Chapter 102: Twilight of crossroads
I almost went to him last night.
Keys in hand, jacket thrown over my shoulders haphazardly, I had been standing in the driveway, raised one foot up above the step out into the night. The villa had felt behind me chilly and vacant, as if Caspian's leaving had sucked all the warmth from the walls themselves.
The pier had been something out there on the horizon—a view of something open and familiar. Some place no one had demanded so much of me.
And then, just at the very end, there under the weight of a thousand stars, I'd stood stock-still.
A voice—gentle, but unrelenting—had been in my mind.
Don't run.
Not like that.
And so I hadn't gone.
Rather, I'd pulled back into the house, crawled into bed wearing my clothes, and seethed at the ceiling until restless, heavy sleep dragged me down.
And now—
Now morning light had given way to a hushed afternoon sky, and somehow, someway, Nathaniel had found his way through cracks I'd sealed.
It started with an innocent lunchtime text:
No pier tonight. Just coffee. No expectations. Promise.
Short.
Disarmingly informal.
Deadly in its simplicity.
I spent hours sitting there, chewing my lower lip to ribbons.
I shouldn't go.
I knew that.
And still, a few hours later, when the evening drew its weary fingers across the horizon, I slipped into a booth in a seedy coffee shop on the outskirts of town. Where nobody would know my face. Where regret could be a little less tangible.
Nathaniel was already sitting, holding a coffee, his black hair rumpled by the wind, his jacket thrown over the back of his chair. He looked up as I entered, and for a moment, the world outside us disappeared.
His eyes—those stormy, familiar eyes—unfurrowed as they met mine, and something deep inside me curled in pain.
I shouldn't be here.
But I was.
"Hi," he said, standing up, his uncertain smile genuine.
"Hi," I said, my voice too low. I slipped into the booth next to him, my restless hands lying in my lap.
We just sat there for a moment or two. The café surrounding us was muted—whispery noises of conversation, tinkling ice, the muted pulse of a life into which I did not fit.
Nathaniel pushed a coffee in front of me without even asking, just the way I always drank it—light cream, no sweetener. My chest hurt with pain.
He remembered.
"I didn't know if you'd make it," he said, low.
"I didn't either," I admitted.
He smiled gently, sweeping his hand around the back of his neck. "Well. thanks. For showing up. Even though it's just for a little while."
I nodded, wrapping my fingers around the hot cup even though I did not want to drink it.
The silence between us stretched out for an eternity, oppressive with the unspoken. The years we'd grown apart, the choices that'd carved canyons between the person we'd once been and the person we'd become—those all sat beside us at the table.
Nathaniel spoke, his tone shattering the silence.
"You look.good," he said to me, the corners of a smile struggling to make its way onto his mouth. "Happy."
His eyes hesitated for an instant.
"Or. you did."
I flinched, drawing back. The salt stung more than it ought to.
"I was," I breathed. "I am. Sometimes."
Nathaniel edged closer, elbows on knees, hands open but unrelenting.
"I never wanted to ruin that for you, Lily." His voice was harsh with truth. "I know that I hurt you. I live with that every day."
I swallowed hard, the coffee growing cold in my hands.
"Why call me then?" I said curtly, the tone darker than I intended it to be. "Why bring all this we have to contend with again?"
His eyes locked with mine, hard and unyielding.
"Because I still love you," he gasped. "Because when you love someone. you don't just stop, Lily. Even when you're supposed to."
The space between us distorted with the weight of his confession.
And for a cringing, bare moment, I almost let myself think that it could be simple again. That I could fall back into the comfort of someone who had known me before the fissures.
But Caspian's face sprang into my mind—his guarding fierceness, his silent love desperation, and the pain in my chest increased.
It wasn't easy.
It would never be.
Nathaniel leaned across the table purposefully, giving me plenty of good space to move away.
When his fingers brushed mine, it was with the lightest pressure—a touch, that's all, and it sent sparks running through my flesh.
I should have moved back.
I should have turned and walked away and left him standing.
I stood there, torn between the temptation of the past and the wary promise of the future that I still had to finish.
"You don't have to be so hard all the time," Nathaniel whispered, his thumb running along the curve of my hand. "Not with me."
Tears tickled at the backs of my eyes.
I blinked them angrily away, jerking my hand back.
"I don't want you to save me," I said to him, my voice shaking. "I'm not that girl anymore."
Nathaniel nodded slowly, his face cast into shadow by sorrow.
"I know," he said. "And I'm proud of you. I just. I miss being someone you could count on."
The earnestness in his voice wriggled the knife in a little more.
For hadn't I spent the last few days alone, to boot, even sharing a bed with the man I loved?
Hadn't I wondered if Caspian looked at me—or just the idea of me he held on so tightly to?
Night had fallen outside, cafe windows mirroring dark interior lighting.
Now there was only the two of us—two specters sitting across from each other, clutching the coals of what had been.
Nathaniel leaned back in his chair, his eyes less desperate, softer.
"Whatever," he breathed, "I just want you to be happy, Lily. Even if it's not with me."
The words broke something inside me.
Because for the very, very first time in as long as I ever could remember, someone wasn't fighting for me.
They were leaving it up to me.
Even if it broke their own heart.
I rocked back in my chair, the squealing legs biting into the floor.
Nathaniel stood too, his hands buried deep within his pockets, uncertainty etched across each line of his shape.
We hung there for a moment, suspended between then and later.
Between comforting familiarity and terrifying possibility.
"I require time," I said finally, my voice being rough.
He nodded, his face twisted with the effort of holding himself together.
"Have all the time you need," he said.
And for the very first time ever in the life of that man, there was no begging in his eyes.
Only compassion.
I got out and into the night, cold wind smacking me about the face like a baptism.
My heart blazed in my breast, unloosed and untrammeled.
Behind me, the lights of the café dissolved into a golden, warm haze.
Before me—the unknown.
A cross to bear alone.