Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-six
Iris found Gabe gathered with his family at the base of the church steps. They fell into each other’s arms, exhausted for completely different reasons. The fireworks had ended. It was time to go home.
After stopping at Gabe’s place to pick up Hugo, the three of them drove back to Manhattan to Iris’s apartment.
She had left that day’s fertility medication in her fridge and had to go back to take her shot.
And they decided that, after a good night’s sleep, they would tackle the cleanup in the morning.
Gabe still urged her to report it to the police.
When Iris and Gabe arrived at her apartment building, her doorman, Sammy, was on the phone at the front desk, but he lowered it to give her a wave.
He seemed about to say something but Iris gave him a friendly nod and walked swiftly by, with Hugo helpfully tugging toward their apartment.
She was too exhausted for small talk. Iris just wanted to go home, even if it was a wreck.
Iris opened her front door to the sound of the vacuum running inside and stopped short.
Gabe put out a protective hand and shouted, “Yo! Who’s there?”
The vacuum was cut. And Ben in a backwards baseball cap sauntered from her living room. “Iris! You’re home.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Cleaning. I wanted to get more done before you got here, but it was worse than I thought.” His gaze fell on Gabe. “Oh, hey, man, I’m Ben.”
Iris shook her head in utter confusion. “How did you get in here?”
Ben reached into his shorts pocket and pulled out his old key. She had let him keep it, premised on the idea that he might occasionally look after Hugo for her, but not to use it like this.
Gabe dropped Hugo’s leash, and the old dog waddled over to Ben’s knees for a clueless hello.
Ben ruffled Hugo’s ears and put the other hand on his heart. “Believe me when I say, I am so, so sorry.”
Iris squinted, uncomprehending. “What are you saying? Sorry for what ?”
Ben gestured to the chaos around him. “For what Madison did to the place.”
“Madison?” Iris repeated, shocked.
Ben yammered on, “I told her everything when I broke things off, and she went nuts. But I never thought she’d lash out at you ! She stole my spare key! I got it back, obviously, but I might change the locks if I were you…”
Iris was frozen as this new information prickled her scalp and rippled down to the soles of her feet, when she realized the absolute worst person to be in audience for this conversation was—
Gabe held up his hands. “What the actual fuck is going on? Who is Madison? Who is this guy?”
Iris answered, “He’s my ex - boyfriend.”
“Oh, is this…?” Ben laid down the vacuum cleaner and headed for the door. “I’ll let you two talk.”
—
After ushering Ben out, Iris briefly pressed her head against the locked door, gathering the strength to face her mess. When she turned, she saw Gabe slumped in the center of her sagging couch, crestfallen. She picked her way through her wreckage to go to him.
“So is this all a lie?” Gabe looked stricken. “Did you ever think Wolff broke in, or was that an elaborate cover story for having sex with your ex?”
Her shoulders sank. “No, absolutely not. I completely thought it was Wolff, it made sense at the time. It never crossed my mind it could be Ben’s girlfriend, it’s so random—”
“But you did have sex with him.”
Iris lowered her gaze in shame. “Once.”
“When?”
“After Shelter Island.” After a beat of silence, she added, “But before you dropped off the Kintsugi vase.” But that sounded even worse to her ears.
Gabe breathed heavily through his nose. “I saw him. I knew he looked familiar. God, I’m such an idiot. I fucking bumped into him leaving your place that morning.”
“I’m so sorry. He surprised me by showing up here, I didn’t know where you and I stood, and he said things that the most hurt part of me really needed to hear.
” She knelt on the floor by his knees. “But I know now that my feelings for Ben were always about stopping pain, stopping loneliness, or hiding from it. I didn’t want to get back with him.
Even when we were a couple, I’m not sure I really wanted him. Not like I want you.”
“I feel so stupid.”
“Don’t, please don’t—”
“I was doing arts and crafts while you’re fucking some other guy. Worse, an ex. ”
Iris’s heart wrenched. “It was a terrible mistake, I loved what you made for me—”
“Here I thought I had to prove to you that I could stick it out, I had to apologize to you for one bad night, and you let me grovel! You let me think I was the problem. When in reality, we had our first fight, and you went back to your ex. You know, you could’ve just told me I was your rebound and saved us both a lot of trouble. ”
“You’re not a rebound. You changed everything.”
“I’m supposed to believe that now? Just, what, take your word for it? How can I trust you?”
“I’m asking you to let me earn it back.”
“Why should I?”
“Because you want to? Because I want you to. Because we want to take a chance on each other. It’s always a chance, Gabe.
Be brave and try to make something beautiful, knowing it might break—isn’t that what you taught me?
” Iris had been humbled by all she had learned about herself in the last few days, but with it came new clarity.
“Getting to know yourself takes a lifetime, getting to know each other takes a hell of a lot longer than a few weeks. Trust means you don’t know everything.
All I know is how I feel when we’re together, and when I’m with you, I feel alive, and safe, and beautiful, and… like myself.”
Gabe clenched his jaw, holding back emotion. “So everybody lies, the truth is unknowable. What a bunch of bullshit. Convenient take for the day I find out you cheated on me.”
“That’s not why I’m saying it.”
“You made me go against every instinct. You actually had me believing this could last, that you were different. But you’re just the latest in a long line of people I cared about who bailed on me.
You believe so much in feeling? I had a gut feeling we were wrong for each other on Shelter Island, and I wanted out.
But then something made me change my mind. ”
“That something was what’s good between us, what’s worth fighting for.”
