The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - V. E. Schwab Page 0,188

that she said the same thing every time. He wants to tell her that they would have been friends. That they were, in that first-night-of-the-rest-of-our-lives kind of way. Which was, of course, as much as Addie ever got.

But she wouldn’t believe him, so he lets it live for her as fiction.

“Did you like it?” he asks.

And Bea breaks into a grin. There is no fog in her eyes now, no shine, and he has never been more grateful to have the truth.

“It’s good, Henry,” she says. “It’s really, really good.” She taps the title page. “Just make sure you thank me in the acknowledgments.”

“What?”

“My thesis. Remember? I wanted to do it on the girl in those pieces. The ghost in the frame. That’s her, isn’t it?”

And of course, it is.

Henry runs his hand over the manuscript, relieved and sad that it is done. He wishes he could have lived with it a little longer, wishes he could have lived with her.

But now, he is glad to have it.

Because the truth is, he is already beginning to forget.

It’s not that he’s fallen victim to her curse. She has not been erased in any way. The details are simply fading, as all things do, glossing over by degrees, the mind loosening its hold on the past to make way for the future.

But he doesn’t want to let go.

He is trying not to let go.

He lies in bed at night, and closes his eyes, and tries to conjure her face. The exact curve of her mouth, the specific shade of her hair, the way the bedside lamp lit against her left cheekbone, her temple, her chin. The sound of her laughter late at night, her voice when she was on the edge of sleep.

He knows these details are not as important as the ones in the book, but he still can’t bear to lose them yet.

Belief is a bit like gravity. Enough people believe a thing, and it becomes as solid and real as the ground beneath your feet. But when you’re the only one holding on to an idea, a memory, a girl, it’s hard to keep it from floating away.

“I knew you were going to be a writer,” Bea is saying. “All the trappings, you’ve just been living in denial.”

“I’m not a writer,” he says absently.

“Tell that to the book. You’re going to sell it, right? You have to—it’s too good.”

“Oh. Yeah,” he says thoughtfully. “I think I’d like to try.”

And he will.

He will get an agent, and the book will go to auction, and in the end he’ll sell the work on one condition—that there is only one name on the cover, and it is not his—and in the end, they will agree. They’ll think it some clever marketing trick, no doubt, but his heart will thrill at the thought of other people reading these words—not his, but hers, of her name carried from lips to lips, from mind to memory.

Addie, Addie, Addie.

The advance will be enough to pay off his student loans, enough to let him breathe a little while he figures out what he’s going to do next. He doesn’t know yet what that is, but for the first time, it doesn’t scare him.

The world is wide, and he’s seen so little of it with his own eyes. He wants to travel, to take photos, listen to other people’s stories, maybe make some of his own. After all, life seems very long sometimes, but he knows it will go so fast, and he doesn’t want to miss a moment.

London, England

February 3, 2016

III

The bookstore is about to close.

It gets dark early this time of year, and there’s snow in the forecast, which is rare for London. The various clerks bustle about, dismantling old displays and putting up new ones, trying to finish their work before the mist outside turns to frost.

She lingers nearby, thumb skating along the ring at her throat as a pair of teenage girls restock a wall in New Fiction.

“Have you read it yet?” asks one.

“Yeah, this weekend,” says the other.

“I can’t believe the author didn’t put their name on it,” says the first. “Must be some kind of PR stunt.”

“I don’t know,” says the second. “I think it’s charming. Makes the whole thing feel real. Like it’s really Henry, telling her story.”

The first girl laughs. “You’re such a romantic.”

“Excuse me,” cuts in an older man. “Could I grab a copy of Addie LaRue?”

Her skin prickles. He says the name with so much ease. Sounds tripping