Chapter 34 #2
Alana has told me I need therapy, and she needs therapy more than anyone on the planet. I decide not to unpack this irony, right now.
“What about you?” I ask. “What’s your plan? Because I assume you have one, and both it’s terrible and brilliant.”
Her smile widens. The champagne catches the light from a nearby work lamp. “I am living out my vision board,” she says, with serene confidence. “I’m going to be on a yacht. In the Mediterranean. With Reginald Ashcroft.”
“Reginald Ashcroft,” I repeat. “The famous actor? The one from the show. The one you were definitely lying about knowing?”
“I wasn’t lying!” she says, aghast, as if I’ve accused her of being a serial killer, which she kind of is.
“He's a friend. A close friend, if you catch my drift,” she winks, communicating he might be a friend with benefits. “He has a yacht.” She takes another sip of champagne. “It’s gorgeous. White. Three decks.”
“And how exactly do you plan to fund this lifestyle?” I ask. “Because the vault is locked and the rings are in evidence and Interpol is?—”
Alana looks at me.
Then she reaches into the waistband of her dress, and produces two rings.
Two rings.
Gold. Heavy. Real.
I stare at them. I stare at her. The rooftop tilts slightly beneath me, or perhaps that's just my understanding of reality rearranging itself, which it does with increasing frequency when Alana is involved.
“Oh, Billie,” she says, with the warm, patient tone of a teacher. “You didn’t think I’d give you the real rings? Those were from the casino gift shop. They were twelve euros each.”
“The— the gift shop?”
“Souvenir rings.” She holds up the real ones, turning them so they catch the light, and they are— even to my untrained eye— visibly different from the ones I held.
Heavier. More intricate. Alive with a weight that has nothing to do with gold and everything to do with what they unlock.
“I got Ivan to make a little detour with me in exchange for a small cut of what’s in the vault.
I swapped them. You were too distracted by our impending deaths to notice. ”
“You— you swapped?—”
“I told you… I knew you’d do the right thing,” Alana says, and there is genuine tenderness in her voice.
“I knew that if it came down to the rings or Rodrigo’s life, or even my life, you’d give them to Marco.
Because that's who you are. You’re the person who always does the right thing.
” She pauses. “And I knew Marco would believe they were real, coming from you. Because you have an honest face. The most honest face I’ve ever seen.
Like a Disney character, but with worse cheekbones.
” She tucks the rings back into her waistband.
“If the swap had come from me, he would have been more skeptical.
But from you? Bambi eyes? He didn't question it for a second.”
“You used my honesty as a weapon?”
“I prefer ‘leveraged your authenticity,’” Alana says. “It sounds better on a résumé.”
She stands and brushes off her dress. She looks down at me with an expression that is— beneath the glamour, beneath the performance— the expression of a woman who has found something real and is trying to hold it gently enough not to break it.
“I should go,” she says. “Before Interpol realizes those evidence bags contain twelve-euro novelty jewelry and starts asking questions…”
“Alana—”
“Don’t.” She holds up a hand. “Don’t make it sad. Sad is for people who don’t have yachts.” But her eyes are bright, and her lip does a thing— a small, involuntary thing— that tells me she is feeling this goodbye in a place she doesn’t usually let people see.
I stand. I pull her into a hug. She hugs me back— tight, real. And it says everything she can’t.
We pull apart.
She turns to the edge of the rooftop, where the fire escape descends along the building’s exterior in a zigzag of iron and shadow. She pauses, balanced on the edge, silhouetted against the lights of Rome.
“Tell Rodrigo I said he’s welcome!” she calls over her shoulder.
Then she descends. Barefoot, carrying two rings worth more than most countries, climbing down the fire escape of a Roman casino with a fluid ease that suggests she does this all the time. I watch her go— her shape getting smaller against the building’s side— and then she’s gone. Just like that.
The rooftop feels quieter without her. Everything always feels quieter without her.
I am still standing at the edge, looking at the empty fire escape, when Melissa appears beside me.
“So,” She pauses, “Don’t be mad at me. But someone is here to see you.”
“Who?” I ask, though something in her tone tells me I already know.
“He wouldn’t stop calling,” Melissa says. “He called me, like, fourteen times. Fourteen.”
My stomach tightens.
“Also,” Melissa adds, with careful precision, “please don’t get back together with him. Not after handsome Rodrigo took a bullet for you. I love you. I support all your choices. Except that one.”
She steps aside. And there, emerging from between two Interpol officers who look mildly confused by his presence, is:
Tyler.
He looks exactly the same. That’s the thing that strikes me first— the absolute sameness of him. The baseball cap. The sneakers. The graphic tee under an unzipped hoodie. He walks over to me, and even though he looks the same, I barely recognize him— maybe it’s because I’m different.
“Billie,” he says.
He steps closer. His hands are in his pockets.
“I took a really long flight to get here,” he says.
“Like, really long. There was a layover in Frankfurt. The Frankfurt airport is terrible, by the way— the food court situation is not great.” He catches himself.
“But that’s not the point. The point is— I’ve been an idiot.
A complete idiot. I should have been there for you.
I should have noticed you were gone. I should have done— a lot of things. Differently. Better.”
He says this with what I can tell is genuine effort. Tyler is not a bad person. He is a person who has floated through life on the current of least resistance, and the current brought him to me, and he stayed because I was comfortable and I stayed because I was afraid of wanting more.
Over Tyler’s shoulder, I can see Rodrigo.
He is still propped against the ventilation unit, the emergency blanket around his shoulders, Benny beside him with the prosciutto.
He is watching me. Not with anxiety, not with jealousy— with trust. The steady, unhurried trust of someone has told me what he feels and is willing to wait for me to choose.
I look back at Tyler.
“Tyler,” I say, and my voice is steady. It is the steadiest it has ever been. “We all deserve to be happy.”
He blinks. “I know. That’s why I came— I want to make you happy, Billie?—”
“You can’t,” I say.
The words come out clean, and maybe a little meaner than I intended. They are not wrapped in apology or softened with qualification.
“I’m breaking up with you,” I continue. “We should have done this a long time ago. I don’t regret the time we had, but we have to let each other go.”
It’s me, breaking up with Tyler this time. Not Alana, doing it by text. Not someone else, making the decision for me. Me. Billie Harper. Making the choice. And because of that, I add:
“I hope you find everything you need. I really mean that. Truly.”
Tyler stares at me. He looks at the rooftop, the Interpol agents, the helicopter that has repositioned to a landing area nearby.
“Oh,” he says. “I did— I came a long way?—”
“I’m sorry,” I add— because I am Billie Harper and I will probably always add “I’m sorry,” but I’m saying it because I mean it, not because I’m afraid. “You’re not a bad person, Tyler. You’re just not my person.”
He nods slowly. He looks at his sneakers. Then he looks up.
“Is it that guy?” he asks, glancing at Rodrigo.
“Yes,” I admit. “But it’s also me.”