Chapter 71: LET’ S MAKE A DEAL

DANTE

I hadn't slept in two days.

I'd close my eyes and then open them an hour later then go back to the monitor and watch her lying there not sleeping either, both of us awake in the same building doing nothing, and at some point around four in the morning on the second night I understood that I had run out of ways to avoid the thing I'd been avoiding.

I went down at seven in the morning to put an end to this.

She was sitting on the bed when I came in, already awake like usual, back straight, hands in her lap, and she looked at me with that fake smile.

"I want to make you an offer," I said.

"Okay."

I paused. I had expected a bit more reaction.

I sat down in the chair across from her and tried to find the words I'd been rehearsing since four in the morning but like usual when I'm around her, they came out different than I'd planned.

"Thirty days," I said. "Give me thirty days to make you fall in love with me. And not like this but willingly and then after thirty days, if you still want to leave, I'll help you go. I'll give you a new identity, new city and money to start over. I'll arrange everything and I'll disappear from your life completely."

I wasn't being completely honest by the second part because I knew I would still stalk her.

She looked at me for a long moment without changing her expression. "Why would you do that?"

"Because this isn't working." I said it and it cost something to say it. "I wanted you and now I have you but I don't have you. You're here and you're gone at the same time and I can't—" I stopped then started again. "I thought having you close would be enough but it isn't. So let me try differently."

"And if I say no?"

"Then nothing changes. The door stays locked and we stay exactly where we are." I leaned forward. "But if you say yes, the door unlocks right now and you will sleep upstairs, you have your phone back as well as access to everything.”

She didn't say anything.

"I know you don't believe me," I said.

"I don't."

"I know. But I'm offering anyway because I don't have anything else left to try and I'd rather risk you leaving than keep watching you disappear in front of me."

The silence went on long enough that I started to think she wasn't going to answer at all and was just going to sit there looking at me and then she said: "What counts as willing? What does that actually mean for thirty days?"

"It means you're not… being like this. I need you to honestly engage with me, even if you're angry or hate me. I need you to be the you that I fell in love with.” I lock eyes with her. “I'd rather have that than whatever this is."

Another silence.

"And after thirty days," she said. "If I want to go."

"I'll help you disappear. Yes."

"You'll actually let me leave?”

"Yes."

She looked at me for a long time and I could see the cogs turning in her head. then she said: "Thirty days. And you'll keep your word."

"Yes."

"Okay," she said. "Thirty days."

I stood up immediately, walked to the door, unlocked it then stepped back.

She stood up slowly, walked to the door then stepped out of it. She looked so tense like she expected me to drag her back into the room but I wasn't going to do that.

Her legs were unsteady on the stairs and as I moved to help her but she pulled away.

"I can walk," she said.

She could barely as she used one hand on the wall, taking each step slowly, while I followed behind her but didn't touch her again.

At the top of the stairs she pushed through the door into the building's main corridor and stopped.

Then she turned and saw the front door.

She looked at it for a long time then she looked at me.

"Go ahead," I said. "Open it and leave. You can break the deal right now." I meant it when I said it. "Prove that I can't trust you and that this was pointless."

She looked back at the door.

Her hand didn't move toward it.

"Thirty days," she said, more to herself than to me. "I agreed. I'll keep my word."

Something in my chest loosened for the first time in weeks. "Thank you."

She didn't respond to that and I didn't expect her to, as we got into the elevator and rode up.

She was already planning something. I could see it in her eyes but  I told myself it didn't matter because I had thirty days and thirty days was enough time to make her remember what we'd had before all of this.

I was wrong about that.

But I didn't know it yet.