Chapter 101: Frayed promises
The warm, heavy night air clung to me as I crept back into the villa. The gate thudded shut behind me in an unholy screech of metal on metal that froze my heart. I fumbled with the key in shaking fingers, forcing it into the lock and praying Caspian was out, that I could burrow into our bed, pull blankets over me, and pray the next few hours would fly by somehow.
But hope, I was learning, was a stupid killing thing.
He was there.
Caspian's wiry form coiled up tight in blackness in the doorway of the living room, but no doubt. Forearms crossed over his chest under a thick pad of blanket cover, head tilting a full inch as if he couldn't quite manage to turn and face me and somehow couldn't help but see me. His hair was rumpled as though he'd played with it a hundred times. His shirt was glued to him, wrinkled and crumpled as though he hadn't moved from the place he was sitting all night. And his eyes—those brilliant storm-gray eyes—were darker than I’d ever seen them.
I froze halfway out of my jacket, heart hammering against my ribs.
"Where were you?" Caspian asked, his voice low, deceptively calm.
The lamp next to him threw gentle, golden light upon the angles of his hard face. His jaw was clenched, the muscle throbbing in rhythmic beat.
"I needed air," I said, untying my arms from the jacket and pushing it onto the coat rack with a deferential gentleness. Anything rather than encounter his questioning eyes.
"You needed air," he replied, each word precisely measured, deliberate.
He stepped back, and I staggered backward blindly until the door halted us.
"I called you," he said. "Twice."
"I didn't see it," I lied too quickly. My voice cracked, exposing me.
There was tension between us in the air, strained taut until it was about to break.
Caspian's eyes remained locked on mine, pleading, questioning. And for the first time ever, I was unable to glance away.
"Lily," he gasped, my name a broken prayer. "Say something."
My throat hurt.
"I don't know what to say," I gasped.
He pushed his hand through his hair, his own breathing a broken exhale.
"I'm losing you," he gasped, his voice shaking over the admission. "And I don't know how to stop it."
I pressed my lips together, biting back the tears.
"You're not losing me," I told him, to my own ears, a lie. "We're just. adjusting."
Caspian's mocking laughter sent me crashing.
"Adjusting," he mocked again, to himself. "Is this what this is? You leaving me in the night? Lying?"
"I'm not—"
But I couldn't even get the words out. Because to myself, in my own head, I knew that I was lying. Not just to him—but to myself.
He inched closer until inches separated us. Arms around me, cold hurting familiar. He held my face in trembling hands, thumbs tracing over wet cheeks.
"I love you," he growled. "I love you so damn much it scares the living hell out of me."
A sob ripped from my throat.
"I know," I breathed.
"So why," he said, raising his voice a bit, forehead against mine,
"do I feel like you've already left?"
The question shattered something in me. For by then, I knew that I was slipping away. Not because I wanted to. But because a part of me continued to cling to the ghosts of the past, to the comfort of the self I once knew before Caspian.
We stood together, breathing the same air, our hearts beating in rhythm but off-beat.
And he moved back then, his arms at his sides. His loss hurt.
"I don't want to be someone you settle on, Lily," he told me, his voice ringing. "I want to be your choice."
"You are," I pleaded with all the strength I had. "You are, Caspian."
But even as I spoke the words with my mouth, seeds of doubt were sown deep in my soul.
He smiled at me—a small, regretful smile—one that reduced me to nothing more effectively than any anger had ever done—and stepped back, into villa gloom.
I leaned at the doorway again, against cold marble, forehead on hands.
The villa was silent around me. Far too silent.
The quiet tick of the grandfather clock in the hallway commanded the room, each tick a count-off of something to befall.
I gazed up at the ceiling, the gold chandelier spinning with the night air that breathed through the panes of the old house. The villa was beautiful, old, and finicky—just like us.
All was so fragile.
I remembered the garden outside, where moonlight had whitened the roses to silver. Where Caspian used to kiss me under the stars and vowed to love me to the end of time with a kiss so perfect that it pained my soul.
Where did we go astray for the first time?
Was it when Nathaniel returned and brought forth memories I had hidden so deep within?
Or was fault line before us, waiting to split us in two?
I unzipped my pocket, digging out my phone, trembling fingers racing across missed calls. Two from Caspian. One from unknown.
Nathaniel.
My thumb hovered above the screen.
One call. One talk. Was that such a bad thing?
Before I got my head into gear, I phoned.
It rang twice. Once.
"Lily."
Nathaniel's smooth voice, heat, wrapped me up in a comforter.
I screwed my eyes shut, loathing the amount of comfort I derived from it.
"I shouldn't have called," I growled gruffly.
"No," he said softly. "I'm glad you did."
I held the phone to my ear like a lifeline, hearing the soft breathing.
"Bad night?" he said.
I laughed, a broken one.
"You could say that."
There was a pause, then, "Want to talk about it?"
My heart was broken by the burden of all that I could not tell him. But desire crept in, sly and sly.
"I don't know," I confessed.
"I am here, Lily," he said to me. "Always."
I closed my eyes, the tears flowing.
"Perhaps we might meet," he ventured. "To talk."
I paused, my heart pounding.
Was I really considering this? After everything that had happened?
"Perhaps," I breathed.
"I'll be at The Gardenia," he'd said. "Midnight. No pressure."
The line went dead.
I sat for what felt like an eternity staring at the blank screen.
The Gardenia was just a few minutes' walk from the villa. Charming, secluded, little secret bar which seemed hidden, ivy-covered behind rocky walls and firefly-glowing lanterns. Nathaniel and I had been there before, in another lifetime.
I got up and moved through the villa, the marble cool under my bare feet. The living room moonlight silver, the fireplace black and dark. Our portraits still on the fireplace mantel—smiling, knowing faces, memories now echoes.
I stood in front of one of the pictures of Caspian and me on the balcony, arms around each other, laughter frozen.
I stretched out my hand and touched the frame, tracing the curve of his smile.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
But I had no idea it would be enough.
He'd tried. God, he'd tried so torturously hard to get through to me, to mend something perhaps already too damaged.
I rested my forehead against the cool of the windowpane, staring out into the darkness.
Should I go?
Was it betrayal that I had to be told only?
Was it betrayal that I had to be heard only?
The clock rang out at midnight, its ringing through the silent villa.
I closed my eyes tightly.