AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Kate winces.
“I’m trying to be honest. Shit. This is not what it seems.”
I rub my hand up and down my thigh, and this time she puts a hand on my arm.
“Why didn’t you tell me about her? I came to see you because I hadn’t heard from you and … and …” She swallows. “I found you …”
I’m crumbling inside.
“We’re so new, Kate, and it was so special … itisso special with us. This was supposed to be one night. I didn’t want to bring all my past bad decisions into our relationship.” I run my hand over my face. “I’m mortified about the whole thing with her—how I got sucked in, the fact that I left her. Her tactics are always the same, and I should have known what she’d try and do, so now I’m ashamed all over again. It must have been terrible to see us like that. It wasn’t what it looked like, I swear, Kate. I don’t know why my arm was over her. Maybe I thought it was you in my bed.”
Now I’m wincing, and I glance at her to find she’s chewing her lip.
“After I saw you …” She swallows. “… together, she came after me, asked me who I was, told me she was your girlfriend, that you’d been with her since college. It just seemed so plausible that I was some bit on the side …”
I’m already shaking my head. “How can youthinkthat after how good it’s been? You’ve been with me most nights! That’s insane.”
I reach for her hand, but she dodges me again. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”
I beckon her with my hand. “Kate.” But she steps farther back. “You know,” I say, pressing my hand to my heart. “You know how it feels in here. Do you think I would do anything to jeopardize this? Every time we’re together, I’m lit up inside. I’ve never felt like this.”
She turns her head away and closes her eyes, and numbness invades my chest. Her face is pale and her mouth a straight line, milky lashes a ghost against her cheeks.
“Ask Janus,” I mutter. “Ask him what Nadine was like, what I did, whether what I’ve told you is true. I would never get back together with her, Kate. You know what we have.” I gesture between the two of us, then look up at the ceiling. How can I convince her?
“I was with Nadine for three years, all told. It took me a year to understand, and two years to extract myself. You’ve no idea how relieved I was when our relationship finally ended. She got chucked out of NYU, but she hung around with the crowd anyway, ingratiating herself with anyone who would give her a bed. Eventually, she disappeared, and that was like a get out-of-jail-free card, but I was also worried that she’d spiral down into something worse. So, I did a bit of research and I found out she’d taken up with a guy from a biker gang. And that was the end of it. I’d not heard from her until three weeks ago.”
“Okay.”
That isn’t saying anything.
“What do you mean, okay?”
She takes a deep breath and meets my eyes, steady, calm.
“Just that. Okay. I’ll think about what you’ve said to me. I’ll talk to Janus.”
The hollow feeling in my stomach hasn’t gone away. “Where does that leave us?”
“I don’t know, Fabian. I just don’t know.”
25
Kate
Every day something arrives for me, sometimes two things, either at my work, in the mail or some kind of delivery. A card is in the apartment letterbox every morning—a goddamn card!—some of them he’s made himself, and those ones are terrible. Yesterday’s read:
Roses are red
Violets are blue
You’re the one for me
And I’m the one for you.
I laughed. My God, so bad. And Fabian has never appeared to bethatguy, the guy who would orchestrate something like this. Liss always wants to see what he’s sent and what the card says, no matter how crude or personal. She gives me raised eyebrows when there’s sexual innuendo, and I get that: I have never beenthat girl. White-hot passion and I are strange bedfellows. The first couple of days she collected the mail because I didn’t realize what was coming, and she peered over my shoulder as I went scarlet, but as soon as it was clear these things were going to turn up every day, there’s been no refusing her.
On the third day, a huge bunch of red roses arrived at the ER. It was such a classic romance thing that I wanted to text him: “Really? Flowers? What’s happened to you?”
