good man would have told her to walk the fuck away. To get lost. To go back to her husband.
It’s a pity that, between the time I’d arrived here this morning and now, I’ve forgotten what a good man really is.
Focused on blue eyes that glimmer, on the swelling beneath them that speaks of tears and pain, I circle her in my mind. Study her. Pull her apart and put her back together again so I can inspect all the individual pieces.
My gaze drops to her empty hands, back up to the way she stares at me with expectation written across her features.
“Where’s your camera?”
Adeline glances down, searches her palms as if that will conjure the reason we agreed to meet again. Not finding it, she tilts her face up to me, confusion swirling behind swollen eyes.
“I didn’t bring it.”
“Then why are you here?”
It’s a simple question, yet she winces to hear it. Not because the way it snapped off my tongue. Not because I step closer to steal the space around her.
But because it’s a question we both need to ask ourselves.
Why are we here?
I know the answer.
Does she?
Voice a whisper, she meets my stare.
“I felt bad for standing you up.”
I grin, only the corner of my mouth shifting to hear the lie that falls so easily from her lips. Adeline doesn’t give a fuck about disappointing people. She’s been doing it her entire life. I’ve watched her do it over and over again.
She can’t lie to a person who knows her better than she knows herself. Can’t lie to the man who looks beneath her games to see what exists inside. Can’t lie to a liar that will play those games better now that he’s accepted who he really is.
She stumbles in the silence that falls between us, my lack of a response shifting the ground beneath her feet. Filling it, she invites me back into seclusion like the stupid little girl she is.
“I thought we could look at the rest of the mausoleum.”
Stepping so close that she has to crane her neck to look up at me, I reach out to tuck a stray hair behind her ear.
“Is that what you thought?”
She swallows, nods. Heat dancing across her cheeks in a pale pink that fights against the redness in her eyes.
How unfortunate for the fly that she should invite the spider to its own web.
Adeline has been crying. A lot from what I can tell, her eyes still wet from salty tears.
No doubt from arguing with Grant, a man I should have known would never make her happy.
“After you.”
A shiver runs over her shoulders, a spark of interest, of indecision, her gaze meeting mine only to flicker away again.
I think she might change her mind. Do the right thing. Act smart. But instead, she nods her head again and turns her back to me to lead us to a building where shadows can hide the truth of bad decisions.
The hinges of the iron gate welcome us back, the interior wrapping us in a cloak of dappled sunlight and the dance of dead leaves. Ivy crawls across crumbling stone as the wind whispers promises and secrets.
Why are we here?
It’s not to discuss sculpture and carvings. To critique the use of different methods and tools to make the crypts. To photograph a place I know she sees differently than every other living soul because Adeline lives for the beauty of tragedy.
Adeline turns toward me, and I drop the shroud of a grieving man to show her what has been following her for far longer than she knows.
It’s the first time she really sees me, and she starts to recognize the monster that prowls.
I don’t miss the tiny instinct to escape, the way her teeth go to her bottom lip, the small step she takes to back away from me while her mind races to close the distance.
Stammering over words that mean nothing to me, she tries to point out a bas-relief image of a rose broken beneath a death’s head skull, its eyes hollow.
“Um, so this means a younger woman is buried here. Sometimes, the stage of the blossom indicates time, and while the flower isn’t a young bud, it’s not in full bloom either.”
I’m beyond the point of bothering to turn and pretend I give a damn about what she pointed out. My stare locks on her face, body far too still.
Nervous eyes flick my direction, to the wall, back to me.
She moves away, creeps deeper into the