Chapter XVI #3
“Hey, hey, slow down. That’s not what it’s like—you know, I get a narrative here too.
” His voice is tinged with urgency. “Who’s to say I just ruined my life?
What if it’s quite the opposite? What if my life was drying up?
The only happy ending here doesn’t have to involve you and me and a palace in Marseille.
My life has some momentum again. I’m making choices, wanting things.
And for what it’s worth, something doesn’t need to be eternal to be valuable. ”
“You say that now, but what happens when you make it back to Lyon?” I can hear my own heartbeat, can feel it in my kneecaps.
“And you’re figuring out what to do with your apartment?
And you’re lonely? And Antoine is cold with you?
And you’re dividing your group of friends between you and Charlotte?
And I’m not around anymore as some kind of temporary balm? ”
“Does it matter? You’re here now. We’re both here now. Why do we need to make that so complicated?”
“Because I leave in forty-eight hours!” I shout. “Even less than that now.”
I know this is an unfair way to give him the news. I’ve been treating it like a stubborn infection ignored until it turns lethal, and I haven’t so much as opened the ticket in my email.
A jolt of panic flashes across his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Despite my tactless delivery, I want him to know that I feel equally accosted by this information. “Alec booked the flight—Antoine let him know that we were wrapping up here. I didn’t know until this morning.”
“Well then, what now? What do we do with that?” He wrings his hands, staring at the vines rather than me.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know.” I can feel my eyes prickle. “I . . . it would have been easier to leave if you hadn’t . . . with Charlotte. I just . . . I thought we’d have a clean break. I don’t know . . . I don’t know what I thought. I suppose I knew all along that it wasn’t clean.”
He takes a step closer, and I let myself press into him. I rest my forehead against his chest. He smooths his hand down my hair, down my back.
“OK, we both know—have always known—that you were returning to New York. That I’m staying in France no matter what it is that I go back to in Lyon.
” His voice grows steadier, more assured as he speaks.
“We picked each other in spite of that fact, not because of it—even if you’d argue the opposite.
But Alice, we have forty-eight hours . .
. and I think if there’s any unforgivable thing, it’s not leaning in.
You’ll be in Paris someday. I’ll be in New York.
Or maybe not; maybe this is it. But don’t ruin it now, OK? Let’s not do that.”
I can think of nothing so reckless as lowering my defenses to a person who is so close to disappearing. A person from whom, against my will, I want so much.
Then again, the wanting is louder than everything else.
He reaches for my waist, pulling me into him by the small of my back, and holds my hair back in a fist to kiss my neck, to nuzzle his face into my shoulder. I let out some kind of low-pitched sigh. An exhale that travels across the whole of my body.
“Alice . . .” he whispers and presses his mouth to the dip between my neck and my collarbone.
He says my name as if he’s invented the word, as if no one has stacked those precise syllables, in that very order, until right now.
He is right; of course he is right. If not now, if not this, then what?
I tell myself. Don’t think your way out of this.
Together, one intertwined being, we slip farther into the vines, drifting into total darkness. I tug the ghostly bodice of my dress over my head, and he unbuttons his shirt slowly, his eyes flashing and never leaving mine.
This time, we’re rough with each other, like we want as much as we can get while we can have it.
I tug him out of his pants. He laces his hands through my hair at the roots.
I climb on top of him and bite his arm as he thrusts into me.
He spreads my thighs as wide as they’ll go, my knees scraping across the dirt.
Fucking him feels like being underwater—sound suspended, bodies liberated from the tenets of gravity.
When I come, his fingers dancing between my legs with an insistent deftness, I feel my orgasm wash over me like a warm, silken tide.
When we’re finished, he pulls me onto him gently.
“Let’s pretend like it’s the real thing, OK?
You and me. Just ’til you go,” he whispers, and I nod, collapsed on his chest, too content, too sated to resist. So we lay there, trading affectionate sentiments back and forth.
Just before I drift off, I think about the saccharine, dismissive ways we use the phrase sweet nothings.
How sonnets and pop songs have ruined the term.
How it is my pursuit to embrace both—the sweetness and the nothingness—for these last two days. Now closer to one.
We fall asleep curled into each other on the ground, pinned in place by an exhaustion so full-bodied, we can’t possibly move.
We wake in the hazy blue light before dawn, the sound of birds above. He yawns, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and runs a hand along my cheek affectionately. I sit up begrudgingly, the cloud of a hangover hovering over my forehead while we search for our clothes.
Once dressed, we intertwine our hands and tiptoe back into the house, parting by our bedroom doors.
He kisses me goodnight—or good morning—and I feel the shape of his smile pressed against my mouth.
Then I step into my room, shutting the door as quietly as I can. Ruby lets out a sleepy, guttural groan.
“Alice . . . is that you?”
“C’est moi,” I whisper. “Sorry to wake you.”
She moves to the edge of her twin bed and pats the space next to her without lifting her head. “Get in here, already. It’s not a morning for waking up alone.”
I grin in the dark and crawl in beside her, buoyant with gratitude as she pulls the blanket over me and drapes a heavy, limp arm across my body. “Sweet dreams, honeybee,” she murmurs.
I fall asleep quickly, thinking, My God, how lucky. How lucky, how lucky.