Chapter Twenty #2
He dreaded it, a little, having an appointment—too close to an itinerary, too close to what they were supposed to be doing today, had they stuck with the wedding party.
But once they were ushered through the glass doors at their assigned time, he let it go—Layla’s eyes lighting as she looked up at a spiral staircase that rose through a three-story glass display, a rainbow arrangement of dresses and handbags and shoes and hats.
Obviously, Griffin himself had no interest in clothes, other than making sure they didn’t touch him the wrong way, but he could see right away it was different for Layla.
If she noticed the horde of tourists that staged dramatic, social-media-ready photos on the staircase, irritatingly slowing the foot traffic up the steps, she didn’t betray any annoyance.
She kept her eyes moving over the rainbow, the same way she kept her eyes on every set piece they eventually passed—mannequins in puffy skirts and tight jackets and dramatic, swooping hats, gowns made of what looked like flower petals or the falling parts of the brightest stars.
At one point, they entered a two-story room that was clearly meant to be a culmination: music playing, the kind he imagined he should’ve danced with her to in that grand garden ballroom, light softly changing and projecting images over the ceiling and walls.
He looked at gowns he wouldn’t ever be able to describe except to say that Layla gazed at them with pure wonder, and all he’d been able to think about was why he’d never seen her in something, anything like this, why she wasn’t right now wearing that gauzy white dress with the smallest pleats all over the full skirts, like little envelopes waiting to be opened, revealing her secrets.
The best part was after, when she talked and talked about why she liked it, but all in the form of questions to him: Did you like the way—? Did you see how—? Did you notice that—?
Mostly, the answer to everything was no, or at least, I only liked the way you liked it, but by that point, he was so well settled in to how comfortable it was to be asked.
All day, it was asking each other—easier and easier, further and further beyond what was right in front of them for their wandering.
She would ask him, Are you still okay? or Should we sit for a while?
and it didn’t make him snap in frustration or embarrassment.
He would ask her, Did you go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower before?
or Have you ever tried one of these? and it didn’t make her look wistful or heartbroken.
The answers, too, were easier and easier to give.
He told her about the pain scale, even told her when he got to a six so they could stop, finding a bench in the Jardin du Palais Royal.
He rubbed openly at the worst of his contracture scars, the one that tracked from below his left ass cheek all the way to the outside of his knee, while she told him about her family, or rather, her lack of one: her mother, dead in a car accident when Layla was only two, so young that Layla didn’t have a single memory of her; her father, distant and ambitious, closer in temperament and appearance to the son he’d already had from his first, failed marriage, and only truly notable as a parent for the way he’d always arranged good nannies and babysitters for Layla; a half brother, Vaughn, almost a decade older and a physician like Layla, but a neurosurgeon, relentlessly busy and obligatory in his contact with her, a brother who “probably” loved her but who never had time for her.
And the MacKenzies, the family she’d come to think of as her own.
If they ran up against a barricade—him, willing to talk about what he did for his pain but not what had caused it; and her, willing to mention her divorce but not who chose it or why—they simply bounced off it, back to safer streets, wandering again.
By dusk, they’d been together for hours, still directionless except for how they kept drifting in the direction of each other, letting those long leashes tangle, their bodies more than keeping close now.
His fingers set gently on her spine as she stepped into another shop, her foot moving idly against his when they sat at another bistro, their shoulders and the backs of their hands constantly brushing as they made their way along the river again, where the bouquinistes were closing up their dark green stalls for the day.
Every small touch felt the same as shoving that pretend door he’d imagined this morning further open.
Like together, they’d made it so they were both now standing on the threshold of a heaven he could not have possibly imagined three days ago, and all Griffin wanted in the world was to keep pushing through.
He thought of last night—that dark street, that other doorway—and felt the old confidence rise up in him again.
He would be able to do it this time, after this day.
Stay with her, keep kissing her, no touch too much.
He would not mess it up this time. He would not hurt her.
