real. And maybe even if it was, that you were not enough to keep it. Not enough to deserve it, perhaps. And you doubt yourself. The ground beneath your feet is gone. The weight of the hollowness inside you makes you think you’ll never catch your balance again. You wonder. How did I miss this? Does everybody know that love is not permanent, and they did not tell you? Or was it just me that failed to keep it? The cruelty of the betrayal is everywhere, in all you do. Other couples on the street are just illusions you can see with clarity now. With sneering callousness. They’ll learn, you think. They will learn the hard way.” I took a deep breath. I couldn’t be sure I was making sense and had a feeling I may have devolved into French every now and again when I couldn’t think of the English words, but I was sure the gist was intact.
I lapsed into silence, my breathing heavy, raw. For all I knew the call had been dropped. Or she’d hung up. But I was talking now. And I couldn’t stop, whether she heard it or not.
“The way Arriette died was horrible. Awful. She overdosed at a nightclub in Paris. She’d wanted me to go with her. I refused. I had a big day the next day. Every day was a big day, of course. The real reason was I didn’t want that life anymore. We fought. She went without me. I got the call from someone who’d found her on the floor of the bathroom and called the ambulance. I showed up at the same time they did. I saw her.” I hissed in a breath at the pain of the vision. “It was too late. It will haunt me for all of my days that I didn’t go with her that night. That I could have done more to save her. And I hurt for Dauphine that her mother’s sickness was stronger than her love for her daughter. That love couldn’t win. But the thing that haunts me the most is that my marriage had died in front of my eyes, and I did not see it until it was too late. I did not see it! How does one, how do I, ever trust this emotion again when all it does is blind you and wait until you are at its mercy, and then kick away the earth beneath you? I know better now, I think to myself. I will not fall for it again. Jamais. Jamais … ensuite il y a eu toi. But then you. But then … there was you.”
All I heard was my own breath.
She was gone. Our calls had dropped every now and again over the intervening days since our nighttime calls had begun. It was an annoyance of long distance over apps. And that was okay now. I waited and heard nothing.
I needed to do this next part alone, anyway.
It was like being in a confessional of darkness. Of forgiveness. Without judgment or repercussion. “I want … I want to love you, Josephine. Maybe I do. But I don’t trust that it’s real. I’m sorry. Mon dieu. I’m so fucking sorry.”
I squeezed my eyes closed against the burning behind them, my free hand coming to rest over them for a moment—a useless instinct.
The phone was pointless now too, and I slipped it from my ear to turn it off. But then I saw the call was still connected. My breath froze in my chest, and I slowly brought it back to my ear. It was milliseconds before I realized the call was now truly gone. But not before I heard the quiet sob before she ended it.
What had I done?
Chapter Fifty
JOSIE
Charleston, SC, USA
Buried under my pillow, my sheet damp from my stupid tears, I heard the muffled sound of my bedroom door opening, then closing. I felt Meredith sitting on the bed beside me. She took the phone I still held in my hand and laid it on the bedside table.
“This can’t go on,” she said gently and removed the pillow, wincing when she saw the state of me. “You can’t just put your life on hold so you can speak to Xavier Pascale every night. Especially not when it’s killing you like this.” She reached over and grabbed the box of tissues, ripping a handful out and pressing them into my palm. “It might be the middle of the night for him,