“I’m supposed to let down my walls, get deep with you, worrying that one day, like last time, you’ll see a side of me you don’t like, and BAM —you’re gone.”
Iris picked up an overturned chair and sat down. “Now you know how I feel.”
“Don’t turn this around—”
“I’ve been living with that fear this whole time. Probably my whole fucking life!”
“Well, you didn’t get it from me. I never wanted you to be anyone else. You were the one who put me in situations where I wasn’t comfortable, where I couldn’t be real.”
“Not being comfortable isn’t the same as not being real. Real is usually uncomfortable.” Iris rubbed her temples. “But that wasn’t why you were so unhappy with me on Shelter Island. That wasn’t what was missing then. It’s not what’s missing now.”
“Then what was it?”
Tears filled her eyes. “You don’t love me. You don’t even know me.”
He softened, but only at the edges. “How can you say that?”
“You fell for a trick. A ploy.” Iris felt emotion overcoming her. She tried to be tough, but she couldn’t hide the heartbreak cracking her voice. “You’re a sucker .”
Gabe eyed her warily.
“You wouldn’t have looked twice at me if not for the perfume .”
“Huh?”
“You met me with it, you fell for me with it. We’ve barely had sex without it.”
Gabe snorted. “I’ve had relationships that were just about sex, Iris, that was never what this was, this was different. And it certainly wasn’t about perfume.”
“That’s why you couldn’t get hard for me in the Hamptons, the perfume had washed off.”
Gabe’s cheeks colored. “I couldn’t get it up because I felt like a broke punk compared to your boss—before I knew he was evil.”
Iris shook her head. “After that, I was scared to test it, but I had to. I liked you too much not to know. So when we made up, I didn’t wear the perfume, and I thought you wanted me for real, but then the next morning, you wore my scarf because it had the fragrance, you said you couldn’t get enough of it.
I thought I wasn’t wearing it, but it was on the scarf all along! ”
Gabe’s eyes flared. “You don’t believe I love you because I complimented your perfume? Are you insane?”
“Maybe I am! But it’s not a normal perfume, it’s magic!
Rapacine made it for me. She’s a perfumer, or a witch, probably both.
It works on you without you realizing, it alters your brain chemistry.
For the last few weeks, everyone has been responding to me differently because of it.
And I loved it! Because it helped me do what I always do—hide!
I’ve spent my whole life in disguise as a normal, chill, happy girl, I just never faked it so well as when I had the perfume! ”
“What is this story you’re telling? Just tell me the truth!”
Iris sprang up and went to the bathroom, tripping over the mess and Gabe followed.
She dropped to her knees on the bathroom floor and began sweeping her hands over the spot where the puddle had been, but the perfume had evaporated and left only sparkling specks of glass behind.
She bent so low to the floor that her nose touched the tile, but she couldn’t smell it anymore.
She grabbed larger pieces of the broken bottle and rose to meet Gabe in the bathroom doorway.
“Here, here, smell. Smell this! This is what you fell in love with!” Iris thrust the broken glass at him in cupped hands.
“What? I don’t smell anything—oh my God, Iris, you’re cut.” Gabe caught her by the wrist, smearing a trail of crimson blood.
Iris opened her hands to see that the shards of cicada wing and the broken bottle base had sliced her palms, and though the perfume was gone, her blood had taken its place.
Gabe pulled her over to the sink and turned on the water, making sure it was warm, not hot, and held each of her hands under the running faucet, gently washing the glittering slivers and fragments out of her flesh. The water ran rosy pink.
After a little soap and a delicate pat dry, he closed the toilet seat top and sat her down on it. “Do you have a tweezer?”
“It’s fine.” Her energy spent, she slumped with her hands palms up on her lap. In seconds, the lacerations bloomed with fresh scarlet drops.
Gabe was standing, turning on every bathroom light. “Just tell me where I can find tweezers.”
“Medicine chest.”
Gabe turned to the mirror, pausing to read the slur still written there.
With one forceful swipe, he smeared it to illegibility, before opening the cabinet to find what he was looking for.
He sat across from her on the edge of the tub, her bathroom was so small their knees touched.
“Believe me, little splinters hang behind, you have to get them all out. Give.” He put out his hand.
She reached hers out to him, and Gabe took it on his lap, opened her palm, and went to careful work.
Iris still had more to say. “You only like things that aren’t broken.
You liked me when you thought I was the together one, but now I’m coming apart.
And you don’t know how deep the cracks go, it would scare the shit out of you.
It used to scare me, I was too afraid to look—but now I have.
I’d been lying to myself for twenty-five years, and I’m done.
No more. I’m done hiding my ugliness, and anyone else’s for that matter. ”
Gabe dug out another splinter of glass, making her wince, and he whispered an apology.
But Iris expected this to be painful. “You want the truth? My truth has never been clearer. I love you. But I know how I got you, and I can’t believe in us when we started like that.
So that’s it. You should just go.” Iris pulled her hands back to her own lap.
“I mean it. I have my own stuff to face, and you can’t fix it for me.
So maybe I’ll heal myself or maybe I won’t.
But if we ever meet me again, at least we’ll both know who we are. ”
Gabe exhaled, his broad shoulders sloping.
“I never wanted you to be perfect, even if I did think you were pretty damn close. To be completely honest, your super-togetherness stressed me the fuck out. And I told you, nothing about you disgusts me or ever could.” He ducked his head to make her meet his eye.
“Because I did love you, Iris. I still do. And I don’t smell any perfume. ”
Her breath caught.
“But I don’t know if I can forgive you.”