Page 143 of Damaged

“James,” she says. Her voice is weak. Broken. “I’m sorry about Quebec. I’m sorry I walked away. That I didn’t fight.”

“It wasn’t your job to fight.”

“You don’t have to sell your company.”

“Maybe I want the money.”

I hear her laugh, and I smile.

“I just got your package,” she says.

“Youjustgot it? But the post office had it this morning. I was hoping you’d get it before you boarded.”

“It went directly to the boat once it docked.”

“Shit.”

“It’s okay. They won’t let me off, but it’s thirty days. That’s not bad, right?”

“You’re two hundred feet from shore. I can hire a fast boat and pick you up.”

“What? You’re not in New York?” Sophia asks.

“I’m on shore, snowflake.”

Suddenly, the sounds of shuffling and movement come from the line.

“Sophia? Sophia?”

She doesn’t respond. I’m watching the boat when I see a figure appear on the upper port deck.

I’m standing on a jetty of rocks that sticks out into the sea. I’m a hundred yards from the pier that the boat left from. I raise my arm in the air. “You see me?”

“I see you,” Sophia says. “Listen, Claude Bernard is insane. I don’t think he’d stop the boat to let me off even if you reached me.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m hiring someone to shoot the fucking engines.” My heart is pounding. I’m walking farther up the jetty towards the boat. She’s right there. I canseeher.

“I wish, James. It’s okay. I won’t be long.” She almost laughs, but I can tell she’s crying. “Remember when you told me love was just a chemical?”

“Of course.”

“You’re so eating your words when I get my hands on you.”

“Sophia, there are things left out of that letter. Things I didn’t think would be fair to put in front of you when you already had a difficult decision to make.”

“Like what?”

“That I’ve dreamt of you nearly every night for the past three months. And those dreams, they’re not that strange kind where you don’t know where you are or what you’re doing. They had clear themes. Purposes. They’re dreams where I hold you. Rescue you. Love you. Ridiculous dreams of a man so totally in love, it’s almost boyish. I fell in love with you in the night.” I smile. “And when I would see you in the day, it was like seeing a celebrity. The star of my nights. A beauty… unbelievable…”

“I’ve dreamt of you, too.”

“Your eyes, your smile. They were even more gorgeous in reality than in the theater of my imagination…” I choke on my words. “I love you, Sophia. I love you more than mere chemicals could ever explain.”

There’s nothing but silence on the other line. The warm Caribbean wind flutters my suit coat.

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