Page 35 of The Hundred Loves of Juliet
He presses a sticky note to the fridge. “This is the Wi-Fi password, and you can use the landline if you need to.” Sebastien points to an honest-to-god phone mounted on the wall, complete with curly cord.
“I didn’t know they even made those anymore,” I say.
“No cell service out here.”
“But you have one, right?” I don’t know why I’m asking this, other than I’m curious whether I’ve just stumbled on the last person in America who relies on a landline.
Sebastien tilts his head and looks at me like my question is nonsensical. “Why would I need a cellphone if there’s no signal out here?”
I give him the same you-make-no-sense look back. “But what about when you’re driving around and have an emergency or something?”
“Like crashing into a snowbank?” He says it with a smart-aleck curl of his lip.
A flare of loathing for him rises in my chest.
He glances away dismissively at me. “Ryba Harbor is a small enough town that there aren’t any emergencies I can’t solve myself. And there’s a radio on my boat, if anything happens at sea. No need for a cellphone.” Then Sebastien turns and starts walking out the door, as if a conversation simply ends when he decides it does.
“Wait, that’s it? You’re just going to leave me now?” I get up from the bed and limp across the room after him.
Sebastien turns around, brows furrowed as if confused what else I could possibly want. “You should have everything you need here. I’ll let you know when the roads clear. And don’t wander around the house. There are valuable works of art and other collectibles, and I don’t need you damaging any of them.”
I scoff. “So you’re confining me to this suite? What do you think this is,Beauty and the Beastand I’m forbidden to go into the west wing?”
“If referencing a Disney movie is what it takes for your childlike mind to understand, then yes.”
I slap him.
Sebastien gapes at me. He touches his face where I hit him.
Instinctively, I cower back a few steps, suddenly aware of how reckless I’ve acted. I’m stuck in a house in the middle of nowhere with a man I hardly know, and nobody knows that I’m here. My pulse races like a chipmunk who’s just noticed she’s in a fox’s den.
But Sebastien doesn’t raise a hand or even his voice. Instead,his broad fisherman’s chest seems to cave in, and his shoulders sag as if he’s Atlas, carrying the burdens of the world.
“I have to go,” Sebastien whispers as he flees.
And even though he’s the one who was rude, this iteration of the I-show-up, Sebastien-runs-away routine leaves me feeling guilty, along with a nagging sense that I ought to know why.
HELENE
I hardly slept last night,tossing and turning as I thought about that broken look on Sebastien’s face, about slapping him, about showing up unannounced at his door and him taking me in despite the tense unspokensomethingbetween us.
At six-thirty, I give up trying to fall back asleep. It’s still pitch black outside and will be for hours, so I switch on one of the reading sconces next to the bed and chew on my lip while I lie in bed and stare at the wood beams in the ceiling.
Without a doubt, Sebastien is rude and awful. He’s nothing like my imaginary soulmate, and maybe it’s time to let go of that daydream. With Merrick, I wanted so much to believe in the story I told myself—a perfect marriage—that I purposefully glossed over his actual actions. Part of me wonders if that’s what I’ve done here, wishing too hard that Real Sebastien is the same as Story Sebastien. It’s only now truly setting in that the man who owns this house is a nonfictional, honest-to-goodness person, complete with his own flaws and history. Maybe I shouldn’t have come out here. I’ve overstepped, let my imagination run away from me again.
And yet there’s an unrelenting niggling at the center of my chest that tells me this is different from what happened with Merrick. Here exists a man who looks exactly like the one I made up in my head, and that, at the very least, deserves some investigation, especially since I’m snowed in at the same house as him for a few days.
You know what? Old Helene would sit around and do nothing. But New Helene takes action. It’s time to get to the bottom of this.
Maybe if I lay it all out there, Sebastien will open up. Hell, maybe there’s something he knows that can help me stitch together my stories. It’s far-fetched, but so is inventing a boy when I was in middle school, having him star in all the vignettes I wrote, and then discovering that this boy is now a real, live man in the tiny fishing village where I chose to write said novel.
Who knows, there might be a logical explanation for this whole situation. Or maybe there isn’t but we’ll laugh it off and be able to stop being so cagey with each other.
Or Sebastien will genuinely think I’m insane, in which case I’ll promise to stay in this guest suite until the roads clear, and then I’ll leave him alone forever.
I roll out of bed and land a bit too hard on my bad ankle. After a few seconds of wincing, though, the pain passes, and I pull on my sweater and jeans from yesterday, since I don’t have a change of clothes. They’re a little dirty from my nighttime adventure in the snow, but whatever. Putting on my dad’s watch somehow salvages the outfit.
I pause for a second as I pass through the kitchenette. Sebastien had brought a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, which is my favorite cereal ever, and I’m tempted to have a bowl (or two) to strengthen my resolve before I reveal my preposterous secret to him.
