Page 54 of Fated

He blinks.

“Mummy! Watch me!” Mila shouts, skipping past. I yank my eyes from Max and turn to her, waving. She cartwheels in front of the clock, three, four times, then five. I clap and cheer as Mila dizzily bows. Then she’s off again, running another flower-clock circuit.

I can feel Max’s attention on me. It’s like the breeze running over my bare skin, soft yet insistent. He put aside this conversation last Christmas and never brought it up again.

But it’s time.

“You still feel the same?” I ask Max, watching for Mila as the breeze drags over me and tugs at my hair. “As you did at Christmas?”

Max lets out a long breath, his exhale unsteady. “Are you asking if I still love you?”

I turn to him then. My heart echoes around my chest like the beating of a hollow drum. His expression is grave, his gaze steady.

It’s funny. Max looks nothing like McCormick. But in this moment, Max reminds me of him.

McCormick is tall and solid, a large, muscled, athletic man. Max is thinner, more like a rapier than a claymore.

McCormick has tattoos roping around his arms and abdomen. Max wears rings and diamonds but leaves his skin ink-free.

McCormick wears work-worn clothing and has an air of physicality and self-sufficiency suffused with an innate sense of decency.

Max wears tuxedos, suits, and on weekends jeans and his leather jacket, all brushed together with his wry sense of humor and steadfastness.

Yet while McCormick and Max look vastly different, they have something in common. It’s the feeling I get when I’m around them. That with them I’m safe. With them I’ll never be let down.

With Max I know it’s true. With McCormick? I sense it is.

Still, McCormick isn’t real.

Max is.

He’s real and he’s right here.

Max watches me now with the expectation of his ancestors looking upon Rome after a long, arduous campaign. He nervously twists the ring on his finger. His family crest spins, catching the rising sunlight.

He’s waiting for my answer.

“Yes,” I say softly. “That’s what I’m asking.”

He exhales then, as if he was holding his breath. He drops his hands to his sides and looks out over the Jardin Anglais, toward the second hand ticking over the sea of red geraniums.

Mila flashes past, her pace slowing. Soon she’ll make her way back to us, ready for pastries and a cold drink.

Finally, Max looks back to me and my chest tightens painfully. I see something in his eyes that he usually keeps hidden behind friendliness and laughter. It’s a deeper feeling, a yearning. It’s the difference between seeing a picture of the ocean and standing in front of it, feeling the cold surf on your feet, your insides vibrating from the roar of the waves.

“If you’re asking whether what I feel has faded? No. If you’re asking if it’s grown stronger? Yes. If you’re not asking any of that, we can walk with Mila to La Potinière, sit at a café table, have a coffee and a pastry, and pretend this conversation never happened. It’s up to you.”

I stand arrested between the shadows and the light of the leaves overhead, half-in, half-out, frightened of what taking this path would mean.

Walking to the café behind the flower clock, sitting at the outdoor tables beneath the umbrellas, laughing and joking and pretending this never happened—it’s tempting. So tempting.

I have to ask, “How do you know it isn’t only deep, abiding friendship? How do you know it’s love?”

Max tilts his chin and scans the sky. Above us cirrus clouds, feather and paintbrush-light, trail across the blue. His black hair is tugged by the breeze and he pushes it off his forehead.

“How do you know there’s wind?” he asks, looking back at me. “No one has ever seen the wind. You only feel it. You know it exists because you feel it. You see the effect of it on the world. You feel it. It’s real.”

At the flower clock Mila perches on the metal railing, leaning over the side to peer at the blossoms. I watch her for a moment, making sure she’s safe.

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