The Virgin Society Collection

29. The Laughing Stars

29

THE LAUGHING STARS

Jules

Two nights later, jet lag has left me, incomprehensibly, both wide awake and exhausted. “This sucks,” I moan to Camden, who’s camped out with me on my couch, binging a new TV show.

“It’s eight. You’re allowed to be up,” she says.

“No, I meant the missing,” I say.

She pats her shoulder. “Here. Lean on it.”

With a frown and a yawn, I obey. Sighing. And thinking some more on everything that happened in France. “But I also needed it, you know.” I think I mean both the Paris affair and the end of it. I’m not sure I’m ready for anything more.

She hits stop on the show. “I think you did.”

Camden knows I told Finn about my intrusive thoughts. Earlier tonight, I gave her the rundown on my trip, leaving out the garden revelation in Giverny.

I figured I’d spend the flight home replaying the it’s not your fault conversation, letting it fully soak in. Instead, I read, watched a movie, fell asleep. Maybe cracking open that close-held secret was all I needed to unburden me.

I don’t only want to tell a man though. Solange might not have been right about everything—I’m not convinced falling for an older man would ruin my focus—but she made good points about not relying on a guy.

“There’s something else,” I say, ready to tell Camden.

My friend sits up straighter at my tone. “What is it?”

I rip off the Band-Aid and tell her about the night Willa died, the thing my father said at her grave, and the way I’ve felt for six years.

When I’m done, she wraps her arms around me. “Why didn’t you ever tell me? I would have told you the same thing. It’s not your fault .”

“It was too awful,” I whisper.

“I hate that you thought that for so long.”

“Me too.”

She hugs me tighter, holds me closer, then lets go, eyes as sharp as her voice. “Are you going to talk to your dad?”

I wince. “Someday. Maybe.”

“Yeah, sometimes that’s all we can hope for. A someday. But I’m glad you told me. Because he’s just wrong.” She wags her finger playfully at me, narrows her eyes. “But I’m still mad you didn’t tell me till now.”

There’s something I can share just with her. “Do you want to see this card I keep in my journals?”

“Of course I do,” she says.

I grab the journal, then slide out the card. “I saw this card once in a gift shop, and I bought it. For myself.” I square my shoulders. “It’s, um, a sympathy card.”

“That tracks. Let me see it,” she says, holding out a hand.

“I haven’t written on it. I just like the quote. It’s from The Little Prince. ” I read aloud, “ In one of those stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing when you look at the sky at night . ”

Camden’s eyes shine. “I love that. I believe that,” she says softly.

I believe it now too.

Taking the card, she studies it a little more, clearly weighing something before she speaks. “Maybe all the writing you do in your journals was what really helped you believe it wasn’t your fault. And then Finn just helped you close the door on your guilt.”

I give that some thought as I fiddle with the stars on my anklet, then I meet her eyes. “I think you’re right.”

The next night, after work, I shower and then break out my journal. I haven’t written in it since I left for Paris.

But tonight, I tell Willa what I did while I was there.

I don’t write a long letter. I still write in code because it makes me feel safe. But it’s not as obfuscated as it once was.

A quiet street in Montmartre. A dinner in a courtyard. A secret visit to a garden. The scent of roses. And then the words—no, no, no.

You’d have said the same to me. I should have said something sooner, but I know now. And when I look at the sky, all the stars are laughing.

A busy week of work on The Rendezvous , a night of filling in for Scarlett on piano at a speakeasy in Murray Hill, and on the weekend, I’m lounging on Harlow’s orange couch, waiting for the rest of the women to either stay in or fold.

Layla hums as she studies her cards, then tosses them down with a harrumph. “Cards, you suck.”

Harlow sighs. “I’m out,” she says, folding too.

Camden shrugs, having already bowed out.

I grin like a Cheshire cat then take their money. My poker face is still good, even with this ace high. “Poker night should never end,” I say.

Before we begin another round, Layla turns to me. “Paris report. Now.”

Here goes. I was expecting this demand tonight. I made my decision before I walked in the door. “Well, since you asked,” I say, nerves chasing me, but confidence too. I’m trying to change. Trying to let my friends in. “There’s this guy.”

Harlow’s eyebrows lift in obvious excitement. “Two things that go together well—Paris and a guy.”

“Yes.” Even though there’s a pang in my chest over missing Finn, I push past it, turning to Layla. “And you know him.”

She blinks. “I do?”

I’m not violating his privacy here. My friends aren’t going to blab about Finn to my father. “He’s Nick’s brother,” I say, connecting the dots for them.

Layla’s mouth falls open. “Finn,” she whispers in shock.

“Yes,” I say, and I don’t tell them everything. I don’t break Finn’s confidence. But I tell them a little more about our time together abroad. “I fell in love with him in Paris, and he fell for me.”

The sighs, the hearts, the flutters from my girls.

But then, I tell them the heartbreak. “Except it’s not meant to be.”

Harlow tosses up her hands. “Why not?”

“He’s friends with my father and Dad’s his lawyer,” I point out, because hello? That’s still a thing.

“So? Bridger was in business with my father,” she says, and damn, she’s not wrong. They crossed that hurdle.

Still.

“He’s in a different place in life. He has a kid,” I add.

Layla scoffs. “Um, Nick has a twenty-two-year-old kid. Who I used to date.”

And that’s fair too.

Camden just smirks. “Girl, you picked the wrong audience if you want sympathy for this dilemma.”

I sigh, then try again. “Because…neither one of us said we wanted to keep going.”

That shuts everyone up. Really, that’s the bigger issue. I could have said something on our last night together. I didn’t. Because there are things I need to work on—for me.

And I did one of those things tonight—I stopped hiding myself from my friends.