29. Chapter Twenty-Four Georgia Philips
Chapter Twenty-Four: Georgia Philips
D espite our late night, I woke up before dawn the next morning, just in time for our last day in Italy. George and I had gotten back from his studio around midnight, and then I’d collapsed into bed and slept soundly. I dressed, brushed my teeth, and made up my face in a hurry. Part of me felt like a giddy teenage girl about to go to her favourite band’s concert. Another part of me wanted to mock myself for the butterflies in my stomach and the fizzy excitement thrumming in my veins.
It’s only George Devereaux. The man you’ve known for ages, who you’ve seen in various embarrassing states The man who changed your life forever. The man who you can’t stop thinking about no matter how hard you try to throw yourself into work and school and forget about him.
Nope. Not going there .
I gave myself a quick spritz of perfume, checked my reflection one more time in the mirror—lips were perfectly lined, my eyeliner was flawlessly drawn, and my foundation was dewy, not cakey. Then I headed next door to see George. I’d already hammered on his door once with no response when I realized he might still be sleeping. After all, just because I was awake didn’t mean he was.
I reconsidered my plan of knocking on his room door. After all, I may not have been a Christian like Katerina was, but showing up at a man’s hotel room door unannounced was definitely not the kind of thing a respectable, well-brought-up girl would do. Even my mom would agree with that.
I didn’t have time to question or regret my choices, however, when George opened the door. He was bleary-eyed, clad in a button-down shirt and a pair of rumpled jeans that looked like he’d picked them up off the floor and thrown them on.
Despite his obvious fatigue, he smiled when he took me in, his eyes drinking in every inch of me in a way that made me glad I’d worn my second-best outfit of the trip. It was a white dress that I’d heard described as ‘cottagecore’, with a lace-up corset-style bodice and a flowing skirt that billowed out around my ankles.
“I missed you,” he said, his voice raspy from sleep. “Come here.”
“You saw me last night,” I protested as I stepped through his open door and into his room.
“And that was six hours ago.” He protested, wrapping his arms around me and enclosing me in his strong, solid arms. I breathed in the scent of him. A girl could get used to this kind of wake-up call.
I chuckled, tipping my chin up and kissing him. A red smear of lipstick stood out on his cheek when I pulled away, and I wiped it off with my thumb.
“Thanks for showing me your studio last night,” I said .
“Of course. I’ve wanted you to see it for a long time.” He gestured toward the two chairs by the desk, thankfully avoiding his unmade bed. “Have a seat. I’ll make us some bad instant coffee.”
“Sure. I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“I didn’t get much sleep anyways. I was tossing and turning.”
I situated myself in the wingback armchair in the corner of the room. “What kept you up?”
“Dreams of you.” He shot me a wink and I groaned.
“Has anyone ever told you you’re terribly cheesy?”
“I’m Québécois. I’d be worried if some part of my DNA wasn’t made of cheese,” he said as he filled the coffee pot with water.
The mirror hanging on the back of the door stared back at me. I picked up a tissue and started blotting my now-smudged lipstick.
“You don’t have to do that, you know,” George said, his voice echoing from within the bathroom.
“Do what?” I stood and crossed the room toward the mirror, examining my reflection more closely.
“Be perfect.” He put the now-full coffee pot in its place, and added the instant coffee packets to two cups. Then he strode toward me and wrapped his arms around my waist from behind. “You don’t have to dress up for me, Georgia, or wear makeup. I love you as you are.”
His breath warmed my neck.
“And what if I don’t do it for you? What if I don’t want to look nice for a man ?“ I retorted.
“Then I’d be overjoyed that I get to see you like this, because you do it for yourself. Because it makes you feel confident. But I don’t think that’s the reason you did your makeup this morning.”
“You’re a mind-reader now?” I chucked the used tissue in a nearby trash can .
“I can read one mind. Yours, half the time, and mine half the time. Together, that makes up one mind.” He shot me a grin that I caught as we both looked in the mirror.
“I wear makeup because I want to.” But that wasn't true. I wore it like a shield.
