Page 113 of When We Had Forever
“But Iwasn’thappy,” I whisper. “Not really.”
“I realize that. Now.” Grayson’s voice hitches. “I wish I had then. I would’ve done everything differently.”
Jesus. I’m a mess. He is, too. I can see it on his face, and I’m raw inside, breaking beneath the burden of all those lonely, squandered years. But I reach out, very gently, and take his hand.
He runs a thumb over my fingers. I sense no hope in the touch. Just a despairing sort of apology. “When Michael died, I told myself it didn’t change anything. But deep down, I kept hoping that maybe enough time had passed for you to forgive me. Or at least let me back in your life, if only as a friend. So I caved and sent you that email. Except when you wrote back saying you’d only found out I was Michael’s twin three years ago...”
I squeeze his fingers. No wonder his emails sounded so apologetic.
“I always knew he was a selfish motherfucker, but even he couldn’t have done something that messed-up. Or so I thought. I had to call you to be sure. I had to hear you tell me yourself that we’d never met.” All the emotion drains from his voice, as if Michael’s betrayal has bled him dry. “I may have punched a wall. While we were talking.”
I turn over the hand I’m holding and suck in a breath. In the lamplight, faint bruises outline his knuckles. That thud. I thought he’d dropped the phone.
“I know I should’ve told you everything then,” he says. “But I had to see you, Mina. I felt like I was going to die if I didn’t. At the very least, I had to be sure you were okay. And, if I’m honest, I think part of me thought that maybe... Maybe...” He looks away, his eyes bright.
“Maybe?” I say gently.
“Nothing. You had every right to react the way you did.” He blinks furiously. “Back in my twenties, I was so convinced there was no such thing as yesterday, but now I know better. I get that we can’t start over. I can never undo what’s happened, or fix the fact that I could’ve done right by you and didn’t. But Iamsorry. If I could live my life all over again, I’d do it completely differently. I just hate that I’ll never have the chance.”
I don’t speak. I can’t. The truth crowds in, pressing all the air from my body. Grayson traces the tendons of my hand, but absently, as if in his mind, I’ve already gotten up and left.
Breaking the silence requires all the breath in my lungs. “The way you felt about me never changed?”
He looks up. His eyes gleam like a knife’s edge, the agony there so sharp and bright it slices into me, too. “Never.”
“Even now? I mean, do you even recognize me anymore? The girl you fell in love with was a completely different person.”
“Yes, Mina.” He sounds hollow. Scraped raw. “I recognize you. I’d know you anywhere. I think the bigger question is, do you recognizeme?”
I look. Really look. He never used to have all these razor edges, and this version of him possesses a hardened, sinewy power that makes him look so much older than the boy from the Canadian fairy cave.
But I do recognize him. I’d know him anywhere. Maybe I recognized him from the first moment I answered the phone.
“You’re different now,” I whisper. “But yes. It’s still you.”
His mouth curls. I had no idea smiles could look so sad. “I hope you know I would’ve scaled that building and come through a nineteenth-story window for you, if I’d thought it would help. The only thing that could’ve kept me away from you was...well, you. Which I guess Michael knew.”
My throat thickens. “I guess so.”
We sit in silence. I roll the truth around in my hands until I’ve mapped the exact size and shape of Michael’s treachery. It’s breathtaking in its magnitude. My husband broke us. Stole years from us. Thieved me for himself without my knowledge. And Grayson’s right—Michaelkeptme. Like a pet. Or an angel on his shoulder, one he caged with pretty things and broken promises. Meanwhile, the man in front of me had always intended to let me fly.
Grayson gazes at me with naked regret. Something wakens inside me, pushing against the underside of my ribs, trying to get to him. So much has changed, and yet the same eyes that once pleaded with me inside an enchanted cave plead with me now, all these years later.
“I just need you to explain one last thing,” I say.
“Of course,” he rasps.
My eyes stray to the script inked over his heart. “If that’s not Lily’s name, whose is it?”
He breathes in hard, then lifts the hand he’s holding, pries my fingers apart, and presses my palm to his chest. Each searing black letter brands itself into my flesh. “It’s yours. Of course it’s yours.”
A tiny, broken sound flees my throat. “You mean all this time? All this falling apart you’ve done in front of the whole world? Because I thought—”
“No. It wasn’t about Lily. It was always about you. Always.” He lets go of my hand and exhales, long and shuddering and low, like a man ravaged. And of all the things that’ve come out of his mouth,that’swhat undoes me.
One minute, I’m in the chair. A heartbeat later, I’m on the bed, straddling him, tipping him back onto the mattress.
He freezes, his eyes wide, like he doesn’t understand how I got to him so fast, or that I got to him at all. “Mina?”
