He's got it coming: Love is the best revenge

by Alexandra Winter

  He washes down the mouthful with water and clears his throat. “Why would you do that?” He puts his hand on mine.

  “I didn’t see a point in living without Isac. He was my everything.”

  I’m an idiot for it now, and for revealing it to you.

  Henrik smiles as if showing me he’s happy I’m opening up and talking about my past like he wanted me to at the cabin. “Thank you.”

  I sniffle and dry my eyes. “I’m tired of playing games. Hiding. Aren’t you?”

  “I don’t have to play games with you.” He tilts his head toward my diploma on the wall. “You know everything.”

  “Not true. You never write about your emotions to anyone.”

  “You never shared yours.” He shuffles closer to me, nudging my shoulder.

  My goal was to break you into depression, suicide.

  “You’re not going to kill yourself over losing me?”

  Shit, that sounds conceited.

  He puts his arms around me. “You’ll always be my soul mate. If I live, there’s still hope.”

  I want to tell him that there’s not, and there never will be. But I can’t. I’ve hurt him enough.

  I can’t put my finger on what it is, but I feel lighter. Isac didn’t love me. Maybe it’s because I’ve thrown up everything that was inside me, or it’s a relief to know that I didn’t end my life for a cheating husband.

  We sit for a while, watching the snow glide past the window outside, eating our bread until Henrik breaks the silence. “I wish I could change this. I’ll never find someone like you.” Henrik nudges my side. “I don’t want to go back to dating.”

  I lay my head on his shoulder. My nose catches his citrus scent again. If he hadn’t started out as an asshole, a killer, I could love him. Maybe I even do because I don’t want him to start dating others either. “Why did you take the photo of the car after the crash?”

  “The woman, Runa, told me to. She wanted to show the hospital in case they asked questions.”

  “I should have asked you about this right away.” I conclude to myself that although I might have fallen in love with Henrik, I’ll never have peace with him, knowing what he’s been like, and living in fear he’ll return to his old ways. “Choose your next girlfriend better.”

  Henrik scoffs at this. “You don’t choose who you love.”

  “Yes, you do. You give a piece of your soul time after time. After a while, you’ve given your entire soul to that person. But every step towards that is a choice. Like you chose to stay when I told you to leave. How you dared to share your past, let your walls fall, allow yourself to be vulnerable, and give me the space to accept you for who you truly are. You can’t love without vulnerability, because that is what love is. And vulnerability is a choice.”

  “Sure, those are choices, but it never felt like it. I knew I didn’t want to lose you.”

  “It wasn’t real. You never had me, Henrik.”

  He rips off a piece of bread but lingers with it in his hands. “At least I know why you refused to share your opinion of our first kiss.” He holds out his arms toward me. “We can’t end things like this.”

  As though hypnotized, I glide into his arms. His chest moves up and down with his breathing, and I inhale his fresh scent, which feels safe and comforting.

  His stubble pulls on my hair as he shakes his head back and forth over mine. “What a waste.”

  35

  The next morning, sun rays stretch across my bedroom floor. Henrik’s arm is holding me. Last night we talked. When I got tired, he held me until I fell asleep. No sex, no flirting, only kindness and support. I wipe off the dried salt of my tears shed through the night.

  I rest my hand on his, his warm body comforting. “I’ll miss you,” I whisper, hoping he won’t hear me.

  His lips part in a quiet pop. “I’m here, sitting still in the boat until the storm calms.”

  After hating him for six months and knowing every detail of his cheating ways, I could never share my life with him, no matter how much I’ll miss him. “This storm won’t.” I hope I’m right. Not every wish comes true if you wait out the struggle. Some fade and are lost forever.

  “We’ll see each other again. Witnessing you hack that hospital, I saw the real you. I love you even more.” His voice is assured and filled with love. “We are too good together to let our past ruin what could be a wonderful future.”

