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I couldn’t say any of that.
I couldn’t hold back my tears, either, but I could at least try to listen, to support him, to tell him he’s not the monster he thinks he is or the monster others have painted him as.
I’m so glad I kept my promise, now.
And I’m glad I heard August’s story from his own lips before I heard it through someone else’s warped need for slimy gossip.
Settling back into normal after that felt like a farce, but it felt nice too.
August offering me a bite of his foie gras and me recoiling when I found out what foie gras actually is.
He teased me with it like a little boy threatening to put a frog down a little girl’s dress, menacing me with the forkful and smirking when I squeaked and tossed my head away.
He was too happy to steal a few of my truffle fries when I offered, though, nipping them right out of my fingers.
Even if tonight was a lot, he’s more relaxed, too, since getting that secret off his chest.
I like that he can be that way with me.
That I can tease him and he’ll tease me right back, and tell me what a brat I’m being when I pout and insist on dessert even though we’re both stuffed.
A slightly tipsy brat, too, if I’m being honest.
I may have indulged in a little too much wine. It was sweet and fizzy and it tasted good, and it helped keep my brain from getting stuck to certain questions.
Like whether or not August still has feelings for his dead wife.
The way he talked about Charisma Marshall ... he must, right?
Even if he didn’t love her at the end, you see this with widowers.
The memory of their dead spouse becomes larger than life. Someone they can idolize and love as the deceased shapes every ideal in the imagination, no matter what the real person was like.
Worse, he just blames himself for Charisma’s flaws.
Like he’s the one who made her what she was, the person who would make the choices she did.
I don’t know how to convince him otherwise.
I linger on that as I watch the city at night, twirling my fork through the remains of something called a Lunar Orbiter. It’s a confection of dark chocolate ganache and vanilla meringue with macarons.
Well, the second one to be exact. I already finished mine.
This is the rest of August’s. After he took one bite, he wrinkled his nose in the most adorably disgusted way and pushed it across the table for me.
But I don’t have enough room in my belly to inhale a second whole plate, and the sparkling wine is settling in a little too deep. I’m thinking too hard as I watch the city rotate like we’re up high in a lunar orbiter of our own, drifting gently among the stars and looking down at how peaceful the world is when you can’t see all the small petty things up close.
... I think I’m trying to convince myself that August is still in love with his dead wife.
I need him to be.
Because as long as I tell myself he’s in love with her, I can remind myself that he’s completely off limits.
He’s soft in the intimate shadows of the lounge, silently staring out the window with his legs crossed and a stem glass in one hand. He’s somewhere else, and I wonder what stars he’s seeing and wishing on.
Can he still wish on stars at all?
The shadows play over his face until I can pick out every small detail, from the way they kiss the space under his stark cheekbones to the way said cheekbones cut the light into a thin, gleaming sliver.
