Page 2 of The Hundred Loves of Juliet
I thank her for the beer and settle in to people watch. I take a sip—it has a lovely hint of honey in the finish—at the same time the tallest of the crab fishermen takes off his coat and turns toward the bar, his silhouette framed by the light cast from the gold glow of the bulbs overhead.
Déjà vu whispers against the back of my neck like winter’s breath, prickling my skin and tingling down my spine. I freeze.
I know him.
“A round for everyone, on me,” Sebastien says, and The Frosty Otter erupts in another cheer.
Only I am quiet. Because I’m staring at his profile—one I’veknown for too long in my own head. When I was being bullied in middle school, I made up an imaginary best friend to help me through it. And then I kept him around and he grew up with me, even though I should have given up a juvenile idea like that forever ago.
He’s also been the star of every short story I’ve ever written.
Now he’s standing right here. In the flesh. It’s hard to tell how old he is, because he has one of those faces that’s impossible to pinpoint. But if the inconceivable is true—that this man is the same as the one I conjured in my mind—he’s about thirty, like me.
And his features are all so familiar. That mess of dark hair and those quiet blue eyes that seem to hold a locked icebox of secrets. That J-shaped knife scar along his jawline, which matches a vignette I wrote about a bar fight in Portugal. Those shoulders, proud yet heavy, as if the man to whom they belong has seen a little too much of the world, yet survived.
In my stories over the years, he’s shown me adventure and laughter, the sweetness of first love, and the devotion of true commitment. I know what he looks like with wind whipping through his hair as he dives off a cliff into the ocean. I know his skin tastes of salt afterward. I know the sound of his voice when he sings his soulmate softly to sleep, and the rhythm of his breath when she wakes before he does.
But I’ve never met him—never even knew his real name—until today.
Sebastien.
My palms sweat against the pleather seat, despite the cold. How is it possible that someone I made up is actuallyreal?
I watch as Sebastien goes over to the bar to help Betsy carry all the beers. He certainly doesn’t have to do that; after all, he’s the one paying. And yet, I’m not surprised. It fits with what I know of his personality.
What IthinkI know.
What I made up.
Still, I can’t stop following his every move. He walks across The Frosty Otter, handing out beers to everyone he passes. He doesn’tsay much but he smiles broadly, and as hands reach for the drinks he’s paid for, they also pat him on the back, press a hand to his arm in thanks, beam a smile back at him. Clearly, Sebastien is well loved here.
I want to know him, too.
The old version of me would slide lower into my seat, cowed by disbelief and anxiety into doing nothing at all. I wouldn’t consider talking to him, for fear of rejection. I’d stay here in the booth instead, where I already understand the lay of the land, preferring a known torment to an unpredictable risk.
But that’s Old Helene,I remind myself. New Me is determined to do things differently.
Get up. You can do this.
When Sebastien’s done distributing the beers on his tray, he returns to his table. The fishermen are in high spirits, clinking glasses with one another, but Sebastien retreats to a dim booth, like he’s glad to let his crew have all the glory.
Heart pounding, I rise slowly, weaving through the crowd that’s gathered to congratulate the crew on another great crab catch.
At first, Sebastien doesn’t see me approach, so I catch him spinning his beer glass absentmindedly on the table—clockwise twice, counterclockwise once, then the pattern repeats. I pause midstep, because that’s one of the little character details I’ve given him over the years in my stories. Doesn’t matter if the vignette is set in a mountaintop cabin or a tent in the middle of the Sahara—if there’s a table with a cup on it, he spins it exactly this way each time.
I don’t understand how any of this is happening.
But now that I’ve decided to approach him, I can’t stop. I’m a snowflake caught up in a current of wind, and there’s no stopping me on this careening path I’ve chosen. Plus there’s something else, too, something between him and me that draws me closer, that won’t let go.
It’s only when I’m right at his table’s edge that he glances up.
A flutter of a heartbeat wings between us.
Sebastien blinks. And then his mouth drops open and he staresat me like a sailor who’s been lost at sea but suddenly sees the North Star in front of him.
I’m no better. As soon as our eyes lock, I’m lost in his. Not because they’re perfect—there’s actually an angry white scar that runs across his left brow and eyelid and continues below—but because I can’t believe these eyes are here, right in front of me. Real.
“Hi,” I breathe.
