The Echo of Old Books(52)

If I don’t speak now, don’t finish what I’ve started, I never will. It’ll sting for a while, like a slap you don’t see coming—I’ve taken you for a ride and then tossed you aside—but you’ll have Teddy to soften the blow and I’ll soon be forgotten.

It helps to remember Teddy. I clear my throat and force myself to meet your gaze. “What we had—what we’ve been these last few months—has served a purpose for both of us.”

Your eyes glitter with unshed tears. “Why are you doing this?”

I thought I could stand whatever you threw at me, but I was wrong. Suddenly, desperately, I need this to be over. “Belle . . .”

“None of it meant anything to you? All these weeks, all the afternoons? It was all for her? For Goldie? When you knew I loved you?”

Love.

The word slices into me like a blade. Neither of us has ever said it before. Me least of all. Instead, I’ve lived with the knowledge that one day, quite suddenly, it would be our last day. It would have been pointless, not to mention foolhardy, to allow my heart to wander onto such dangerous ground. Now, suddenly, the truth hits me squarely, inescapably. I’ve loved you from the very first night, the very first look, the very first lie. I let myself believe I was in command of my emotions, that I could conquer them, starve them out of existence. Now I realize that was the biggest lie of all.

I feel unmoored suddenly, adrift now that I’ve abandoned all my pretenses. “I’ve been so careful,” I say finally, absurdly. “I thought I could keep myself from feeling . . . that I could just beat you to goodbye.”

“And now you have.” You brush angrily at a fresh spill of tears, as if annoyed that you’ve allowed them to escape. “What a fool I’ve been. All this time, I thought . . . I believed you felt what I did.”

Your words catch as you make a grab for your handbag. I reach for your arm, staying you. “I did. I do.” When your eyes finally meet mine, wet and wide and full of hope, I feel myself falling into them, tumbling end over end. Dizzy. Free. Lost. “I do love you, Belle. I have since that first night, when I crashed your engagement party.”

I pull you into my arms then, a man who knows he’s irrevocably lost. Goldie was right this morning when she hurled her parting words at my back. I am in over my head. I was prepared to let you go when I left her this morning. As much for my sake as for yours. Now the idea seems unthinkable. You’re the answer to a prayer I never thought to pray—and a threat to all my plans—but I’m not strong enough to walk away. I want you. In whatever way it’s possible to have you, for however long it’s possible to have you. Knowing it’s a mistake, knowing it solves nothing. Knowing that one day we will stand here again, on the brink of goodbye.





Forever, and Other Lies

(pgs. 45–49)

November 5, 1941

New York, New York

I barely register the sound of my handbag knocking to the floor as you pull me against you. You wrap me so tightly, I can scarcely tell where I leave off and you begin. And I don’t want to. Because it’s right. This ache to be near you—to belong to you—has been a part of me since that first night, and now I know it’s been a part of you too.

You love me.

There are no words after that from either of us. Your lips on mine, so feverish, so desperate, say everything that needs to be said. And everything that cannot. The promise you can’t ask of me because I’ve already given it to another. The promise that for so many reasons, I’m not free to break. And yet in this feverish, spinning, exquisite moment, I know that I mean to break it—somehow—and to hell with the consequences.

We’re both breathless when you pull away, and for a moment I’m afraid you’ve changed your mind. Then your eyes find mine and I see the question there, silent, needful. The yearning to finish what we’ve begun, to consummate, at long last, all we’ve been pretending not to feel.

I press my hand into yours and allow you to lead me down the hall, past your suitcases and your typewriter, and into the bedroom. There’s a window looking out onto an alley and an imposing row of brick buildings. The afternoon light slanting in feels cold and stark, a glaring reminder of the world outside.

And then you pull the curtains closed and, without a word, set to work on the buttons of my gloves. It’s a startlingly intimate sensation, your fingers, warm and careful, peeling back the fabric. Suddenly I feel vulnerable and exposed, as if my skin is being removed.

I’m trembling and breathless, terrified of I know not what. And yet I never once think to stop you as you slowly undress me and press me back against the spread. We’ve been inching toward this brink for so long, always careful to pull back at the last second, to preserve some pretense of decency, but there will be no half measures today, no stopping at the water’s edge. Decency be damned.

There’s an urgency in your touch, a well of pent-up need given free rein at last. I respond instinctively, meeting your hunger with my own, unafraid suddenly, unashamed. The power of it—of us—is like nothing I’ve imagined. I’m both powerful and powerless, conqueror and conquered. Whole in your arms in a way I never thought possible and, at the same time, utterly shattered as we hurtle headlong over the precipice together. And in that moment, there can be no going back. I’m yours forever. Irrevocably. Indelibly.