  While he prepares our last breakfast, I shower, dress, and wear his mother’s bracelet one last time. I don’t want to give it back, but it’s the right thing to do. I want to be the one to take it off my wrist, though, when the time is right.

  I pass the office and stop. The door is open, and so is the desk drawer.

  He’s been snooping?

  Panic-stricken, I pull the books out, hoping to see Judit’s photo and information, but it’s gone.

  I run downstairs.

  Henrik’s in the hallway pulling his shoes on. His complexion is white, and his eyes red. The look on his face is as if I’ve deceived him in the worst way possible. And I have.

  “You knew she was alive? All this time?” The love in his voice is gone, replaced with shock and disgust. His hands are shaking and the pages he’s holding rattle.

  “I’m sorry.” I want to reach out for him, tell him that it’s not what it seems. But it is. I visited her grave with him knowing she was alive. “I…I’m sorry.”

  “I even told you that I hoped you had found something, and you call me deceiving?” Through gritted teeth, he asks. “Is this all the information on her?”

  “That is all I found.”

  He storms out, and I follow, pulling my winter boots on as I stumble after him down the front stairs and out on the street. I grab his arm to hold him back. “We can’t leave things like this. Can’t we at least talk about this?”

  Henrik turns, looks at me as if I were the lowest kind of creature ever created on earth, and with a ton of disappointment in his voice, he responds, “We have nothing left to talk about.”

  He walks from me, and I want to shout out that I’m sorry, that I intended to tell him, and when he stops at the corner of my building, I almost do. A small hope that he’ll return builds. Perhaps he’ll let me explain.

  Instead, he lifts his hand in the saddest wave I’ve seen, his fingers falling once, then he’s gone.

  “Goodbye.”

  I stand alone, watching the empty sidewalk where he disappeared until my body shivers from the cold. All I needed to do was tell him.

  An hour later, I take the trash out and meet Mrs. Nerli in the hallway on my way back.

  What on earth is she doing?

  She’s always dressed up, her hair fixed, and makeup on after eight in the morning. But today, her rollers are still in, she’s in her light blue robe with matching slippers, and shaking a box of what appears to be Melvin’s treats while calling out, “Here, puss, puss, puss.”

  I shut the front door of the building behind me to prevent any new cat from escaping. Mrs. Nerli jumps at the sound. “Oh. Hello. Have you seen my cat? He’s white and beige with pointy ears, and…large, not fat, furry, and gentle. He’s kind. I can’t find…he wasn’t here when I woke…have you seen him?”

  Her voice is shaking while describing what Melvin looked like. The wrinkles on her cheeks are moist from unwiped tears.

  “Um…a new grown cat?” I bend to search under the staircase, but there’s no cat in the shadows or any other animal there.

  “Darling?” Mr. Nerli’s strained voice fills the hallway from the second floor. “There you are. You had me worried.” He smiles apologetically to me while she buries her face in his pristine white robe and sobs.

  I take a step forward to help comfort her, but Mr. Nerli holds up his hand, gesturing for me to keep my distance, to stop moving. He holds his index finger up to his lips for me to stay quiet. “You know how he enjoys a good game of hide-and-seek,” he says.

  But there’s nowhere to hide here.
r />   “He always comes when I call him.” She speaks into his robe, and the terry cloth fabric muffles her words into incoherent gibberish.

  Mr. Nerli’s shivering hand strokes her head, calming her. “I made you a cup of tea. Go enjoy that. I’ll search for Melvin.”

  She hands him the plastic box. “His favorites.” She saunters back up to their apartment, and Mr. Nerli stands watching after her until she closes the door behind her, then he turns to me.

  “Would you mind disposing of these treats for me? I’m not dressed to go outside.” He holds the box out, lifting his bare toes from the cold floor.

  I take it from him. “But…?”

  He shakes his head, and my fingers clutch tight around the box as it sinks in that she thinks Melvin is still alive.

  “Her memory?”

  “I first discovered it in August, on the night your friend stood outside our building, shouting in the middle of the night. She suggested we visit her mother, who died twenty years ago.”

