I have things to say, and Ihaveto get through this. I’ve met somebody I trust with my secrets. This man might not be in my life the way I want, but he values honesty so deeply. He’s been here for me with a willing ear, and a big heart, and the most care I’ve ever known.
On Monet’s bridge, gazing over a pond of water lilies, I give him what he asked for—the truth.
“She wanted something to do that August night. There was a pool party I had heard about. I didn’t go. But she did, and I helped her get there. Because that’s what I’d always done.”
“How so?” he asks with curiosity but no judgment.
“We were at my dad’s house, and he was out that night with Liz, and when Willa said she wanted to go to the party at Josh’s house, I said, ‘You know how to sneak out and you know how to sneak back in so Dad won’t know you were gone.’”
I wince but don’t look away from Finn as I continue my confession. “See, I’d taught her how. I was the older sister, after all. We’d been sneaking out our whole lives. That was what we did to get away from him and his rules.”
“What happened at the party, Jules?” he asks, as gentle as the summer breeze, as soft as the ripple in the pond in front of us.
“I didn’t know it at the time—this was pure Willa—but she’d taken some wine from our mom’s home.” I can’t be clinical anymore as I recount the story. Briefly, I stare at the lavender, blinking away tears as I jump ahead to the collateral damage. “Afterward, my dad blamed my mom. He said she should have locked up the liquor. My mom blamed him and said he should have paid more attention. He blamed her right back and said she shouldn’t have had liquor at her house in the first place. She blamed him and said he shouldn’t have been so strict that it made Willa want to sneak out.” I feel emotional whiplash all over again, the blame game the two of them played.
Finn sighs sadly, running a reassuring hand down my arm. “Losing a child would be hell,” he says, pain etched on every feature. “They were going through hell.” But then he squeezes my arm. “But you were, too, losing your sister.”
I get why they acted the way they did. “We all blamed each other. I blamed myself. I even told them as much,” I admit, inching closer to that terrible day in therapy when I told them.
“Why would you blame yourself?” Finn asks with a furrowed brow, like that’s the craziest notion.
“I taught her how to sneak out,” I say, impressing it on him, even though I just said it. I just admitted it. “And I should have gone. But I stayed home for a dumb reason. To text my college friends. I was sitting there on my bed with my phone and reminding Willa what window to escape through. Then I told her to come back in through my room using the door that wasn’t on camera because it was farthest away from Dad’s,” I say, both choked up and mad at myself all over again. “And while I was texting about meaningless stuff, my sister got drunk, jumped into a pool, hit her head on the side of it, and drowned.” I sound dead when I say that last part because a part of me died that night. “She was my best friend. The person I was closest to in the entire world.” I take a deep breath, and I push on. “And itwasmy fault.”
Finn’s jaw comes unhinged. His eyes darken with anger. “It was not your fault.Whotold you that?”
I purse my lips together. I don’t know if I can say it.
But Finn isn’t done. “Noneof that was your fault. It was terrible and it was tragic but it was not—”
“I taught her to sneak out.” I say it again so he gets it. “I was the older sister. I should have been responsible. If she hadn’t snuck out, she’d still be here.” Doesn’t he get it?
He breathes out hard. Grips my shoulders. “No.”
That’s all. A firm, clear no.
My eyes sting with tears.
“No, Jules. It’s not your fault,” he goes on, biting out each word. “You have to know that. It’s not your fault.”
“But if I hadn’t taught her that, she’d be here—” I insist, but more tears fall, sobs stopping my words.
