by Julie Adams
The smell of popcorn, soda, and candy taking me across an ocean to America. I have the slightest twinge of homesickness when it hits me. I miss my mother, I miss hearing my native language, I miss being able to understand everything at a glance without needing to translate. I miss it all and yet, there’s no place I’d rather be in this moment.
We’re seeing an American film that’s subtitled in French. It’s a romantic comedy because I don’t think Nathan’s into action movies that aren’t Bond related. And this is one of the few films showing that we can both understand.
We take our seats in the darkened auditorium, Nathan picks the seats all the way in the back. His hand resting high on my thigh and I shoot him a glance that says no funny business. He squeezes my thigh and winks.
When the lights dim and the sound comes up, the trailers rolling, he stares in awe at the screen.
I’m surprised that it takes half the movie before he runs a finger up the seam of jeans, making me shift in my seat. I shake my head at him and he pulls back, pouting theatrically.
I roll my eyes and grab him through his jeans. “Later, I promise.” He has no idea I bought new lingerie for tonight. I found a great place for lingerie in my price range thanks to Beth’s savvy shopping skills.
The movie’s over and Nathan’s buzzing about it as we come out, and I think it’s more the experience than the actual film.
“Enjoy it?” I ask.
“Yes, I loved it. Can we come back soon?” He's so happy.
I grin. “Absolutely.”
The sun is starting to set when we drive up to our final destination. It’s glinting in the sunlight, looking majestic and magical.
The Eiffel Tower.
“It's beautiful this evening,” He breathes as we walk toward it, his hand in mine.
“Wait until you see the view from the top.” I muse as we get in line to go up.
“I’m already there, mon chéri.” He’s looking at me and it makes time stop. It drowns everything else out until there’s only him looking at me like that.
It takes forever to get to the top and I’m surprised by how patient he is about it. The man who never has to wait in line or for anything, is just taking it all in like everyone else.
Once we reach the observation deck I push Nathan ahead of me so I can see his face as he sees Paris from a new perspective. He smiles and his eyes light up.
“It's beautiful, I never thought the view would be much different than from my apartment or from my office but… wow.” He slips his hand from mine and pulls me into his side.
He walks us to a viewfinder and puts his eye to it, sweeping it over Paris, then in the direction of his apartment. “Mon Dieu! You can see right into my apartment!” He whispers.
“What?!” I automatically think of all the compromising positions I've been in in front of those windows.
“Look,” he steps aside and holds the viewfinder to me.
I look. And sure enough, I can see his apartment building. I try to get a better focus but the viewfinder isn't cooperating.
Nathan's hands wrap around my waist and he pulls me back from the viewfinder leading me to a corner of the deck where we can look out. “You were about to rip that thing right off.” He says laughing. “Relax, my windows have a coating that makes them nearly impossible to see in,” the relief must be visible on my face. “No one's seeing you naked but me.” He says pinning me in place with his hips. And now I'm thinking about my terrible poem and hoping Nathan isn't remembering it as well.
“You could have told me that two weeks ago,” I mutter.
He grins down at me, all soft and open, and I want to memorize it so I can remember it in minute detail for the rest of my life. He's looking at me like all women dream of being looked at. Like I'm the only thing in the world, like the view of Paris is second only to me.
“Lily, this past week you've made me think about something I've never really thought about outside of business. You made me think about my future long-term, and how I need you in the vision I have for myself, for us. But to do that, I have to lay my past to rest,”
Is this what's been bothering him?
I’m overwhelmed with emotion, happiness, love, elation. But also, fear. So much damn fear.
“What about your past is that bad?” I ask holding onto his forearms just a little tighter. Needing him to steady me on the whirlwind of emotion I’m feeling.
“Unfortunately, it's not far enough in my past to not effect you. I want to tell you, but not here. I don't want this place tainted by my confession,” he takes my hand and we make our way down. For me, it’s both literal and metaphorical.
He’s walking fast, I think to get it over with faster. A few people turn to look. I’m struggling to keep up.
“Nathan, what are you talking about? You need to tell me. You're scaring me.” I jerk away from him once we're near the car and he still hasn't answered me.
“Get in and I’ll show you,” Emotion turns his voice gruff. I stare at him, standing there holding the car door open for me. His face showing his anguish even though he grinds his teeth, squaring his jaw against everything he’s feeling inside.
As I get in I know without a shadow of a doubt, the cloud I had created here in Paris is about to evaporate and send me careening to the ground until every part of me is shattered.
Twenty Six
Nathan
Nathan drives fast, hurling us towards the inevitable. The end.
Panic fills me with dread. I want to laugh, I want to cry, I want to demand answers. But mostly I want to jump out of the car and run away from it all. Keep what we had a perfect little moment in my life.
But I had run before, I had let fear consume me and I had barely been living.
I squeeze my hands into fists. I will face this headlong even if it breaks me, I will survive in spite of it all even if I hurt every damn day for the rest of my life. I will go on, slivers put together at all the wrong angles, but I’ll do it and I won’t fucking look back.
We pull onto a familiar street, passing the theater and parking.
