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Maybe there is hope for me after all.
Thayer’s brows rise and she throws a wide-eyed look at Nera before looking at me. “Are you saying you drove to Switzerland from France just to bring her dinner?”
“There’s also breakfast and lunch in there for tomorrow,” I reply, looking only at Nera. “I made that veggie hash you love.” She used to ask me to make it for her at least two to three times a week.
I’m hoping she’ll accept it. If the only part of me she’ll allow near her is my cooking, then I’ll take it. I’ll survive on thoughts of her eating my food alone until I have her back in my arms.
“That’s a two and a half hour drive each way,” Six points out.
“I’m aware,” I say, walking right up to where Nera stands on the steps. She looks down at me, her expression blank, revealing nothing. “Have dinner with me,” I whisper.
She turns her head away. “No. Go back to France, Tristan, you’re wasting your time here.”
I clasp her wrist before she can walk away and place the bag’s handle in her palm, closing her fingers around it.
“Take the food, Nera. I made it for you.”
She sets the bag down on the steps without looking at me.
“I don’t want anything from you,” she says, her voice sad, before walking back into the building like she hadn’t been on her way out somewhere before I showed up.
I watch her go, the wound in my chest ripping. I so badly want to run after her like I have in the past, to make her forgive me, but I know this is different. She can’t be forced. She has to make the decision to come back to me herself.
As unnatural as it is for me, as much as it’s difficult to restrain myself, I know what I have to do. I have to suffocate and snuff out the primal need calling at me to take her and keep her. It burns a hole in my chest but I clench my fists and resist, turning towards her friends instead.
They stand on either side of me, watching me silently. They look unsure what to do with me, their faces still angry and suspicious.
“Tell her I’m not leaving until morning. I’ll be in my car if she changes her mind. It doesn’t matter what time of night; I’ll be waiting for her.”
“She won’t come,” Bellamy tells me.
“That’s alright. I’m not so easily dissuaded.”
I pick up the bag and hand it to Six who’s standing closest to me. “Watch over her for me?” I ask. “Make sure she’s taking care of herself.”
She nods, taking it from me, and follows Nera back inside with Thayer.
Bellamy stays, giving me a hard look.
“Why did you help me the night of the grand opening?” she asks. “You didn’t know me and I wasn’t actually in any danger.”
We’ve never spoken about it. When she didn’t bring it up after my relationship with Nera was revealed, I thought she must have been blacked out and couldn’t remember that night.
“I knew you were Nera’s friend.”
“You did it for her?”
“Yes.”
She tilts her head to the side, digging for something. “Why?”
I jam my hands in my pocket and look up at the sky. The beauty of being in Aubonne is an almost complete lack of pollution. The stars shine bright and beautiful at night.
“Even back then, she was all I could think about. I knew it would hurt her if anything happened to you or if I even took the risk of letting potential harm come to you. I had to make sure you were safe.”
“You did all that because you didn’t want her experiencing any kind of hurt and the whole time you were lying to her about who you were?”
Not strictly true, but still I grit my teeth and say, “Yes.”
