by Stella Noir
“Well, actually …” I tease him, and he raises his eyebrows at me.
“Me?” he asks, pointing to his chest, then to me. “And you?”
I give him a nod and I can’t help the silly smile that makes its way onto my face. “Yeah. We were kind of an item for most of our childhoods,” I explain shyly.
He gives a wolf whistle and I can’t help but laugh, loving the closeness we’re sharing all of a sudden. But then a sullen expression crosses his face, darkening his features.
Suddenly, it feels awfully stuffy and quiet in the car, and I feel embarrassed for teasing him and making him feel uncomfortable. We spend the rest of the ride home in uncomfortable silence, the air in the car so thick you could cut it with a knife.
When the car finally rolls into the driveway, I open my door so quickly I nearly tumble out. Dylan is soon to follow, and after I dismiss my driver for the day, giving him a handsome tip, we just stand awkwardly in the driveway, unable to meet one another’s eyes.
“Shall we go in?” I finally offer, shivering in the evening breeze. He gives a hesitant nod, and I fumble with my keys before finally letting us into the house.
As we step inside, I try to look at the interior as a person who has never seen it before would.
There’s no denying it - the place is more a mansion than it is a house, and Dylan’s look of wonder is strange to me, since he’s been here several times, and now he doesn’t remember a single thing.
He walks around the entrance hall, admiring the beautiful stairwell, the impressive chandelier. He stops in front of a painting on the wall and examines it closely.
“It’s just lovely,” he comments with a dreamy smile, absorbed by the painting. “I really do love impressionist artists. Very good find, this one.”
I give him a weak smile, which confuses him, but I can’t very well explain to him he made the exact same comment when he first came to the house months ago, can I?
Awkwardly, I offer to make him a meal and he nods hesitantly, after which we set out into the kitchen. I have a major déjà-vu moment, which I don’t mention to Dylan.
The fact of the matter is, we’ve been in this kitchen time and time again, having coffee or tea and a good old laugh. But his blank expression as he strolls inside the room makes me believe he has no recollection of ever being in here before.
Walking into the kitchen, I spot my puppy Love sleeping by the counter. It’s her favorite spot to rest in, since the evening sun shines on her through the French doors in the kitchen. She looks up at me sleepily, her tail already wagging as she spots me.
She gets up and stretches slowly, then comes around the corner and stops in her tracks when she spots Dylan.
He is the one who got her from me from the pound, and they’ve always had a special collection. Love goes crazy every time he’s around, attacking him and licking his face with excitement.
And I can already tell this time will be the same.
She takes off running towards him and he picks her up, messing up her fur as she laps his face excitedly. Dylan laughs happily and it makes my day instantly better, just seeing them together.
It makes me think things might actually work out … eventually.
“What’s her name?” he asks next.
“Love,” I say with a soft smile, though the fact that she doesn’t remind him of the times we shared together cuts deep into my soul. “Her name is Love.”
I busy myself in the kitchen as he plays with the puppy, throwing a ball for her in the kitchen area. She hasn’t been this happy since the last time he was here - Love never quite connected with Matthew. But Dylan … she probably adores him more than me, and I am her owner.
I decide to make some Chicken Parmesan, which is basically the only dish I can make. I prepare the sauce and cook some pasta, also tossing a salad for us to eat along with the meal.
As the chicken cooks in the sauce, I pour two glasses of wine for me and Dylan and bring them over to the smaller table in the kitchen area. We have a counter, which I deem too informal, and an enormous table in the dining room, which would be just silly for only the two of us.
Plus, Matthew and I always ate there, and it would feel strange sharing a meal with Dylan at the same table. So the kitchen table it is.
I set two places and Dylan sits down with Love happily asleep at his feet.
We clink our glasses together, without toasting. I don’t know what we would say, anyway.
I bring the food out on the table, serving our dinner for us, and it is only when we sit down that I start realizing how awkward this situation actually is. I haven’t thought this true at all - where is Dylan going to sleep? What if he comes down and sees me in my nightie? How will we fare under the same roof?
So many questions race through my mind I nearly miss his question, and he has to nudge me lightly so I land back in the real world with a thud.
“Sorry?” I say, feeling more than a little embarrassed for wandering off in my mind like that.
“No, it’s nothing,” Dylan says, shaking his hand, and our eyes connect over the dinner plates. “Just wanted to compliment you on the food … it’s very good.”
I look down at my plate, the dry chicken and the greasy sauce taunting me. “Really?” I ask, my eyebrows raised, challenging him to tell me it isn’t delicious.
He gulps and nods, unsure this time around. “Sure, it’s-”
“I’m messing with you,” I say with a small smile. “I’m not much of a cook.”
“Oh,” he smiles innocently, and it makes me want to envelop him in a bear hug and convince him and myself everything will be okay in the end. “Maybe I’ll try to cook something one day,” he suggest next, giving me a doubtful look. “Am I … am I a good cook?”
These questions of his really cut to the bone, and I wonder how it is possible that he remembers nothing. “I’m not sure,” I say softly. “You’ve never cooked for me.”
