Chapter 100: Echoes of comfort
The villa was too quiet.
Every clock bell rang a little too loudly, every gust of wind against the windows a moan too grave to ignore. I walked the corridors like a ghost, my fingertips tracing the cold marble walls, the ache in my chest growing heavier with every vacant stride.
Since our fight, Caspian and I had been dancing in a shaky waltz—close but never quite touching the real sore. We'd promised to heal, but cracks were there if I pinched my eyes. And today. I couldn't help but look.
I had stumbled into the sitting room unawares, staring out at the enormous garden beyond through the arched windows. The roses—so vibrant, so vivid once—now sagged somber beneath the collecting graying of dusk. I pressed my forehead against the cold glass, wishing I might be able to deposit my heart there too, numb it to everything.
That was when my phone started ringing.
Once. And again, twice. Persevering.
I moved back from the window, not wanting to take it on the side table.
Nathaniel Carter.
The surname leered at me like an offer. My feet locked, heart racing in my chest. I had not blocked his number, although perhaps I ought to have done. A thousand recollections tumbled all together—Nathaniel's careless laughter, the feel of his hand brushing over mine across coffee shop tables, the way he'd used to speak my name in a whispered reverence as though it was confidential between us two only.
And then the phone memories—the plotting, the cruelty, the way he'd let his own fault taint what we'd created.
But for better sense, my thumb on the phone. The house was too loose, too bare around me. My hand trembled near infinitesimally as I picked up the phone and held it to my ear.
"Hello?"" My voice cracked, louder than it should've been, more uncertain.
There was a hush, and then his voice took up the line—low, warm, familiar.
"Lily."
It was one word, said in soft pain.
I tightened my eyes shut, gasping for the rush of feeling.
"Hi," I exhaled, already sorry.
"I didn't expect you'd call back," Nathaniel spoke, and I could feel the tension behind the carefree attitude, as though he was also standing on the high wire. "I just. I've missed you."
I leaned back on the wall, slipping down onto the floor. My knees drawn up to my chest, the other hand shaking on my shin.
"Then isn't the time," I lied, but even to myself, it was not convincing.
"I know," he said immediately. "And I'm sorry. I shouldn't be calling. I just." His voice trailed off. "I heard what had occurred. I heard that you were. having a great deal of trouble. I just wanted to call and ask if you were okay."
Something inside me split open a bit there.
For in all the upheaval, who had ever called simply to ask how I was—just to see how I was doing, not to repair, not to demand explanations—but just to check in on me?
Caspian adored me, I knew that, but his love was so huge it devoured the tiny quiet bits of me. Bits that needed gentle compassion, not acts of valor.
Nathaniel's tone grew even softer.
"I miss you, Lily," he said softly, and the vulnerability in there cut me. "Not to cause trouble. Not to make things harder for you. I just. miss talking with you. Being around you. I miss. you."
My heart ached so hard that it was painful to breathe.
"I can't go back," I said, but it was a more of a begging than an assertion.
"I'm not asking you to," Nathaniel said softly. "I just. if you'd like a friend, someone who knows you—someone who won't make you be anything other than you—then I'm here."
The space between us became deep and agonizing. I pressed my palm against my forehead, trying to collect my spinning thoughts.
"I don't know if that's a good thing," I finally breathed. My voice barely above a whisper.
"Perhaps not," he had said. "But I'll be at the pier tonight. Just. sitting. Watching the boats go by. If you have something to talk about, I'll be there. No expectations. No pressure. Just. presence."
I swallowed. The pier—the meeting point where Nathaniel and I would meet before things got complicated. The location where the world was uncomplicated.
"I'll think about it," I said to him, my chest pounding like a bird in a cage.
"Please, just that much," Nathaniel said, his voice breaking slightly. "Bye, Lily."
The phone went dead.
I held the receiver for a very long time afterwards, the quiet ringing in my ears.
As night became darker, the interior of the villa became dusky and somber. Shadows crept across the floors, and the soft clinking of kitchen utensils resonated from the staff quarters like phantoms ringing chains.
I roamed the rooms like a woman divided between two worlds.
The gallery, where Caspian had kissed my forehead with trembling lips only days ago.
The library, where we had cowered and promised to mend.
The balcony, where he inhaled that he always loved me.
And yet, even there in those sacred places, I now experienced a gulfgap distance.
Because love was not supposed to be so heavy.
It was not supposed to leave scars where certainty once was.
I collapsed over the velvet chaise in the library, my fingers involuntarily tugging on the hem of my sweater. Ache deep within me began to form, something dangerously on the verge of hurting—not so much for Nathaniel, but for the young woman I once was who cherished someone without it being like stepping through a minefield.
The pier sparkled in my memory.
The waves crashing against gnarled wood, the wind-whipped salt lashing my hair, Nathaniel smiling as he dragged me towards a boat we'd never set foot on.
Simple. Stupid. Perfect.
I pressed my palms over my eyes and fought against the tide of guilt welling up.
Caspian had given me everything—his heart, his loyalty, his dreams.
Nathaniel had once given me ease, simplicity. And though it had all gone so wrong, the shadow of that ease still called something raw in me.
I lifted my head, and the villa waited, its breath suspended.
Outside the windows, the first stars cut through the velvet sky.
The pier was not far away.
Only a drive across town.
Only a conversation.
I slowly got up, my own body heavier than it should be. I didn't know if I was going towards closure or opening something which I should have left closed tight.
I did know:
I couldn't remain there any longer, stuck on the whispers of my own regret.
I had to go and see Nathaniel.
If only to remind myself of what I once was before it all got so frayed.
With trembling hands, I retrieved my coat from off the hook near the door.
The night air wrapped around me as I went out, the sky open and vast overhead.
Far off in the distance, the old pier waited—along with a part of my past that I wasn't certain I was prepared to revisit.
I stood on the doorstep, my ribcage thudding with my heartbeat.
Was I doing something wrong?
Or was this the very first thing I've ever done in all sincerity?
As the windows of the villa fell behind me, I knew I would never know unless it was too late.
But then at the last minute, I turned back and went back into the villa.