I’m so confused.
“What are we doing here?” I ask getting out. Staring at the side of the theater my mind begins to reel. Why? Why? Why?
“Know one thing, I love you. Even though I never intended to know you, I love you, you’ve made me a person and not just a man. You’ve changed me for the better even though I think I’m about to destroy everything we have.”
“Nathan, Just tell me! Or show me! Just put me out of my misery.” I stamp my foot to keep from screaming.
He goes to a grate nestled between the theater and the building next to it. “This was once used for deliveries, both legal and illegal.” He pulls up the grate and when the light fully hits the cavern I can see a stone staircase leading down towards the theater.
He goes down and I pause, wondering what the hell is happening. “It’s easier for me to show you.” He says the light from his cellphone glinting up at me. “Sacre Bleu, I'm not going to hurt you, Lily.” I've never seen him so pained as right now, looking up at me like I’ve slapped him.
“Please don't make me hate you,” I whisper following him down.
Once down in the space I see it's similar to old speakeasy entrances. Nathan hits a hidden lever in the door frame and it swings open.
A shiver of fear goes through me unbidden.
He reaches inside and I hear a light switch clicking. A flicker of light before a stone hall is illuminated.
“I've never seen this before. It's not on any of the blueprints I've seen,” I say forgetting for a minute why I'm discovering it.
“It's older than that. Well hidden as you can see.” He says and maybe I would have been scared if he wasn't so somber. I follow just beside him, his phone light filling in the spaces between blown lights. It's similar to the halls in any backstage area.
“Nathan, you have to start telling me what's going on, y
ou know what I'm thinking right now.” That he killed that man, “Tell me how you know about this,”
“We found it as kids, I was maybe eight years old.” We come to three panels in the wall and he pushes on one, it swings open and we're in the primadonna room. I gasp, feeling my chest tighten caging my galloping heart as it stutters and falls to a stop with such a jolt I feel dizzy and sick.
He goes in but I stay in the hall thinking of all the times I felt watched.
“I spent a few years of my childhood here. My mother was a burlesque dancer, this was the room where the dancers’ children would stay when they had nowhere else to go.” He looks around the room, seeing it as it was decades ago. “It was here that my mother met my stepfather. And he changed our lives. My mother did her best before him, we were poor but happy. And then when she got married we were rich and happy. I've always associated this place- this room, with safety and happiness. My own personal church.” He pauses focusing on me. His mouth twitches and I can see his eyes are glistening.
Anger and shock, sadness, and some other emotion I can't describe tangles up inside me. Tears stinging my eyes. I step into the room and collapse against the wall, staring at him. I can think of no words.
“I've come here a handful of times after it was sold, I had missed the sale or I would have purchased it. I saw you a few times while here, writing, working, you were beautiful. But you weren't why I was here. I was only seeking solace in the one place that felt like home.”
Something in me twists. He's lied. He's watched me. He's had all the answers to me, because he spied on me.
“Do you have any idea how fucked this all is?” I want to yell but it comes out like a venomous hiss. “You knew everything about me all this time. How to charm me, how to get me into bed!”
He puts his hands up, “No, absolutely not! I had no intention of ever speaking to you. You were a beautiful woman who wrote amazing poetry, but not what I was looking for. I didn't want a relationship. At least, I didn’t think I did. Especially not one with you, considering the circumstances.”
“You read my poetry?!”
“You left your book out one time, I read what you were working on. You're so talented but you need to be a songwriter,”
“Stop! Don't tell me what I need, you've violated my privacy. You've lied to me!”
“You're right.” He’s agitated too. He’s fighting for me to understand. “But I swear I was never going to talk to you, the night we met was going to be my last coming here, a goodbye. Then I heard you screaming, only I had no idea who was inside. I couldn't just walk by and leave whoever was in here to their fate.”
My head is spinning, I feel sick and I'm not getting enough air. “Di-did you kill that man?”
His face contorts into disbelief then anger, “God, no! You know me, Lily. Everything I've said and done is the truth. I've omitted this part because I knew how it would sound and once I spoke to you, held you against me, I knew how hard it would be to have you look at me this way,” His voice breaks. “Would I have come back and broke down that door had I killed him?”
I Stare at him incredulously. A part of me wanting to believe he couldn't kill someone, sure that he couldn't. But what did I know? I’m a fool.
He sighs, “It wouldn't have mattered when I told you this, you'd still be appalled, and rightfully so. Everything I said is true, everything I've felt for you is true, I love you. I want my future to be you.”
My tears slip out now, maybe they've been spilling for awhile and I haven't noticed. “Omission is still a lie, how do I know how much you learned about me and used against me? How do I know that I wasn't just a sick game?”
He runs his hands over his face, through his hair. “Because I want to marry you! Because I want you to have my children! Because I'm a fucking husk without you.” His voice cracks and his eyes are shining, so close to shedding his own tears. “Because you are amazing and I know,” he grabs the front of his sweater, “I know that I don't deserve you.”
His anguish is hurting me and that pisses me off. He played me, he doesn't deserve the twinge I feel in my heart for him.
