and put a finger to my lips. “We can’t wake her. Come into the living room.”
He promptly shuts his mouth and lets me lead him down the stairs into the living room. He draws in a breath as he takes in the full-length windows that look out over the garden and the warmth of the room. I’ve never been much of a decorator, but I’m proud of this room, with its cool blues and overstuffed couches.
“This is beautiful.”
“Yeah. It’s pretty good, isn’t it?”
He settles onto one of the couches and leans back with a contented sigh. “I almost forgot that couches were made for people to sit on.”
I give him a puzzled look. “What?”
“Never mind. Just something Marcus said once.” He fixes his gaze on me again. “Time’s up, though. Answer the question. Why didn’t you tell me that you had a daughter?”
I consider taking the seat next to him, but I think that would be a very bad idea, indeed, so I decide on one of the armchairs instead.
“I don’t know, really. I think I was afraid of mixing my two worlds. Being with you was like being the better version of my old self, before I got all sad and post-traumatic stress-disordery. I was afraid that telling you about Grace would break the spell. I was afraid that letting you infringe on my real life would make me wake up from the dream.”
He searches my face. “Because I’m not part of your real world, right?”
“I don’t know. Are you?” I stare back at him. “Chris, New York was an aberration. I didn’t think I was ever going to see you again. I thought it was just a one-time thing, you know. A way to rewrite history, to forget all of the terrible history between the two of us, a way to end things with something good. I thought that would be it. You would go off to your life and I would go off to mine. And then I saw you in Chicago…”
He cuts me off.
“You cannot be that blind.”
“We didn’t even know each other anymore. We don’t know each other now, Chris.”
“Bullshit again. You know me better than anyone ever has, and you always will, whether you want to or not. And whether you want me to or not, I do know you.”
“There’s too much terrible history here for a future to make any kind of sense.”
“I don’t believe that, and I don’t think you do, either.”
A single tear falls from my one of my eyes. He makes a movement to get up from the couch but I hold my hand out to stop him.
“No.”
“What happened to us, Hals? What’s so terrible that it can’t be fixed?”
“I think there’s a long answer and a short answer. Which one do you want?”
“Both. Short, then long.”
“We had the fight to end all fights. We both said some things that I don’t know if it’s ever possible to recover from. The kinds of things that make your stomach sick when you think about them, even seven years later. I called you a…”
“I know what you called me. I know what I called you. I didn’t mean it, Hals. It was the alcohol talking. You were never a fame-monger.”
I wince, because the words still hurt, even after all these years.
“Or a gold-digging prude?”
It’s his turn to wince.
“I’m so sorry.”
“There were grains of truth there. I lost myself. I lost everything about the person I wanted to be, everything I once wanted for myself. I became so wrapped up in you that I forgot that there were things that existed outside of you. And while I would contend that fame-mongering was never really in my grand plan for myself, and personally, I think the statement was a little unfair, what you said would never have had the power to get to me if there wasn’t some truth there.”
He stands up and takes a step towards me. There’s never been a man who moved so well. I shake my head, because his nearness is too intoxicating and I need a clear head.
“No, we’re not done yet, Chris. You said you wanted the long version.”
He sighs and takes a step back from me. “As you wish.”
“We were eighteen years old.”
“So?”
“So, what do you know about life when you’re eighteen? The rest of your life is nothing but a bunch of big beautiful tomorrows. There’s always time for a vacation in Bali, time to decide that you want to become a rocket scientist. Nothing is