  That’s why you let Cecilia in, and why you’ve been so overprotective of Mrs. Nerli lately.

  I hurry out to dump the cat treats into the trash before rushing back inside. “I’m sorry.” I hand him back the box.

  “I miss her.” He swallows, lifts his head, and forces a smile as he follows his wife, lingering on the third step. “Her heart breaks every time I reveal that Melvin’s passed. I couldn’t do that to her today.”

  “I’m sorry I took him from you.” As I say the words, tears well in my eyes, but I wipe them off.

  “Oh no, it was an accident. You would never hurt him, we know that. You did all you could. Accidents happen, however sad they are.”

  His sour tone hasn’t been about me, but due to worry for his wife.

  He told me it wouldn’t be a happy New Year, and now I know why.

  “I won’t say anything.” I hope to provide some small comfort in knowing I’ll keep his secret and play along if I meet her again.

  He returns up to what has been their home for the last thirty years. When their apartment door opens, Mrs. Nerli is thrilled to see the box empty.

  “He was warm, so I let him out,” Mr. Nerli says before the door shuts behind him.

  I pick up the phone and call my mother.

  “You know that cruise you wanted to go on with Dad this Christmas? Did you go?”

  “No, we didn’t. Why?”

  I clear my throat. My mother is a planner. It was a challenge for her to jump on a plane for my birthday. What I’m about to ask might put her in shock. “Can you go next week? I’ll run the bed and breakfast while you’re gone.”

  On the other end, a chair scrapes across the floor, followed by a bang. I open my mouth to ask if Mom’s all right when she answers, “Should we…? I’ll take time off to…oh, Daniella.”

  “For me, Mom. I need to get away for a while.”

  “But, we could stay here with…” She swallows, knowing that I’m asking to be alone. “When can we expect you?”

  “In a few days. I have to book a flight first.” I open the cruise booking website where smiling couples hold umbrella drinks by the pool on a white ship. “What cruise did you want again?”

  “Oh, the one by the coast of Croatia. It’s only for a week, so we’ll be home again before you know.”

  I scroll through the choices. One package with pictures from each continent grabs my attention. It has palm trees and beaches in Indonesia, flamingos in southern Africa, and kangaroos in Australia. “Did you consider the world cruise? For a year?” I click on it. “Eighty-nine ports. You’d see it all.”

  “Oh, yes. We’re saving up for that for later,” Mom says, and I recognize the nervous laughter in her voice from every other time she’s passed up an opportunity.

  I check my calendar. “But if you had the money, you’d choose that one?”

  “Oh, yes. But it’s costly—I’ll get your room ready for you. Is Henrik coming with you?”

  “No. Thanks, Mom. I…” I take a deep breath. “We’re no longer…” I can’t get myself to say that we’re through. If I do, I’m scared I won’t stop explaining. I don’t want my mother to know what the past six months have been like.

  “I love you too.” She cuts me off. Her voice is soothing, comforting like when I was a child, and she’d read me bedtime stories.

  My eyes close in appreciation for not having to explain myself to her, to set words to my feelings, and convince her that I’m okay over yet another relationship ending. I’ve refused to go to Portugal since Isac died. She knows that unless I felt better and was prepared to move on that I wouldn’t ask.

  I hang up.

  Standing in my office, the wall of messages, maps, and images from Henrik’s past peer back at me. In one quick swipe of both hands, as if waving to someone far away, I crunch them up. Some papers drop to the floor. The rest squeeze between my hands before I stuff the trash can full of them. I continue ripping everything off the wall until it’s empty, bring the trash outside, and throw every piece of paper in the recycling bin. When I return to my office, the only remaining trace of what I’ve been doing here is Cecilia’s pen on the desk.

  “Can you hear me?” I whisper into it, feeling strange about it even though I know it’s a microphone.

  My phone rings, and Cecilia’s name lights up at me. “Why are you whispering?”

  I whisper back. “Tough day.” I speak normally. “Henrik found our research on his mother.”

