The Virgin Society Collection

28. My Impossible Wish

28

MY IMPOSSIBLE WISH

Jules

Things that make me feel like I’m doing something wrong—furtively glancing behind me while I knock on the door of Finn’s hotel room in the early evening.

I already texted and told him I wasn’t sure if I could meet tonight, but he asked me to come by to talk in person anyway. I’m not cut out for sneaking around. I can’t keep doing this.

No less than two seconds after I knock, he opens the door, his expression resigned.

I step into his room, wanting to fall into his arms but knowing that’d be a mistake. “Hi,” I say heavily.

“Hey, you.” His voice is like a warm hug, one I hardly deserve.

“I was such an idiot to be so public with you,” I say, my shoulders falling.

“Don’t say that. You’re brilliant and bright. You’re not an idiot.”

“But I am. For thinking I could…”

Could what? What’s the point of this confession? Finn and I never made any promises to each other. We never said we’d do anything but spend every night together in Paris. We were always an affair.

I draw a soldiering breath and try to put the lunchtime conversation in its proper place—it was a valuable piece of advice that I was lucky to receive from a woman who’s made it. “Solange said I should focus on work, and she’s right,” I say, resolute.

Finn’s lips straighten into a ruler, and not in a sexy way like they did the other night. His eyes turn guarded. His nod is slow as he takes this in. “Okay.”

His tone is stripped of emotion. And I hate it. I just hate all this pretending. I hate all this sneaking around. I hate all this…role-play.

“Look,” I say, grabbing his shirt collar. “I fell for you too. Maybe that’s ridiculous and stupid. But I did. And we both know we can’t happen. We were never supposed to be more than a one-night thing, and we kept falling into each other. Tomorrow I go back to New York and you have your son. That’s your focus, and I need to think about work, and there’s my father and?—”

His lips crash down on mine. Hard, bruising, passionate.

He pushes me against the wall and grabs my face in his hands like I belong to him. Like no one else can ever touch me. He kisses me possessively and madly.

But like he’s angry with me too.

When he breaks the kiss, he huffs, still mad. “You’re so fucking perfect for me it makes me crazy.”

What?

Perfect for him?

I swallow past my surprise. “What do you mean? Perfect for you?”

His touch is still rough. “I can talk to you. I can be myself with you. I can tell you things and know you’re not manipulating me. You’re open and honest and caring, and I can’t stand how much I want you. In every way,” he grits out, every word seeming to rip him apart. He shudders in a breath like he can barely control his emotions. “And the last thing in the world I want to do is hurt you.”

He loosens his hard grip on my face only so he can thread his fingers gently through my hair. “Know that, Jules. I want this . But know, too, I don’t want to be the one to hold you back. To hurt you. To ruin any…relationship.”

But my relationship with my father was ruined years ago. I don’t know if it can recover or if I’ll just keep pretending everything is fine with him. I don’t know how to move forward with Finn, either, or if I even can. Maybe I’m too broken. Or maybe Solange was right. She’s certainly right that Finn and I are in different places. I don’t know anything anymore.

The knot from earlier today has nothing on this new one rising up in my throat, like it’s going to strangle me with all these damn feelings. “Finn,” I say, choked up.

He strokes my hair. “Come on one last date with me. I told you I had a surprise for you. And it’s actually something that’s on your list.”

That perks me up. The intrigue is too hard to resist. “But we’ve done everything on it.”

“Yes and no. The first day you said you wanted a garden all to yourself. So I arranged one for tonight.” He pauses, steps back a few inches so he can watch my reaction, I suspect, as he says, “We can go to Monet’s Garden, and it’ll just be you and me.”

If I wasn’t already in love with him, I am now.

The town car he arranged whisks us to Giverny in just over an hour. We arrive as the sun coasts toward the horizon, pale pink and orange streaks painting the summer sky.

We go inside the big house with green doors, Finn handling the details with an older woman whose gray hair is cinched in a bun. She must be managing this icon of gardens, and Finn’s buyout for one night.

I’m still stunned that he’s made this private visit possible. Then, I’m awed to walk into the famous gardens at the height of their summer glory.

Emerald is everywhere, from the vast lawns to the trees canopying the grounds. Wildflowers pop up as we walk, rippling in the summer breeze in a riot of shimmery purples, ruby reds, and vibrant oranges. Lavender is everywhere.

With Finn’s hand wrapped around my waist, we wander along a tree-lined path with a wooden fence, then deeper into the gardens, the endless peonies and poppies saying goodbye to their blooming days, as roses shoulder their way up in bold pinks, whites, and reds.

