The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - V. E. Schwab Page 0,86
word swells a little in her chest.
Henry pours, and Addie leans her elbows on the counter, wraps her hands around the steaming cup, inhales the bittersweet scent. For a second, only a second, she is in Paris, hat pulled down in the corner of the café as Remy pushed the cup toward her and said, Drink. That is how memories are for her, past rising into present, a palimpsest held up to the light.
“Oh, hey,” says Henry, calling her back. “I found this on the floor. Is it yours?”
She looks up and sees the wooden ring.
“Don’t touch that.” Addie snatches it out of his hand, too fast. The inside of the ring brushes the tip of her finger, rolls around the nail like a coin about to settle, all the ease of a compass finding north.
“Shit.” Addie shudders and drops the band. It clatters to the floor, rolling several feet before fetching up against the edge of a rug. She grips her fingers as if burned, heart pounding.
She didn’t put it on.
And even if she did—her gaze cuts to the window, but it is morning, sunlight streaming through the curtains. The darkness cannot find her here.
“What happened?” asks Henry, clearly confused.
“Nothing,” she says, shaking out her hand. “Just a splinter. Stupid thing.” She kneels slowly to retrieve it, careful to touch only the outside of the band.
“Sorry,” she says, straightening. She sets the ring on the counter between them, splaying her hands on either side. In the artificial light, the pale wood looks almost gray. Addie glares down at the band.
“Have you ever had something you love, and hate, but can’t bear to get rid of? Something you almost wish you’d lose, because then it wouldn’t be there, and it wouldn’t be your fault…” She tries to make the words light, almost casual.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I do.” He opens a kitchen drawer and pulls out something small, and gold. A Star of David. A pendant, missing its chain.
“You’re Jewish?”
“I was.” Two words, and all he means to say. His attention drifts back to her ring. “It looks old.”
“It is.” Exactly as old as she is.
They both should have worn to nothing long ago.
She presses her hand down over the ring, feels the smooth wooden rim dig into her palm. “It belonged to my father,” she says, and it isn’t a lie, though it’s only the beginning of the truth. She closes her hand around the ring, and pockets it. The ring is weightless, but she can feel it. She can always feel it.
“Anyway,” she says, with a too-bright smile. “What’s for breakfast?”
* * *
How many times has Addie dreamed of this?
Of hot coffee and buttered toast, of sunlight streaming through the windows, of new days that aren’t fresh starts, none of the awkward silence of strangers, of a boy or a girl, elbows on the counter across from her, the simple comfort of a night remembered.
“You must really love breakfast,” says Henry, and she realizes she is beaming down at her food.
“It’s my favorite meal,” she answers, spearing a bite of eggs.
But as she eats, the hope begins to thin.
Addie is not a fool. Whatever this is, she knows it will not last. She has lived too long to think it chance, been cursed too long to think it fate.
She has begun to wonder if it is a trap.
Some new way to torment her. To break the stalemate, force her hand back into play. But even after all these years, Luc’s voice wraps around her, soft and low and gloating.
I am all you have. All you will ever have. The only one who will remember.
It was the one card he always held, the weapon of his own attention, and she does not think he’d give it away. But if it is not a trap, then what? An accident? A stroke of luck? Perhaps she has gone mad. It would not be the first time. Perhaps she has frozen up on Sam’s roof, and is trapped in a dream.
Perhaps none of it is real.
And yet, there is his hand on hers, there is the soft scent of him on the robe, there is the sound of her name, drawing her back.
“Where did you go?” he asks, and she spears another bite of food and holds it up between them.
“If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life,” she says, “what would it be?”
“Chocolate,” Henry answers without missing a beat. “The kind so dark it’s almost bitter.