Dylan wipes his mouth with a napkin and smiles at me at the same time. “Well, we’ll have to change that, won’t we?”
And even though it’s a small offer, it lights a glimmer of hope inside my soul, and it’s my first hope that someday, even though it may be far off in the future, we’ll be back to normal … Be the perfect couple we were always meant to be.
Chapter 44
We end the dinner about twenty minutes later, both of us finishing our plates despite the meal not being the most appetizing. I guess we were both famished.
After eating, both of us get up awkwardly and a look at the clock tells me it’s about 8 p.m. So, too early for bed … But what on earth are we supposed to do now?
“Lola?” Dylan asks hesitantly, and I look at him questioningly. “I was wondering if you could tell me about … what happened. I don’t know whether it will help my memory, but I need something … something to hold on to.”
He gives me such a heartbroken look it makes my heart swell and ache. And then I nod slowly, leading him into the leading room as Love lingers behind us, all three of us settling on the couch.
Thankfully, the housekeeper has moved all of my things from the couch upstairs. Normally, I wouldn’t be too happy about that since I’m still a little uncomfortable sleeping in the master bedroom, but given the fact that Dylan is here now, I guess I’ll at least have to pretend I do sleep there.
“It’s really a long story,” I say with a languished sigh.
“Just tell me,” he begs me. “I’m just floating here, trying to tie the loose ends together. But I have no idea what goes where.”
His voice is so lost it makes me want to tell him everything, so I begin, slowly easing him into the story.
I tell him how we met, how we were friends at first and gradually started falling in love with one another when we were children. I tell him about his sister Venetia, and how she never liked me and always stayed away from us. We were always together, exploring the beach in the summer and then each other as we got older.
“That
sounds nice,” Dylan says with a wistful smile, which I immediately return.
“It was,” I agree quietly. “It was lovely …”
But then it’s time to tell him about our last summer together, the faithful year that changed our lives forever. I tell him how I came to his house that year, and met a strange man called Adam. He was around thirty at the time, and we were both just teenagers.
Adam took a special interest to me and introduced himself as a distant relative. He told me once, drunk and completely out of it, that he was in fact Dylan and Venetia’s half-brother. No one knew about that except for me and their father, and I promised to keep the secret.
The love between Dylan and I was blooming, blossoming into something truly beautiful. But Adam got progressively stranger during the summer, and I never saw him without a glass of alcohol in his hand. Then, he made a move on me.
I let the tears fall as I tell Dylan this part, admitting how scared I was. He holds my hand and his fingers clench around mine as I tell him what Adam did to me.
And then I tell him he was the one who saved me. I make sure to tell him he was trying to protect me from something very very bad, from years of therapy, from emotional scarring and from rape.
Because the next part is the hardest one - I have to tell Dylan that when he tried to save me, he ended up hitting Adam over the head with a heavy object, accidentally killing him in the progress.
I begin to tell him the whole story, though I leave out the terrible details, like his parents cutting off any contact they had with him. His eyes widen as I go on and my heart aches for having to tell him about this, to break his heart all over again.
“I can’t believe it,” he mutters under his breath and I make a move to reach for his hand, though I soon realize it might not be the best move. I tuck my hand between my legs instead, scolding myself in my mind for being too forward.
It’s just hard to behave like he’s a complete stranger - this is Dylan, after all…
“Is that all?” he finally asks, his eyes pleading me to say that this is it, there’s nothing left to say. But I can’t do that, because that’s only the smallest part of the story which I have to tell him. I shake my head regretfully and he sighs heavily. I ask him whether he’d like me to continue, and he shrugs, looking beaten up. “I guess now is as good a time as any,” he says, his voice sounding tired and defeated.
“Okay,” I nod, trying to keep my voice soft as I go on.
Next, I tell him how we grew apart after he was sent to juvi. We had no contact whatsoever, because my parents decided it would be best to seclude me and cut my contact with Dylan - and anyone else for that matter. I was pretty much a hermit for the rest of my teenage years and all through college, only being allowed to go out to classes, after which I had to immediately return home to my makeshift prison.
I tell him how I moved away when I finally gained control of my trust fund, having no regrets when I turned my back on my parents. I tell him how I moved here, got a job in an art gallery, and met a man called Matthew Roberts.
I’m truthful when it comes to Matt. I tell Dylan how much I loved him, how happy I was when he proposed to me. I tell him everything, and his smile tells me he believes me.
“But where is he now?” he cuts me off in the middle of my little speech, and I have to fight back the lump in my throat and the tears threatening to spill out of my eyes any minute now.
“He … he died,” I admit finally, gulping down the tears, the sadness, all of my emotions. “He was killed, murder during our wedding reception.” Dylan looks at me with shock, and then something terrible registers in his eyes. “Did I …” he begins, but I can tell he’s too weak to ask the question. Instead, he just looks at me pleadingly, begging me to tell him the answer to a question he doesn’t dare ask.
I shake my head and I can feel the tension coming away from his body, his shoulders and head moving a little upward, as if a heavy burden has been lifted off of his body.
