Chapter 22
NADIA
EIGHT YEARS AGO
Ian had called Nadia hours ago to let her know Aimee was flying home today, alone.
He’d been distressed about her, seeming troubled on the phone.
He wasn’t flying back with her, but she also wasn’t bringing James home.
Nadia had offered to pick her up at the airport, but now that she was here?
She couldn’t make herself get out of her car, her body betraying her with violent shudders.
Aimee’s plane had landed fifteen minutes ago, but the weight of the secret she’d been carrying kept her stuck in the driver’s seat.
Aimee didn’t know she was here. She wasn’t expecting her.
Nadia should just go home. Pretend she never came.
She could tell Ian something came up. It would be much simpler.
So much easier to avoid her than telling her the truth, which she deserved to know.
Gawd! She buried her face in her hands. Aimee had thought James was dead. She tried to move on. Nadia pushed her to move on. Watched her grieve. Comforted her. Steered her towards Ian. And all the while, she knew! She knew he was alive. What kind of friend was she?
A shitty one. Someone who didn’t deserve Aimee’s love and respect.
Nadia should tell her. It was the right thing to do.
But what then? Aimee would never forgive her. She might not even want to know. Ian hadn’t said much on the phone, but what if she’d finally found some peace?
Then Nadia couldn’t tell her.
She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel and bounced her leg. She glanced repeatedly at the terminal, her stomach in a twisted knot.
“I hate myself.” Agonizing over this solved nothing, and sitting there was making her sick.
She wasn’t a coward. But Aimee was practically family.
A dull ache had settled behind her eyes. Nadia would weigh Aimee’s mood, then she’d decide whether to tell her.
Decision made, she left the car.
Inside baggage claim, she found Aimee’s flight’s carousel on the monitor and reached her just as she hauled her luggage off the track. Aimee turned and bumped into her, nudging them off balance. Nadia grabbed both her shoulders as Aimee looked at her in surprise.
“Welcome back.” Nadia pulled her in for a tight hug. It was really good to see her. As excruciating as it’d been keeping Thomas’s secret, she’d been so worried for her friend.
“How—”
“Ian called me.” Nadia wrapped an arm around her waist. “Come, let’s get you home.
You look like shit,” she said because that was something Aimee would expect her to say.
Act normal. Say normal things. Pretend she hadn’t possessed the knowledge that could have ended her suffering months ago and maybe, she could bear living with this secret for the rest of their lives.
But Aimee did look like shit. Her curls cascaded in chaotic beauty and the dark crescents under her blue eyes were a stark contrast to her sunburned cheeks. She walked like she hadn’t slept in days as they made their way to Nadia’s car, her feet dragging with her roller case.
“Gee, thanks.” Aimee grimaced and Nadia immediately felt sorry for saying anything at all.
“Tell me everything,” she insisted, intent on keeping Aimee talking so she wouldn’t.
Aimee told her about James’s condition, which was outlandish, while Nadia drove. He had dissociative fugue and went by the name of Carlos, and bits and pieces of what Thomas had shared with her these past months came together. He didn’t recognize Aimee.
Then Aimee told her about Thomas’s confession and Nadia’s heart rate sped up.
She had the reckless idea that he’d told Aimee she knew about James to get back at her for not talking her out of going to Mexico.
But he’d only given her a very generalized explanation about why he’d needed to fake James’s death.
Nadia too only knew what Thomas had shared with her, which she was sure wasn’t near the whole truth. But it was more than Aimee knew.
“I don’t think he told me the full story,” Aimee said, as if reading Nadia’s thoughts.
“No?” Nadia asked through a tight throat. She wiped her damp palm on her jeans.
“I don’t want to know either.”
She doesn’t want to know.
If Nadia hadn’t already been invested in this conversation, that would have snagged her attention. She stared at Aimee. “You don’t?”
Aimee shook her head. “It would be harder to get over him if I knew everything. He isn’t totally out of danger. I think the less I know, the better off I’ll be. Safer, too. Don’t you think?”
“I guess.” Nadia shrugged, hoping she came off indifferent, objective. Inside, she was a wild windstorm of nerves and tension, sweaty palms with a sour stomach. A chaotically beating heart.
“Besides, he isn’t James anymore.”
“How do you mean?”
“Carlos is his own man with kids and a career. It took me a couple days—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Nadia held up a hand. “Kids?” Thomas had not told her that.
“He married his physical therapist, Raquel, and adopted her son. They had another kid together, a boy. But she died in childbirth.”
Nadia’s body seized. “That’s so…”
“Tragic, I know. Everything about this sucks. I never dreamed of a life without James. But he, I mean Carlos, has kids. Who am I to ask him to walk away from that?”
“Someone who loves him?”
Aimee shook her head. “I loved James. He isn’t James anymore.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Nadia offered.
“I don’t think I would have been able to leave him behind if he was himself.” Aimee chewed on her bottom lip.
“What is it?”
“Ian told me he loved me.”
“He what?!” Nadia braked a little harder than usual at the light and they both leaned forward at the abrupt stop.
Aimee sipped her water, screwed the cap back on. “He didn’t tell you?”
“No. He failed to mention that epic detail when he called. That’s good, right?” Something finally lit a flame under that man’s ass. Nothing like a little competition for a woman’s heart.
Aimee put away her water, scrunched up her nose. “Maybe? I’m not sure. I like him, a lot. More than like him. But that was before…”
“Before what?” Nadia prompted, and when Aimee didn’t answer, she asked, “What are you going to do about him?”
“Nothing. I hurt him. Long story, but I doubt he’s interested in me anymore.”
Nadia gave her a look. Was she high?
“Trust me. He’s more than interested. Why do you think I’m here? He was very concerned about you. He cares for you, a lot, and it’s obvious. You’ve been through so much, and I can’t begin to conceive what you need to process, but don’t give up so quickly on him.”
“We’ll see.”
“Are you glad you went, despite everything?” Nadia asked, coming to a stop in front of Aimee’s house.
“I am. I needed to see for myself what had happened.”
Aimee unfolded from Nadia’s car, retrieving her luggage in the backseat.
Nadia blew her a kiss and Aimee wished her goodnight before shutting the door.
Nadia watched her head for her house. When Aimee reached her front door, she eased down the window, remembering she’d forgotten to tell her something very important. “Hey!”
Aimee turned around.
“I love you.”
Aimee smiled, and Nadia almost burst with joy over how genuine and broad it was.
“I know,” she said, and Nadia laughed. Despite her sadness and reluctant resignation—which she knew would take time for her to get past—there was a lightness about her.
Aimee was resilient. She was ready to move on.
She would be all right. Better than all right.
Nadia watched her go into the house, holding her secret close to her chest. She hadn’t told Aimee she’d known about James because of what Thomas had said.
But rather what Aimee had said. She didn’t want to know Thomas’s full story about James.
Because she understood better than Nadia that closure didn’t always come from revelations.
Sometimes it came from letting go of the need to know.