But then, Layla stopped.
Right along one of those gray stone walls that lined the Seine, and somehow—her posture, her eyes not meeting his—he knew not to touch her, accidentally or otherwise.
He moved to stand beside her, a slice of space between them, and stared out at the water.
In his periphery, he could see those fucking bell towers again, lit up against a dark lavender sky, another place of pretend coming back to haunt him.
“Tomorrow,” she said, and he swallowed, nodded once, though he didn’t think she was looking at him.
He nodded more for himself, a reminder, a coming-back-to-earth.
Scanning his body, he still only felt pain in a mundane way: his feet achy in his shoes from walking, like a regular tourist; four out of ten on the thigh and knee; some itchiness along the ragged terrain of his torso; no weird heat or tingling or electric currents coming from a place he couldn’t point to.
That was a victory, he knew.
No crossing into heaven, but no going back to the gates of hell, at least.
“All the other guests arrive,” she continued. “It’ll really feel like a wedding now. Best-man, big-sister stuff.”
He nodded again. But he couldn’t say anything, not yet. He was busy packing himself up, a green stall shuttering, vintage postcards from his life that he’d taken out for Layla to see tucked away again.
Bad confidence, he thought, scolding himself. What had his fucking confidence ever gotten him, really, but too close to the sun? He couldn’t ever really stay with her. He couldn’t ever avoid hurting her.
He could never predict what touch would be too much.
He shouldn’t have ever let himself wander so far from what he’d come here to do: see Michael settled, finally. See Michael happy.
One hurt he’d always wanted to see healed.
“There’s some kind of spa thing in the morning,” she was saying, maybe packing herself up, too, in her mind already getting out the spreadsheet that she’d admitted, only an hour or so ago, also had all her carefully chosen outfits listed, the ones that would help her—what a joke, to think it was possible—“blend in to the background.”
For the first time in probably a half decade, Griffin thought of this pain management specialist he once went to, a six-foot-five former basketball player who had a wait list a mile long.
Griffin had walked into the two-hours-away clinic for his long-awaited appointment and had seen all the state-of-the-art equipment—ergonomic machines, water tanks, massage tables that moved with the press of a button, nerve stimulation kits at every station—and thought, Give me the works.
But instead of the works, he’d been forced to sit in an uncomfortable chair for thirty minutes while this man talked earnestly to him about meditation, the untapped power of his mind, about how the rest of Griffin’s life would be about honoring the days when he felt good, and not allowing himself to forget about them on the days when he felt like he wanted to die.
Fucking fine, he thought, beaming a belated apology to the doctor he’d never gone back to. I should have kept doing the meditation. I should have learned it all, just so I could eventually remember this one day in Paris with Layla Bailey.
“Griff,” she said, and he let his eyes close, bracing himself for the end of this.
He was pretty sure they were only two bridges from the turnoff toward the hotel.
He’d go back to his room, check in with Michael; he’d go back to being a bad best man in the usual aloof Griff way, instead of the entirely-absent-for-an-entire-day way.
He’d sit down at that weird little desk in his room and try to remember every single place they’d wandered to today; he’d pretend he was carving it all into the stone wall of his tower.
He opened his eyes, and faced her. He would not put her in a car alone this time. He’d walk with her. Two bridges, a turnoff, the hotel lobby, and an elevator he’d been in with her before. He’d manage.
“Good day,” he managed. Then he added, “Thanks,” as though she was his paid tour guide.
He would not write this part down, obviously.
Twelve hours ago, she probably would’ve rolled her eyes at him. She would’ve scowled and said the sort of cutting thing he’d only ever heard her say to him. That would have been welcome in its own way, he supposed, because at least he would still have the truth of her.
But she didn’t do either of those things. She looked at him, calm and steady. She broke bad news like a good doctor did; he’d give her that.
Two bridges, a turnoff—
“The thing is, though,” she said, “it’s not tomorrow yet.”