"You're not really burning her, you know," Lance said. "You're still her."
"But no one can prove it," she said, praying it was true. He moved closer and said, "I can."
She looked at him, and things grew very quiet, the only sound the sparking of the fire. He grasped the loose pages of the manuscript. "A real woman wrote this," he said. "A person, not a made-up name and a black-and-white picture. It has your fingerprints all over it, Julia. You said that yourself. Don't pretend that Veronica's dead." He moved closer.
"Lance," she started, but the feel of his hands around her waist made her stop.
"Tell me I can kiss you," he said, moving his hands to the sides of her face. "Tell me I can do this. Tell me you can feel it."
But Julia's mind was completely blank, her body numb, until Lance tilted his head and moved closer and everything came back in a flood of emotion and thought. Her mind went from empty to overflowing. She got to her feet, almost stumbling under the weight of her own body. She knew she had to get away. She had to run. She had to flee this man before she dissolved completely and forgot her own name.
He grabbed her wrist. "Stop, Julia," he said. "Just stop."
Stop what? Stop running? Stop being myself?
"Talk to me," Lance pleaded. "Tell me what happened to you. Tell me what I have to do to fix it!"
Fix what? Julia wanted to proclaim. I'm not broken! But as she looked down at Lance, and at the last shreds of Veronica White that lay scattered around him like last fall's leaves, words failed her. She knew how quickly everything you know .can turn to ash. She couldn't meet his gaze. "Goodnight," she said. She pulled away and started for the stairs. "And thank you. For everything."
The next morning, Julia peeked down the stairs. She snuck into the kitchen, her sights set on a box of granola bars and a carton of orange juice, wondering how long she could survive on that alone, thinking she might grab some crackers while she was at it.
She'd made it to the pantry door when a voice cut through the early-morning stillness of the kitchen. "I called New York."
Julia stopped dead in her tracks, frozen mid-creep, terrified of turning around. How am I supposed to look at him?
"Things are starting to cool down there." Lance said simply. "I think I can leave."
"Oh," Julia said, turning, despite her best efforts otherwise.
"The heat's off," he said as if the night before hadn't happened at all. "You're probably ready to have me out of your hair anyway." He looked at her from the corner of his eye as he rinsed a cereal bowl and slid it into the dishwasher.
"You're leaving?" she asked.
"Well," Lance said coolly, "there's not much reason to stay. We got the manuscript back. The press has cooled off. I don't want to outstay my welcome."
"Fine," Julia snapped without meaning to.
"Hey." He stepped forward. "What's wrong with you?"
"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me?" she asked, stalling while she thought, What is wrong with me? "I'll tell you what's wrong with me. ..."
The phone began to ring. She picked up and said hello.
"Julia, it's your mother. I've got bad news."
Chapter Twenty Five
WAY #70: Be honest with yourself.
There will be times when you won't be happy with your life, and you'll start looking for people to blame. Don't. The choices we make are our own. That's both the blessing and the curse of being single: We have only ourselves to thank or ft blame for our decisions.
—from 701 Ways to Cheat at Solitaire
hen Julia walked into the Fitzgerald Wing of Mercy General Hospital, she noticed that someone had been very skilled at spending Ro-Ro's money. Even Nina would have approved of the beautiful-yet-comfortable chairs. But no matter how lavish its furnishings, the place still smelled like death. She wondered if Lance could smell it, too.
When they got into an elevator and waited for the doors to close, Lance pushed the button for the eighth floor, then eased his arm around Julia's shoulders. The weight of his arm felt good, so she sank into him, grateful for someone to lean on.
"I think it's going to take a lot more than a fall to hurt Ro-Ro," Lance said, as if he knew she needed to hear it. But Julia couldn't forget the tone of her mother's voice on the phone. She'd had sixty miles to process, sixty miles to think but standing in that elevator with Lance's arm around her shoulders, Julia still struggled with the realization that the impossible had happened—that Ro-Ro, after all, was human.