Gabriel’s Inferno Trilogy by Sylvain Reynard Page 0,73

from falling off the cliff until I get back.

Love, R.

P.S. Aaron wants to say hi personally. Take it away, honey.

~~~

Hello, Julia. It’s Aaron.

Thank you for taking such good care of my fiancée while she was in Canada. She came back a different person, and I know it wasn’t because of Gabriel.

We all missed you at the funeral—would love to see you at Thanksgiving. If you aren’t planning on coming home, would you reconsider? It’s going to be rough without Grace. Richard (and Rachel) need their family around them, and that means you too.

I have frequent flyer miles—I could send you a ticket.

Think about it.

Love you girlie,

Aaron.

Julia wiped away a tear at the sweetness that was Aaron, feeling happy and relieved that he and his fiancée were still very much in love. What Julia would not give to be loved like that…

She wondered why Aaron’s offer of frequent flyer miles leaped off her screen as something other than charity, why she was instantly considering his very kind offer. Then it occurred to her—Grace was right. When there are no strings attached and a gift is given out of love, or friendship, which is a kind of love, there was no shame in accepting it. If Julia accepted Aaron’s gift, she could still be part of Richard’s first Thanksgiving without Grace and give the Emerson bursary back.

In thinking about Grace, Julia wondered if a small prayer to Grace for both herself and Gabriel would be efficacious, for Grace was a true saint, a heavenly mother, and one that would no doubt send help to her children. So while St. Lucy went on vacation with her beloved Aaron, Julia turned her attention upward and begged for her heavenly mother’s intercession in all of their lives, lighting a candle in the window of her small studio on a lonely Friday night in Grace’s memory. And before she crawled into her single bed with her velveteen rabbit, she resolved to accept Aaron’s gift graciously, as evidence of her own newfound openness to charity and her ability to swallow her pride when appropriate. Which meant, not surprisingly, that her deadly sin was not so deadly.

***

In Paul’s absence, Julia found herself spending a long Saturday at the library, working on her thesis proposal in Professor Emerson’s carrel. Part of her secretly hoped that The Professor would surprise her again, but he didn’t. And his words came back to her, “I’ll see you Wednesday. If I’m still here.”

Julia realized that despite what Rachel said, it was more than possible that Gabriel had a girlfriend named Paulina. Julia remembered that Gabriel had assigned the chimes of Big Ben to Paulina’s ring tone. Was Paulina in London? Was she English? Or was there something about the chimes that Gabriel thought was important? Julia looked up Big Ben on Wikipedia, but did not find anything particularly illuminating.

(Wikipedia can be like that.)

She wasn’t naïve, despite what Gabriel thought of her. She knew he wasn’t a virgin and that he hadn’t been when she first met him. Still, knowing it and having it flaunted in front of her face were two very different things.

Her thoughts drifted to Gabriel and Paulina or some nameless, faceless girl, skin against skin, their bodies entwined. She saw Gabriel kissing the girl’s lips and exploring her body with his mouth, his hands, his eyes. She saw Gabriel giving and receiving physical pleasure from some tall, perfect, blonde. She imagined Gabriel in ecstasy, screaming the girl’s name, gazing deeply into her eyes as his body climaxed. She thought of Gabriel becoming one with some other soul, belonging in this way to some other girl. Would she love Gabriel? Be kind to Gabriel? Would she want him to be a better man, or just want him for his body, his passion, his animalistic nature? Would she even care that behind those beautiful eyes was the soul of a man long gone, wounded now and in need of both redemption and repair? Or would she want to drag him deeper down, ensnaring him with her body and her fingernails?

The thought of Gabriel taking another girl, any girl, to his bed, perchance to his soul, wounded her deeply. But somehow, the thought that there was another girl who warmed his bed for more than just one night was absolutely devastating—because she had wanted to be his girl, forever.

However sad and sordid her imaginings were, they didn’t stop her from somewhat pathetically wearing his green cashmere sweater to the library and hugging her