Butterflies escort us, and bumblebees hum as they flit from flower to flower. It’s a dreamlike place, and tonight it belongs to us. The walled gardens and house make this moment feel even more intimate as we’re surrounded by sweet and delicate scents of flowers, and even the silence is soft and lush.

It feels like a sin to speak, but I do it anyway.

“My favorite things,” I say, gazing around at the flowers.

“I know.” He sounds pleased. He should be.

“I’ve never been someplace so serene,” I say in a hushed voice even though we’re the only ones here. But there’s a magic spell in this garden, and I don’t want to break it.

“You deserve it,” Finn says, pressing his hand firmly against my back.

I let his words burrow into me— I deserve it . Finn makes me feel that way—like I deserve good things.

But he also seems to love giving those things.

“I think your whole let me punish you with pleasure mantra has reached its peak,” I say to the man obsessed with my bliss.

He laughs. “Let me know when you can’t take it anymore.”

I gaze around the vast gardens that go on endlessly. “I can definitely take it.”

We wander past peonies, their sweet aroma taking me back to younger days, when Willa and I would sneak out as kids.

Those are both my best and my worst memories. Of summers. Of days spent with friends. Of nights wanting more. Of my sister, always pushing, always wanting, always a little wild.

My heart aches even as it fills. When we reach the famous green bridge arching over a pond of water lilies, Finn lifts a brow. “This bridge is okay?”

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 with this dark 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 I have to 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 it was my fault.”

Finn’s jaw comes unhinged. His eyes darken with anger. “It was not your fault. Who told you that?”

I purse my lips together. I don’t know if I can say it.

But Finn isn’t done. “ None of 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.

His eyes flood with concern and rage. “Who told you that?” He asks again, this time more urgent. “Who made you believe this?”

I close my eyes. My throat is too tight. My head hurts too much. I don’t want to say it, but I’m tired of not saying it. “My father,” I say, barely audible as I give voice to the hurt I’ve carried for years.

“What?” Finn hisses, like I can’t have just said that.

But I can and I did. I said the thing I’ve told no one. I take a huge breath and meet his intense gaze. “We were in therapy a few months afterward, and I told my parents that I’d taught her. They said it wasn’t my fault. But the next day we went to visit her grave, my dad and me, and he was a mess, but he said, ‘If you hadn’t taught her to sneak out, she’d still be here.’”

Finn’s eyes flicker with shock. For a few long seconds, he’s simply speechless. “Fucking Tate,” he mutters, then he blows out an angry breath and shakes his head vehemently. “He’s wrong. He’s just wrong. Things happen. Life happens. Your sister made a choice, and it was tragic. But you didn’t push her. You didn’t make her drink. And you should never have to carry that with you.”

Finn lets go of my shoulders so he can cup my cheeks instead as he implores me: “Promise me, just promise me you won’t carry that guilt with you anymore. I’m sorry about the loss of your sister. I’m sorry that she’s not here. I wish you had your best friend. But it’s not your fault. Not at all. Not one bit.”

Could he be right?

I replay Finn’s words, trying to hear the story through his ears, trying to see that day through a new lens.

“You’ve been telling yourself that for years?” he asks.

“Yes,” I admit.

He half looks like he wants to punch the wall like he did the night at the Albrecht Mansion when he learned who I was, and he half looks like he wants to hold me in his arms forever. “Jules. My sweet, wounded, wonderful Jules. If it had been reversed, would you have wanted Willa to punish herself like that?”

My head swims with that unexpected question. One I’ve never contemplated till today. But one I know the answer to deep inside myself. “No, I wouldn’t.”

And saying that, something in me lifts. It rises from my heart, and maybe, just maybe, floats away into the summer breeze, carried on the scent of roses.

“Then next time you write to her, write that down. Because I know that’s exactly what your sister would say to you too—it’s not your fault. You need to tell yourself until you believe it to be true. Since it is true,” he says, then presses his fingertips to my sternum. “So you can let go of this awful, terrible guilt that isn’t yours to bear. You loved her, and she died. That is all.”

Was it this easy after all?

Did I simply need someone else to say it to me? Yes, I think I’ve always needed that. And he’s the one who did.

I wrap my arms around him, rest my face on his shirt, and take what he’s offering.

I stay in his arms on the bridge for a long time as the sun sets over Giverny. When twilight coasts into the gardens, finally I break the embrace. “I fell for you too,” I say. I said it in the room, but I want to say it again. “Take that with you.”

“I will.”

He gazes at me with such tenderness, such poignancy that I want to say screw the world. I think he does too.

Instead, we kiss until night falls and it’s time to go.

On the flight home the next day, I return the way I came—alone. But maybe that was the point of Paris.

Finn helped me to let go of something that had been hurting my heart for years. I showed him that two people can share honestly.

Even the ugly parts. Especially the ugly parts.