I wipe my own tears roughly and take a big breath. “You're right. You don't. I'm tired of lies disguised with promises.” I push off the wall and open the door that leads into the theater, I won't go back down that tunnel with him.
“Lily, I love you, I never meant to hurt you,” Nathan's following me, jogging to keep up with my near run. “I understand you don't want me around, but you can't go back to your brother’s. Let me put you up in a hotel, somewhere safe,”
I stop short and whirl on him. “Why? So you can spy on me again? Is that why you wanted me to move in?”
“No! Me coming here was never about you! Once I met you I haven't been back, other than when you've seen me. I've told the police everything if you don't believe me. You know that I didn't kill that man, just like you know I wasn't stalking you.”
“I don't know anything. I can't trust myself anymore, I'm two for two when it comes to men lately,” I laugh dryly. Tears threatening to come again. Nathan steps towards me. “Stay away from me, Nathan. Just leave me alone.” I growl, turning and leaving.
The door opens easily and when I glance over my shoulder I see Brent and Beth standing on the stairs behind Nathan, confusion on their faces.
Nathan's face is completely shattered. And all I can think is good. It matches my heart.
Twenty Seven
Nathan
I’m vaguely aware of someone talking, of being walked past.
I don’t chase after Lily, I just watch her go. In a matter of minutes I’ve crushed us both. Any future we may have had ruined. All I want right now is to get away from everyone, to blare music as loud as I can and drown out everything, everyone, especially myself. And get lost in the bottom of a bottle of whiskey. Or several.
A hand takes my forearm gently and turns me around. Someone bringing me back from the edge. It’s Beth.
“What happened?” She asks. She should be angry but her voice is soft, soothing. Like a mothers. I know she caught some of the conversation.
I take a deep breath in, ready to bury everything so deep inside of me it’ll change who I am at my core. But when I exhale it all comes pouring out, from my childhood in this theater to my trespassing, to meeting and falling in love with the one person I never intended to for all the reasons it was so fucked up.
At some point Beth must have led me to the stairs and sat me down. She doesn’t say anything even after I stop, she just sits there turning it all over in her mind.
Then she lets out a big breath of air. Not quite a sigh just a sound that describes everything in her head right now. A big fucked up mess.
“Lily is the worst person for this to happen to. Some other woman might be creeped out but overlook it as a weird twist of fate. But Lily who has been lied to and is still working through everything that happened with her ex,” She pauses then looks me in the eye. “You should have told her everything when you first started dating her,”
“Would it have mattered?”
“Maybe. Probably not. But at least you would have given her the choice.”
“Choice for what?”
“Of whether or not she wanted to fall in love with you.” Beth stands up and I do too, sure she’s going to kick me out. She’s done more than enough for me.
“Come on we both need a drink,” She says going the door.
I follow, needing a friend and a drink since the one thing I really want would sooner get lost in the catacombs than spend a second with me. And I don't blame her.
I’m more than a little drunk when Beth puts me into a cab. I’ve spent all night talking about Lily, about how fucked up I am. And Beth listened patiently, giving me a drink when she thought I needed it. And now I’m on the way home, the night feeling like a bad dream, so much of the last few hours starting to blur away. Maybe I can find a way to do that with the past few mon
ths with Lily, if I can’t get her back maybe I can make it all a blur. Enough alcohol could make that possible.
Letting myself into the apartment, I stand with the door open for a moment, expecting her and Frankie to be sitting on the couch watching Netflix. Lily with her feet curled up beneath her, wearing one of my sweatshirts and her leggings. I expect it to be like it had for the last week. The best fucking week of my life.
Only Frankie lays on the couch, he doesn't even bother to get up. It’s like he knows she's gone. I toss a few treats in the bowl, he deserves to be cheered up and alcohol is off the menu.
I shamble into the bedroom and collapse on the bed. The pillow and sheets still smell like her. I bury my face in them, and in my drunken stupor let the angst consume me.
The next morning I feel my head pounding before I'm even awake. I don't reach for Lily. Even in this state I know she's not here.
It all comes flooding back to me and it's like being hit with a wrecking ball.
I roll out of bed and my limbs feel like they're underwater. I spend an age in the shower, both from my hangover making me slow and that I don't want to face the day.
I look at the suits in my closet and grab one without a thought. It doesn't matter as long as it covers me. I don't want to get dressed. I don't want to go to work. Not with my head, heart, and body feeling this way. But if I sit here and wallow alone I'll do something stupid and destructive.
Wreck the apartment? Call Lily a hundred times? Drink until every bottle in my apartment is gone? I don't know and I don't want to find out.
My office is usually where I feel most at home, most like myself. Until lately, that is. My coffee is waiting for me. I grab it and take a drink. Hopefully it'll kick the aspirin I took into high gear.
Caroline's watching me from her seat. No, not watching, studying.
I don't divulge anything. “Clear my meetings for today. I'm doing nothing that requires me to leave my office. Only urgent calls are to be put through…” I pause. No, Lily wouldn't call here.