Chapter 30
I find William folding clothes in the Segner House laundry room.
His face lights up through the window when I knock outside the door, and I enter to the cotton-sweet scent of warm dryer sheets and soap suds.
The dryer’s mechanical chug thumps and whirrs, creating a humid warmth that hangs in the air.
The weight of what I have to reveal falls on me like a heavy curtain. How am I supposed to explain he can no longer be here? That parts of Ivernia are slowly vanishing because of him?
When he spots me, he takes a step back and flourishes a hand over piles of perfectly folded sweaters and pants.
“I believe I’ve improved upon this skill.” He looks proud of himself. “Driving, on the other hand, I could do without.”
I lean on one of the unused dryers, set my palms against its surface, and hoist myself into a sitting position. The ache in my stomach has dulled, but it’s a temporary reprieve. I’m never sure when it’ll heighten again.
“The lesson didn’t go well?”
“Oh, it did. They were excellent instructors. I was merely the problem. There’s quite a bit to remember, so many knobs and levers.
” His smile dims. “Perhaps it is a testament to the time I left behind, and not to say these advancements aren’t necessary, but it’s in those moments I realize how difficult it is to fit in here. ”
My heart constricts. I have to tell him. “I’m sorry, William.”
“No, I’m sorry. I was not completely honest with you about yesterday.
” He inches forward. “I’d been thinking—well, I should like it if Caroline and my mother could join me here.
Then I realized what an impossibility that is, though indulging in the general merriment of alcohol was an unwise way of quelling those terrible emotions.
But to stay here? It seems…lonely.” A bleak expression flits behind his eyes.
“To not jest with Caroline or talk with my mother—abandoning them for the sake of my happiness isn’t what I desire.
It wouldn’t fulfill me. They are my home, too. ”
A despairing pang pulses through me. He’s here, sitting right in front of me, but it already feels like loss.
There are so many qualities I admire about him.
His directness, the effortless way he passes compliments and offers vulnerable feelings as though they aren’t difficult to disclose. But he was never meant to stay.
“I understand,” I say.
“I cannot continue to live someone else’s life here. It isn’t right.” He smooths a hand over the dryer. “Staying feels like running from the problems I’ve left behind, and I must try to make my father see what it is I want. You’ve encouraged me to do so.”
It’s the brave path forward. His happiness and choices are important, and neither of us chose this exact scenario as a remedy for our problems. A tender piece of me wants to confide in him.
To tell him what he’ll go on to accomplish, but Sumner still doesn’t think it’s a good idea. I have to trust that he’s right.
“William—” I start.
“Before you go on, it’s imperative you know I will keep my promise to escort you to the gala as we discussed earlier, but I’m afraid I should leave shortly after.” He releases a tight breath, as if he can’t keep his next words in any longer. “Delaney, I will miss you most of all.”
I don’t expect the sudden sadness that slams in my chest. There’s a certain softness in his gaze now.
I’ll miss him, too. It’s funny how well we’ve come to know each other in this limited time together.
Maybe I was caught up in the dream of us, but it doesn’t mean I’m not worthy of romantic declarations and every big and small way that love shows up in a person.
If things were different, I could see us enjoying the gala together. He’s pulled me from my comfort zone and breathed new life in conversations and done his best to fit in, unafraid and certain, despite all its uncertainty.
But he doesn’t belong here.
I don’t know why we were meant to cross paths in this strange, surreal way. Is it to prove that nothing lasts? Because my dad’s death was a stark reminder. I don’t need another.
“It has to be tonight,” I whisper, and it takes everything in me to withhold tears as I explain why.
Concern splays across his face. “I see,” he says when I finish. “So this is all the time we have left?”
My dad once told me meteor showers happen when Earth travels through leftover cosmic debris, tiny bits of rock and ice floating around in space left behind by comets or asteroids.
Pieces, particles, fragments—all of which were once part of something whole.
Space crumbs that enter our atmosphere only to be vaporized by heat, bringing forth a gleaming celestial display within the night sky.
A marvelous spectacle that, in a blink, is there and gone.
I wonder if that’s how this will feel, if the pieces of ourselves we shared with each other will disappear in an instant.
There, then gone. It brings a tidal wave of profound devastation.
Despite the bizarre and strange and unbelievable circumstances it took for him to be here, I wouldn’t trade the time we spent together over the past few months.
Whatever cosmic fate allowed this to happen, I know it wasn’t all for nothing.
There’s a fragile sadness etched across William’s face.
“This is it,” I say softly. “I’m sorry.”
But he shakes his head. “Do not apologize. This is for the best.” He takes my hands in his. “If I were to find a woman with your kind heart and vast intelligence in the whole of England, then I would be a very lucky man indeed.”
You will, my heart says. Instead, I say, “I don’t know if I’ll ever find someone as brazenly open as you.”
“Delaney.” There’s a knowing edge in the way he says this. “I have faith you’ll come to find the person who feels like home in your heart.”
I hold on to this depiction of love, letting it fill all my hollow, empty spaces.
Emotion leaks from my next words. “Is there anything you want to do in your final hours here?”
William glances around the cramped room, at the remaining clothing pile and then down at his student lanyard holding an ID that isn’t really him.
He pulls his emerald cravat from the clean laundry and lets the material slide between his fingers.
When he looks up at me, his expression holds pronounced acceptance.
“Continued conversation with you,” he muses, “and perhaps a cup of tea.”