I’d done it first to hide my acne when I was twelve. Then, when that had cleared up, I’d kept wearing it because I didn’t know who I was if I wasn’t perfectly made up. If I didn’t suit what society and my mother and those around me thought a model should be. I didn’t know who I was without makeup on, because I didn’t know who I was if I wasn’t a model . If I wasn’t Georgia, made famous by walking on runways and catwalks. If I wasn’t the flawless doll for designers to dress up and Instagram commenters to fawn over.
“Okay.” I could tell he didn’t believe me, but he didn’t press the subject either.
Instead, he just traced his hands over my arms, his hands gently coming to a stop on my shoulders.
We were silent, meeting each other’s gazes in the mirror. The water boiled in the coffee pot, but neither of us moved.
His hazel gaze seemed to say a thousand words all at once. I love you. Tell me the truth. What are you afraid of?
Or maybe that was what I wanted him to say. Maybe I wanted an excuse to tell him the truth, but I was too cowardly to bring it up first.
“I’ve really enjoyed this trip,” I said, just to break the hold that meeting his eyes had on me. I spun around and stepped out of his grasp, taking up his invitation to sit on the chair by the desk.
“So have I,” he said. “I’ve learned a lot more than I expected to.”
“Oh? Like what? ”
“More about God than I expected to learn,” he said softly. I thought of how he’d prayed over our dinner, and the words he’d spoken to me. The you God made is so much more than a pretty face.
The Bible study I’d gone to came to mind. We’d read that God didn’t look at appearance, but at the heart. How was my heart? Crammed with futile, materialistic, and superficial obsessions, striving toward perfection that I’d never reach because the goalposts kept moving?
“Me, too,” I said softly.
“I should make that coffee.”
I nodded, my eyes meeting his for a brief moment before flitting to the chipped manicure on my nails.
“Stop doing that,” he murmured.
“Doing what?” I demanded, clasping my hands together on my lap.
“Stop looking so… guarded. You keep looking at me like I’m about to hurt you.”
“Maybe it’s because I haven’t forgotten how you broke off our fake engagement,” I snapped.
George flinched, but didn’t step back. “I love you.”
“So you keep saying.” It was a low blow. I kept waiting for him to retreat, to realize I was too much. Too much work, too difficult, too different for us to fit. I waited for my harsh words to scare him off.
He didn’t.
“I love you,” he repeated, “and I broke off our fake engagement because I love you.”
“Did you also break your legs because you wanted to run a marathon?”
“I’m tired of the lies, Georgia. I’m tired of pretending. If I’m going to be yours and you’re going to be mine, I don’t want it to be for any reason other than the fact that we love each other and want to be committed to each other. No more fake relationships. No more publicity contracts. Just you and me.
“I broke off our fake engagement because I didn’t feel like I was worthy of you,” he admitted. “I couldn’t allow myself to believe that I deserved you, and I wanted you to find someone who did.”
My heart knotted itself into a new shape behind my ribs.
“I love you, and I want to be the man who’s good enough for you. The man worthy of you. And for a long time, I didn’t believe I was that man. What could I possibly offer you?” He gave a sardonic laugh. “I was a wandering nomad and an artist with no real home. But now I have this job, and a somewhat stable life, and I’d like to give you whatever I can, everything I have. It won’t nearly be enough, it won’t nearly be what you deserve, but…” He sat in the chair next to mine, and reached for my hand. “I hope that you’ll be patient with me. Let me try to be a man worthy of you.”
A lump swelled in my throat. I swallowed and spoke. “It was never about being enough for me, George.”
“No?”
“No. It was about whether you wanted us to be enough for you. Whether, after all your travelling and restless wandering, you wanted to settle down. I thought you broke things off because you didn’t want to be tied down.”
He squeezed my hand, and somehow that gesture seemed to warm my entire body.
“You have always been enough for me, Georgia. You’re perfect for me.”
“I’m not perfect,” I protested.
Because even though I was no longer staring at my reflection in the mirror, I could still see all my flaws. Under my foundation, I recalled a scar I’d gotten once from falling off my bike on the left side of my chin. My hips were slightly crooked; one of my legs was slightly longer than the other. I had never liked how short and stubby my fingernails looked under my fake nails. My body was imperfect in dozens of minute ways that my agent, designers, magazine editors, and strangers on the internet had pointed out to me.
“You don’t have to be perfect, Georgia. I don’t want whatever made-up version of perfect you have in your head. I want you . I love you.”