  “Was that what I heard this morning, him rummaging around?”

  “Yes. He must have suspected that I knew more than what was on the wall.” I sigh, knowing I probably would have sent him an anonymous email or letter later anyways. I would never have been able to keep it from him forever.

  “At least we know Henrik didn’t cause the accident. No use going to the police. I checked the name, too, Runa Auset. I’m sorry.”

  I bring the pen downstairs and continue talking while collecting the phones and cameras. “What if you hadn’t come that night?” The thought of taking my own life for Isac now makes my skin itch.

  “What if you’d never come to our support group?” Cecilia counters and I close my eyes at the thought.

  I wondered for a minute when she told me how they could go on like they do, surveilling people, but now I understand. It’s not that I signed the papers anymore, I don’t care about that. She saved my life. That’s what they do, and why they can continue. They save lives. “Thank you.”

  “If you ever need a job,” Cecilia says, and I laugh.

  Shit, I forgot to tell my boss.

  “I’ll let you know.” I put her pen in an envelope, write her name and address on it, and place it in the hall to mail later. I email my boss, letting him know that I’m moving to Portugal for a while, and won’t be back for at least another year.

  I spend the following days packing. I’m back to where I started. Everything in the apartment is in boxes, but this time, I’m putting them in storage since the apartment has been rented out. Instead of leaving this world, I’m leaving the country.

  I check my handbag one last time. I have my passport, cellphone, charger, visa, and credit card. And Isac’s phone with Runa’s contact information.

  She’s not to blame for Isac’s actions, but although I tried, I couldn’t leave it.

  Mr. Nerli has agreed to welcome my tenant. I leave the keys in his mailbox and lift my suitcase outside.

  “Daniella?” Victoria is half running up the street towards me. Her flaming red hair, ivory skin, and the movements of a ballet dancer haven’t changed a bit. “Are you leaving?”

  What are you doing here?

  “I’m moving. To Portugal.” My grip on the suitcase handle tightens. “What are you doing here?”

  She flings her arms open and wraps them around me. I stand still like a pole while she hugs me, but when she refuses to let go, I give in. I release the suitcase and embrace her.

  “You were right about Isac.” My voice sha
kes, and I step back to stop myself from crying. “He was having an affair.”

  “I’m sorry. I hoped he wouldn’t, but I didn’t like the way he treated you. I should have kept my mouth shut about it.”

  “No, I’m glad you told me. I’m sorry I let your honesty ruin our friendship.”

  Although I want to stay, I have a plane to catch. “Come visit me in Portugal? I’ll be there for a year.” I clear my throat to get the words out. “I miss you.”

  She smiles, and her emerald green eyes sparkle. “Anytime. I’m there.”

  I scramble in my handbag and take out Isac’s phone. “Will you…”

  This is hard.

  “It’s Isac’s.” I open the contact list, delete Runa, and hold the phone out to Victoria. “Can you dispose of it for me? I don’t want it in Portugal.” She’s the only person I trust will go mission impossible on it, either burning it or destroying it some other way that I can’t make myself do.

  She beams, throws it on the ground, and stamps on it. It cracks. “Trust me. It’s as good as ash.” She picks it up and tucks it in her purse.

  At the corner of my building, I turn back to see if she’s still there. She hasn’t moved and waves with her entire arm in the air.

  “See you soon. Be safe,” she calls.

  I smile and stretch my arm in the air, waving from side to side. “Can’t wait. Be safer.”

  36

  Mom picks me up at Porto Airport, and an hour later, when we drive past the hand-painted sign I made when I was ten, I open the window. The familiar scent of lavender fills the car. Gravel crackles under the wheels up the narrow track shaded by cork trees on both sides. One after the other, the shadows of the tree trunks cut the light in the car as if counting down to our arrival. We pass tree number eight when the oldest tree, the one where Isac proposed and we married, comes into sight. In my peripheral view, Mom turns to me, and I brace myself.