“It was your sister,” I say finally, sealing the final nail in his coffin. “She was jealous … She had an affair with Adam when we were children, even though she knew they were related. It’s so sick. And she thought I convinced you to kill him … The poison that killed Matthew was meant for me.”
This time, I’m the one who can’t hold back tears and the small pearls of liquid fall from my eyes and onto my hands, clutching one another in my lap.
Love comes closer and licks my salty hands, whimpering slightly as if she were trying to console me. But what surprises me more is the fact that Dylan also stands up, coming to my side of the table and clutching my hand softly.
“It’s not your fault,” he tells me, his voice sincere, like he truly believes it.
But I know better.
“It is,” i say, nodding fervently. “It is my fault … Had I not done what I did, he would still be alive today.” I look straight into Dylan’s eyes, my bottom lip trembling as I continue to speak.
“I often think about it. If only he hadn’t met me, if only … he would still be alive. We wouldn’t even know how great love could be, because we never could have met.”
Hot tears sting my eyes.
“And maybe … sometimes I think that just maybe, that would have been for the best.”
Dylan grasps my hand and brings it to his heart. “You mustn’t think like that,” he scolds me. “You really mustn’t.”
We’re quiet for a few long seconds and I relish the thought of his hand holding mine.
Then, I manage a small smile letting him know I’ll be okay. He nods and sits back on his chair on the other side of the table as I wipe my tears discreetly. I decide not to bother him with the fact that we were the ones in love, too. I don’t want to tell him about our beautiful night together, about my decision to finally be with him, despite all odds.
I know it’s too soon to bother him with my feelings - he has too much on his mind already.
Instead, I offer him a weak smile and he chuckles low in his throat, to which I react with a surprised smile. I love him for taking off the tension of our conversation, but I have no idea what’s so funny.
“That’s a lot to take in,” he admits. “But you haven’t told me one thing, which I’ve been wondering about all day.”
My heart beats a little faster, wondering whether he’ll ask about us. “And what might that be?” I finally find the courage to ask him.
He looks me dead in the eye, looking super serious. “Why on Earth do I have a British accent?” he wonders out loud.
I stare at him incredulously, and then I can’t help but giggle. He really knows how to relieve the tension, my Dylan … “Oh, haven’t I mentioned the fact that you’re from London?” I ask as I giggle, and he shakes his head, a grin plastered on his face.
And as broken as we are in that moment, I cherish the laugh we have together, hoping some day we can make it more than that…
Someday, we might still have our future, which has been taken so cruelly from us time and time again.
Chapter 45
We end the day quite awkwardly, with me showing Dylan to his bedroom, after which I had to the master bedroom for the first time in a long time.
I’m hesitant about sleeping in the bed I shared with Matthew for obvious reasons, one of the bigger ones being the fact that another man is sleeping under the roof we used to share.
So I toss and turn for most of the night, unable to get a wink of sleep.
Somehow though, I manage to catch some much needed slumber a little after 7 a.m., when I should’ve gotten up, really. But the sun is already up and shining when I finally get some shut-eye.
When I wake up, it’s after 11 a.m. and I feel more than a little embarrassed heading downstairs to the kitchen.
But as soon as I step on the stairs, a delicious aroma of food attacks my nostrils and I quicken my step, heading downstairs to see what’s cooking.
I find Dylan behind the stove and he smiles at me over his shoulder. Lo
ve is at his feet, sniffing the air enthusiastically and very eager to get into the pots and pans. Dylan keeps pushing her head away every few moments, but it makes him laugh, so I guess all is good.
“What’s cooking?” I ask enthusiastically, sitting down at the counter.
“I made some … stuff,” he says with a shy smile, pointing at the counter in front of me.
Stuff might be an understatement, given the absolute feast that is in front of me.
There are pancakes with maple syrup, bacon, eggs and roasted veggies. There’s even a jug of freshly pressed orange juice, and I notice with embarrassment he used the super expensive juicer Matthew got for me ages ago and that I never even touched.
“This is amazing,” I say sincerely, and am awarded by a sweet smile from Dylan. But all of a sudden, I remember the night we had together before I left to see my parents only a week or so ago.
We made love, and it was truly beautiful … An experience I will remember and cherish forever. But knowing that it might have been the last time I got to touch Dylan hurts like hell.
Because as sweet as he is being at the moment, I see no trace of the love we shared in his eyes as he looks at me. Sure, he’s caring and nice, but the passion, the lust … they’re all gone, lost in the whirlwind of our lives.
And before I can stop myself, I start to cry again, cursing my actions as the hot tears stream down my face.
Dylan is next to me in a second, spatula in hand as he looks at me with concern. “What’s the matter, Lola?” he asks me softly.
“I just …” I start pathetically, but immediately shake my head, too weak to go on and not wanting to tell him the true reason why I’m so upset.
“What?” he asks softly, a hand finding its way to my cheek and wiping a tear that is making its way down my face. “What is it?”
I hesitate, but in the end, I answer him truthfully. “I … we … there was something there, you know? Before all of this happened I thought …” “What?” he asks, his voice edgy, but curious.
“I thought I would get my happily ever after,” I admit, my voice strained, the hurt in it plainly visible to anyone who bothered to listen to me.