Page 236 of The Lies We Play

And the shape is waiting, wounded and unfinished, asking whether I have the courage to reach for it without knowing if it will cut me open again.

“Tell him I said hello,” I say.

It is not enough.

It is also everything I can manage.

Creed nods. His eyes hold mine. “I will.”

We remain on the call.

I don't know what time it is in New York. I don't know what time it is for me. The morning has gotten away from me. The light through the window has shifted. Florence is loud somewhere outside, scooters and voices and the ordinary clatter of a city with no respect for personal devastation.

Inside my kitchen, on this screen, with this man’s face six hours behind mine and ten years ahead of the last place I left him, the world slows enough that I can hear my own breathing.

I want to ask everything.

Did he love anyone else?

Did he hate me?

Did he dream of me?

Did he touch the tattoo on nights when the investigators found nothing?

Did he tell Hal about me when Hal could not remember?

Did he ever sit beside him and say, There was a woman, and we loved her, and I lost her, and I swear I tried?

Instead, because I am a deeply practical woman and therefore a coward with organizational skills, I say, “I think I have to go.”

Creed nods, but he doesn't move.

“Will I see you soon?” I ask.

The question is small. Ridiculous, considering I have just agreed to fly to New York and petition a court to free the man I married from his family’s control.

Still, it feels like asking whether the sun will rise.

Creed lifts his hand toward the screen.

He almost touches it.

Almost.

His fingers hover there, inches from the camera, and I know exactly what he wants. I know because my own hand twitches on the table. Because I want it too, with an ache so basic it embarrasses me. Touch. Not strategy. Not security. Not lawyers, plans, airstrips, safe houses.

Just his palm against mine.

His thumb at my wrist.

His mouth against the place where ten years of waiting has made me tender and furious.

He doesn't touch the screen.

Of course he doesn't.

Creed Lafontaine has always known how to starve himself in the name of restraint.